Senate Majority Leader Wants Ghost Guns Banned, as Pasadena Police Confiscate More

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) on Sunday called on the federal government to deal with the threat of ghost guns.

Ghost guns are untraceable because they lack serial numbers and can be pieced together in kits. The guns have been showing up more frequently across the country, including Pasadena. 

“The guns can be purchased without background checks outside of the demands required of legally purchased firearms,” Schumer tweeted Sunday. “These ghost guns are bought and sold in pieces or kits and come without background checks or serial numbers.

“The DOJ can close this dangerous loophole in our gun laws now,” Schumer said, according to MSN.com.

Local municipalities are taking action to keep these types of weapons off the streets.

In February,  Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer announced the filing of a lawsuit against Nevada-based Polymer80 for allegedly violating federal and California law by selling ghost gun kits online.

Last year, Pasadena police recovered 288 guns, mostly during traffic stops. About 10 percent of those weapons were ghost guns. 

“The local and national historical increase in violent crime is producing tragic outcomes,” Pasadena Police Chief John Perez told Pasadena Now on Monday. 

“The ease of purchasing ghost guns, allowing people, otherwise unable to legally buy guns, to possess and resell, is rapidly deepening the violence. Ghost guns circumvent all regulations on gun laws,” Perez said.

President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress have called for reform of the nation’s gun laws following the mass shooting in Georgia that left eight people dead, six of them women of Asian descent.

However, reform is unlikely due to the slim margin the Democrats hold in the Senate.

Schumer said some actions can be taken without congressional approval. According to him, the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can amend the definition of “firearm frame or receiver” so that it applies to any part of a firearm that provides housing for the trigger group, including any part that is designed, intended, or marketed to be used in an assembled, operable firearm; or can be converted for use in an assembled, operable firearm. 

Schumer also called on the groups to provide all available data on ghost guns, including the frequency that federal authorities are encountering the weapons, according to MSN.com.