Supreme Court Upholds Biden Administration’s Limits on ‘Ghost Guns’

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld federal restrictions aimed at curtailing access to kits that can be easily assembled into homemade, nearly untraceable firearms.

In a 7-to-2 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, one of the court’s conservatives, the justices left in place requirements enacted during the Biden administration as part of a broader effort to combat gun violence by placing restrictions on so-called ghost guns.

The ruling in favor of gun regulations is a departure for the court, which has shown itself to be skeptical both of administrative agency power and of gun regulations. Two conservative justices — Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas — each filed dissents.

The Biden administration enacted rules in 2022 tightening access to the weapons kits, after law enforcement agencies reported that ghost guns were exploding in popularity and being used to commit serious crimes.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimated that use of the gun components and kits in crime increased tenfold in the six years before the rules were adopted.

Among the regulations: requiring vendors and gun makers to be licensed to sell the kits, mandating serial numbers on the components so the guns could be tracked and adding background checks for would-be buyers.

Gun rights groups sued, arguing that the government had overstepped its bounds in regulating the gun kits because they did not meet the definition of firearms under the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Opponents of gun regulations argued that most people who bought the kits were hobbyists, not criminals. In legal filings, the groups argued that a majority of firearms used in crimes were traditional weapons that were manufactured professionally.

Lawyers for the government, arguing in October while President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was still in office, said the guns kits should be regulated as “firearms” because they allowed “anyone with basic tools and access to internet video tutorials to assemble a functional firearm ‘quickly and easily’ — often, in a matter of minutes.”

During the oral argument, a majority of the justices appeared to favor keeping the rules in place, with at least two conservatives, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, raising sharp questions about arguments by the plaintiffs that the administration had overstepped its bounds.

The justices wrestled with how best to draw analogies to the gun kits. Chief Justice Roberts seemed skeptical of attempts by the gun rights lawyers to say that people who put together the kits were similar to amateur car hobbyists, saying that the kits seemed to require much less effort to put together.

“Drilling a hole or two,” Chief Justice Roberts said, “doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get as working on your car on the weekends.”

Other justices made comparisons to cooking. Justice Alito appeared to push back on the idea that the gun kits could count as firearms. He made an analogy to cooking an omelet in his questions to the government’s lawyer.

As in, when do the components of a gun actually become a firearm?

“If I show you — I put out on a counter some eggs, some chopped-up ham, some chopped-up pepper and onions, is that a Western omelet?” Justice Alito asked.