‘Ghost gun’ legislation advances in both chambers
RICHMOND, Va. – Democratic state lawmakers again advanced legislation that would criminalize “ghost guns,” an effort they say could improve public safety. Both a House and Senate bill target and penalize the possession, manufacture and import of plastic, and unserialized firearms, including unfinished frames or receivers often referred to as ghost guns.
Del. Marcus Simon, D-Falls Church, chief patron of House Bill 40, said the unfinished weapons are designed to be a finished firearm with little work, although they are not "technically" firearms.
"It's the part you attach to all the other parts to,” Simon said. “They can be manufactured by companies 80% of the way, and then they send it to you to finish.”
A person can relatively easily build a functioning firearm with the receiver and parts, according to Simon.
“You file down a couple of tabs and you can then assemble a firearm,” Simon said. “It’s got no serial number, no background check, none of the traditional safeguards that we put in place.”
The bill does not limit owners, but encourages those who already own weapons to get them serialized and registered, Simon said.
“They can go through a background check to make sure they're allowed to have it, and then they can have a serial number attached to it," Simon said.
Simon’s bill focuses on registration of ghost guns, instead of efforts to take them away, he said.
A person who violates the bill would face a Class 1 misdemeanor for first offenses, which is confinement in jail up to 12 months and a fine of up to $2,500, either or both. After that they would face a Class 4 felony, which could mean a term of imprisonment for at least two years to 10 years and a fine of not more than $100,000, according to state law.
Former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin previously vetoed Simon’s bill, along with one from Sen. Adam Ebbins, D-Alexandria, who sponsored the similar Senate Bill 323 this year. The two lawmakers have made similar regulatory efforts over the past few years, but now a Democratic governor could change the final outcome.
Simon hopes the penalties will deter ghost guns and gun violence.
“The fact that it's illegal, I think hopefully, we'll keep people from marketing these items and making them available for sale in Virginia, so hopefully we don't need to prosecute it,” Simon said.
The number of ghost guns in Virginia is unclear, but Simon sees a trend in the nationwide crime statistics. Thirty percent of the guns recovered by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives in California were unserialized, according to Everytown Research, an organization that researches gun violence.
Simon said the ATF enforcement could be aided by the new law.
“ATF regulations can be enforced by ATF agents,” Simon said. “All those folks seem to be busy doing other things right now. This will allow state police and local police to enforce these laws.”
Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, member of the House Public Safety committee, sponsored a bill that would ban assault-type weapons. The House passed his bill, and the Senate likely will also since it has the past two sessions. Helmer’s bill was vetoed two years in a row by the former Republican governor.
“The people most affected by this bill are communities who can be protected from gun violence perpetrated by those who have firearms that we can't trace,” Helmer said about HB 40.
Philip Van Cleave is president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, an organization which works to ensure the Second Amendment rights of Virginians and opposes firearm restrictions.
Van Cleave said the regulation and serialization of ghost guns is unconstitutional, and does not meet the “history and tradition of the U.S.”
“There was no history of serialization of firearms when the country was founded ... that started in 1968," Van Cleave said.
The bill affects and limits responsible gun owners who would have to pay a fee for permits when buying firearms, according to Van Cleave.
Van Cleave said it has been a session of unconstitutional and mean-spirited bills, when asked how his organization feels about the slate of gun-related bills moving through the statehouse.
“Most of these bills are aimed at people like me who don't commit crime, who are model citizens,” Van Cleave said. “We're the ones that are going to pay the fee for that, by having to get a permit to purchase a gun, you can't buy this gun, you can't sell that gun -- they’re trying to restrict where I can carry outside of Virginia, where I can carry inside of Virginia.”
Simon’s bill passed the House on Feb. 5 on a 63-34 party-line vote, and was sent to the Senate Courts of Justice committee for further deliberation. Ebbin’s bill also cleared the Senate on a party line vote, but passed the House with a substitute that was rejected by the Senate. House lawmakers have requested a conference committee.
Capital News Service is a program of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Richard T. Robertson School of Communication. Students in the program provide state government coverage for a variety of media outlets in Virginia.
