'Ghost guns' emerge as pressing concern in US

Straight-A student Angellyh Yambo was walking home from her high school in the Bronx, New York, when she was randomly and fatally struck by a bullet.

The 16-year-old innocent bystander was the latest victim of a so-called "ghost gun", a weapon made from various parts often obtained over the internet or via a 3D printer. The guns do not have serial numbers, which make it practically impossible for police to identify their origin or ownership.

The black Polymer 80 9 mm handgun used in the April 8 shooting of Yambo and two other teens was recovered by police after the suspect, Jeremiah Ryan, 17, allegedly threw it from his apartment, police said, according to the New York Post. Ryan was charged with murder and attempted murder in the shootings.

On Monday, US President Joe Biden highlighted a new Justice Department rule that will make it illegal for a business to manufacture firearms without serial numbers.

"These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals," Biden said during an event in the White House Rose Garden. "We're going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice."

In 2021, there were about 20,000 suspected ghost guns reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) as having been recovered by authorities in criminal investigations — a tenfold increase from 2016, according to White House statistics.

For nearly a year, the ghost-gun rule has been making its way through the federal regulation process.

Gun-safety groups and Democrats in Congress have been pushing for months for the Justice Department to complete the measure.

"A year ago this week standing here with many of you, I instructed the attorney general to write a regulation that would rein in the proliferation of ghost guns because I was having trouble getting anything passed in the Congress," Biden said.

As is the case with any gun-control measures in the US, it has strong proponents and vociferous opponents.

"Ghost guns look like a gun, they shoot like a gun, and they kill like a gun, but up until now, they haven't been regulated like a gun," said John Feinblatt, Everytown for Gun Safety president.

"An administration that's truly sincere and resolute about curbing violent crime rates would do one thing: take violent criminals off the streets immediately," the National Rifle Association's managing director of public affairs Andrew Arulanandam told Fox News Digital on Monday.

"Yet, the Biden administration allows these criminals who kill and maim with callous and reckless abandon, again and again, to roam the streets of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and other cities large and small across our country without fear of prosecution and punishment."

Illinois is poised to become the first state in the Midwest to ban ghost guns after a measure passed the state Senate and House last week with no Republican voting in favor. The Illinois measure requires all firearms, including 3D-printed guns, to have serial numbers. Eleven other US states already have banned ghost guns.

The new federal rule changes the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts. It says those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers.

Manufacturers also must run background checks before a sale — as they do with other commercially made firearms. The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made and includes ghost guns made from individual parts, kits or by 3D printers.

Police in Philadelphia have seen a nearly 500 percent increase in the number of ghost guns recovered in the past two years, said Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who attended the event Monday at the White House.

A Philadelphia police officer was shot last week by a ghost gun-wielding 18-year-old, who police said had also shot three others.

"This loophole has caused our nation countless lives," Shapiro said. "Today is a critically important step to close that loophole."

He said there are two challenges: "One, criminals can easily buy them without going through a background check. And two, they are unserialized and untraceable."

Authorities announced the arrest Monday of a Philadelphia man accused of using a 3D printer to manufacture, assemble and sell ghost guns in the city.

"This is, I think, the first type of case that we've seen with a 3D printer assembling these firearms," said Bill Fritze, supervisor of the city District Attorney Office's gun violence task force, reported The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The key in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part usually made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an "80 percent receiver" — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it.

The Justice Department rule also bans unserialized "buy build shoot" kits that individuals can buy online or at a store without a background check. They can be assembled into a working firearm in as little as 30 minutes.

In the Bronx shootings, Ryan was arguing with about four others when one person in the group made a motion as if he was going for a weapon — prompting the teen to pull his gun and start shooting, a witness told the New York Post.

Of Angellyh Yambo, her cousin Alonda Cruz told the Post: "She's like a daughter. I took care of her since she was 6 months old. She was a good little girl. A little princess."

The New York Police Department said officers have found 131 firearms without serial numbers since January.

"Children are no longer safe walking to or from school, playing in the park, taking the bus or the subway or walking in the streets with their parents," wrote Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Rights NY, in an opinion published in the Post on Saturday. "Ghosts are not to blame; the criminals that commit these acts are."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story.