The Supreme Court will begin its next term hearing arguments in a case that challenges an effort by the Biden Administration to regulate so-called “ghost guns.”

The Nine are slated on October 8 to hear the case of Garland v. VanDerStok, in which they will review a rule issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. That would regulate the homemade guns, made from an assembly of separate parts without serial numbers. 

The challenge is a response to the Fifth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals upholding a ruling by a federal district judge at Fort Worth, Texas that the ATF had exceeded their authority by mandating that weapons parts kits and partially completed gun frames should be classified as firearms.

The high court is stepping in at the request of the Biden Administration after a federal district judge, Reed O’Connor, ruled on the side of firearm kit manufacturers and retailers who claimed that applying the ATF ruling goes against federal gun laws. This intervention by the Supreme Court underscores the gravity of the issue and the potential impact of their decision.

In the ongoing debate in this country on gun regulations, the legality of ghost guns has been called into question. Opponents and advocacy groups in favor of regulation, like Everytown for Gun Safety and Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund, have spoken out in favor of an outright ban due to the fact that the weapons are practically untraceable.

“The facts here are simple: ghost guns are unserialized, untraceable firearms that can be easily put together in minutes from parts acquired without a background check,” the Senior Vice President for Law and Policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, Nick Suplina, said in a statement released in April.

“They undermine all of our gun safety laws, they pose unique risks to public safety, and they are becoming the weapon of choice for criminals nationwide. The Supreme Court should reverse the Fifth Circuit’s decision and allow the Department of Justice to protect innocent people from further harm caused by these deadly weapons.” 

Another concern comes as 3D printers provide the ability to cheaply produce parts like receiver blanks for AR-15 rifles and provide violent extremist groups to build their arsenals. One example is from a March 2023 report from Vice which cites law-enforcement documents showing that Mexican Drug Cartels were using 3D printers to make powerful weapons like grenade launchers.

The former Senior Advisor for Research and Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice and longtime gun rights advocate, John R. Lott Jr., dispels claims that that a ban on ghost guns would reduce violent crime.

“The Garland [led] Justice Department has been asking time after time for a review by the Supreme Court on these gun cases and so far, they’ve had a really low batting average,” Mr. Lott said to the New York Sun. “They want to claim that essentially having serial numbers on guns is important for solving crimes, and that’s simply silly.”

“What they really want this for is just to help with their national gun registration system that they’ve set up.”

Mr. Lott adds that criminals almost never use registered guns.

“In theory, if a gun is left at a crime scene and it’s registered to the criminal who committed the crime, then you could trace the gun back to the criminal and solve the crime,” he said. “The problem is that [they] are virtually never left at the crime scene. And the few times that they are left at the crime scene, it’s because the criminal’s either been killed or seriously wounded, so you’ve caught them anyway.  And the few times that they are left at the crime scene, they’re not registered.”

 It is not clear which side the Court is expected to take in this case. However, the potential implications of their decision are significant. Earlier this summer, the Nine invalidated the ATF’s ban on Bump Stocks, which enable semi-automatic rifles to mimic a fully automatic weapon. 

They also circumvented Second Amendment Rights issues in recent months after declining to hear arguments in a challenge against an assault weapons ban in Illinois. The law was passed after an Independence Day Parade in the suburbs of Chicago was the scene of a mass shooting where seven people were killed.

The Court also kicked several other gun cases back to lower courts, including one Pennsylvania case involving Bryan Range, who was convicted of misstating his income while applying for food stamps for his family and issued a lifetime gun ban. An appeals court had ruled that the ban was a violation of his Second Amendment rights.

Later this fall, we may see the Supreme Court make a decision on AR-15s and other assault rifles and whether the right to keep and bear such arms should be protected under the Constitution. This decision could have a significant impact on gun regulations in the country.

In August, Fourth federal appeals circuit upheld a ruling on an AR-15 ban in Maryland in which two-thirds of the Court’s entire bench of judges agreed with the verdict, saying that the assault rifle was “too destructive” and “ill-suited” to be treated as handguns for self-defense.