{"id":3370,"date":"2022-03-31T18:26:10","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T18:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/opinion-theyre-invisible-theyre-well-made-theyre-ghost-guns-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2022-03-31T18:26:10","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T18:26:10","slug":"opinion-theyre-invisible-theyre-well-made-theyre-ghost-guns-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/31\/opinion-theyre-invisible-theyre-well-made-theyre-ghost-guns-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | \u2018They\u2019re Invisible. They\u2019re Well Made.\u2019 They\u2019re Ghost Guns. – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gail Collins
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By <\/span>Gail Collins<\/a><\/span>
Opinion Columnist
Mark this on your April calendar: Joe Biden does something about ghost guns<\/a>.
OK, just sort of. But let\u2019s be thankful for a start.
First, a little ghost gun background. The only truly good news is that they have nothing to do with evil spirits of long-deceased revolvers floating around your house in the middle of the night.
The bad news is that they\u2019re very easy to obtain and pretty darned popular \u2014 perhaps because they often have no serial numbers. They\u2019re regulated in only 10 states<\/a>.
Those of us who worry about gun proliferation used to obsess about \u201cthe iron pipeline<\/a>,\u201d a.k.a. I-95, along which weapons were ferried from Southern states where they were easy to purchase to Northern destinations where they could be sold for a very tidy profit.
Now shipping through the iron pipeline is sort of like keeping in touch with all your friends and family by writing lovely letters on your personal stationery and taking them to the post office to buy stamps and put them in the mail. So \u2026 20th century. Today if you want an off-the-records gun, you go online, of course. You order a ghost, which arrives at your home in pieces, ready to be assembled. You can even order a 3-D printer to make one from scratch.
\u201cThis is as big a threat as anything I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d said John Feinblatt, the head of Everytown for Gun Safety. \u201cThey\u2019re a dream come true for a prohibited person \u2014 a felon. Or an armed extremist. They\u2019re invisible. They\u2019re well made.\u201d
The New York Police Department, which reported seizing 47 ghost guns in 2019 and 375 last year, said that as of early this week, it had already confiscated 106 in 2022. True, it\u2019s still only a small chunk of the total number of weapons the police collected, many of which had probably been hanging around the house\/gang\/car trunk for ages. But think about the ghost guns that\u2019ll be piling up in the years to come.
Meanwhile, shootings keep coming. Two weekends ago<\/a>, 29 people were hit in New York City, one of them mortally wounded during an argument in the Bronx. And New York\u2019s hardly alone. Los Angeles and San Francisco are in similar nightmares. Miami Beach officials declared a state of emergency after two shootings over a spring break weekend. \u201cWe can\u2019t endure this anymore, we just simply can\u2019t,\u201d said Mayor Dan Gelber.
He was talking about the invasion of the party-hearty crowd. But you could apply the same sentiment to gun proliferation.
It\u2019s a tough time for gun safety in general. The Supreme Court decided to take a look<\/a> at New York regulations that set a pretty high bar on the right to, say, carry a revolver in your pocket when you go out for a walk. Nobody knows what\u2019s going to happen. \u201cThe Supreme Court keeps me up at night. For all kinds of reasons,\u201d Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told me.
Lawmakers from Connecticut tend to be very concerned about this kind of issue, an obsession that goes back to 2012, when a 20-year-old stole his mother\u2019s gun and then killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School<\/a> in Newtown, 20 of them children.
The Newtown shooting shocked the world, and many of us \u2014 simpletons that we were \u2014 presumed it would be the start of a whole new American attitude toward guns.
Certainly didn\u2019t imagine that this month we\u2019d be watching activists, many of them survivors of the Parkland high school shooting in 2018, place 1,100 body bags on the National Mall<\/a>. Each bag stood for about 150 lives lost to guns since Parkland \u2014 including homicides, accidental gun deaths and suicides. Organizers said there was no way to include one for each victim since that would have meant 170,000 body bags.
And how\u2019s Biden, who clearly sees himself as a champion of gun safety regulation, doing? \u201cIt depends on what your expectations were,\u201d Blumenthal said, carefully. While many anti-gun activists say they\u2019ve been disappointed, Blumenthal still has a lot of hope. \u201cHe\u2019s more passionate and determined than any president in my memory,\u201d the senator said.
Definitely more than the guy who came before. Like most New Yorkers, Donald Trump sympathized with gun control for most of his life. Then he began making political speeches and told people he was stunned \u2014 stunned! \u2014 by how enthusiastic Republican crowds got if you gave a shout-out for the right to bear arms. Instant switcheroo.
Biden\u2019s been consistent, if not always successful. His first attempt to name a director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives imploded when the Second Amendment lobby managed to torpedo the nomination of gun control activist David Chipman<\/a> last year. \u201cEither this was impossible to win or the strategy failed,\u201d Chipman said afterward \u2014 an analysis that could be used for many, many administration encounters with the United States Senate.
But Biden, who\u2019s still without a permanent A.T.F. director, did direct the Department of Justice to help stop ghost gun proliferation<\/a>. That was a year ago. The department complied rather quickly, opening the new rules for comment last May.<\/a> Public comment closed in August and then \u2026.
Well, here we are. Waiting for word.
Biden also requested a ton of money for the A.T.F. <\/a>in his budget \u2014 presuming the budget gets passed and there\u2019s a new director who\u2019ll know how to spend it.
So how\u2019s the president doing? Feel free to vote:
A. Ghost guns! Hey, he\u2019s got a start.
B. Ghost guns! Good grief, is that all he\u2019s done?
C. Well, as long as he delivers before the Easter Egg Roll.
The Times is committed to publishing <\/em>a diversity of letters<\/em><\/a> to the editor. We\u2019d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some <\/em>tips<\/em><\/a>. And here\u2019s our email: <\/em>letters@nytimes.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on <\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Twitter (@NYTopinion)<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>Instagram<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>
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AdvertisementSupported byGail CollinsSend any friend a storyAs a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.By Gail CollinsOpinion ColumnistMark this on your April calendar: Joe Biden does something about ghost guns.OK, just sort of. But let\u2019s be thankful for a start.First, a little ghost gun background. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}