On Monday the Biden administration along with the Justice Department announced they are changing and modernizing the definition of firearms. The Biden Administration is doing this to include the so-called ghost guns.
The president has been going after these ghost guns since the beginning of his administration because they are generally easily built by the purchaser or can be 3D printed at home and are easily accessible online.
The problem with this is according to the Biden Administration is that they do not have serial numbers and this makes it very difficult for law enforcement to track. These ghost guns also do not require background checks to purchase.
That changed this week on Monday the Frame Or Receiver Final Rule goes into effect in 120 days. The new rule is over 350 pages and in the rule, there are three major details.
- Serial numbers,
- background checks and
- record-keeping
The new Frame Or Receiver Rule updates the definition listed in the gun act of 1968 and the national firearm act of 1934 to make sure some modern split receivers firearms including parts pieces and kits used to build working firearms are required to have serial numbers.
That means firearm sellers including those who sell kits must also conduct background checks on purchasers just like all commercially purchased guns. This isn’t just for new kits the new rule also requires federally licensed dealers and gunsmiths who take these types of guns in as part of their inventory must serialize them before reselling them.
The final part is that federally licensed dealers are required to keep purchasing records until their business closes and when and if it does those records must be transferred to the ATF.
This new rule has been in the works for more than a year and the Department of Justice received more than 290,000 public comments on the new rule. That amount of public comment is the highest for any rule in ATF history.
The Justice Department said last year alone there were more than 19,000 privately made firearms recovered by law enforcement. Critics say this new rule is not legal and there will be a legal backlash in the coming days and weeks.
