In America they are called “ghost guns”. They are one of the most difficult and insidious problems to solve within what Joe Biden has called the new epidemic to fight: the sale of guns and rifles in a country armed to the teeth, where the dead due to shootings in the last year were 43,000. 117 per day.
Anyone can build a “ghost gun”: you just need to know how to move on the internet to buy a kit complete with instructions for use. The price varies, from a few tens to hundreds of dollars. The components of the gun are almost always made of plastic, they can also be 3D printed and the assembled weapons are impossible to trace because they do not have the serial number. And they almost always work perfectly.
To find the first traces of phantom weapons we have to go back to 2013 when 25-year-old Texan Cody Wilson invented “Liberator” a prototype of a 3D printed plastic pistol, and put the project online. Free. In 48 hours that file was downloaded more than 100,000 times, mostly in America but also in Europe, before being removed at the disposal of the State Department. But on the internet everything remains, and nothing is really erased permanently. So last year the file returned to the DefCad downloadable project library: a download, for US citizens, costs $ 50. But there are dozens of networks and platforms dedicated to firearms enthusiasts, from Deterrence Dispensed to Matrix and Rocketcat: real forums where you can exchange opinions, advice, links and information. In recent months, practical tips and even tutorials on how to build a homemade weapon would also appear on Twitter and TikTok.
How many “ghost guns” are in circulation in the United States? Impossible to tell. “The actual number of these types of weapons is not estimable,” said the head of the body for the control and prevention of armed violence, the Giffords Law Center. And today the production and distribution of do-it-yourself guns (but there are also rifles, the last one is called “Fgc-9”, or “Fuck gun control 9 mm”) is practically not prosecuted in any state. American. Theoretically, the law exists, and it is from 2018, but it was adopted by the only New Jersey where Attorney General Gurbir Grewal was immediately attacked by the arms lobbies and brought before the Supreme Court on charges of violating the rights to basis of the first amendment of the American Constitution (the one that guarantees personal freedoms) and of the second one (which concerns the right to self-defense)
What can Joe Biden actually do against “ghost guns”? The president announced a series of ordinances also assuming the objective of including this category in the Gun Control Act, the 1968 law that prevents the possession of firearms to those who have a criminal record or are subject to restrictive ordinances, people who use drugs or illegal immigrants. But it won’t be easy.