Ghost Gun Crackdowns Expose the Dirty Secret of Gun Control

Once again, in a story about guns and crime—in this case a story about why police worry that a ban on so-called “ghost guns” won’t prevent criminals from using them—the quiet part, that “dirty little secret” of gun control, is stated out loud, albeit in the third paragraph of a Washington Examiner report.

“Despite a growing wave of state crackdowns, law enforcement officials and experts say legislation banning ghost guns does little to actually stop criminals from using the untraceable firearms,” the Washington Examiner stated.

Underscoring this revelation (perhaps for the umpteenth time), the Justice Department in Boston announced May 1 the indictment by a federal grand jury of a man identified as Angel Negron, 47, for being a “felon in possession of a firearm and for possession of a machinegun.” Authorities allegedly found “Three privately made firearms (ghost guns), four machine gun conversion devices, a 3D printer, five magazines and 31 privately made firearm receivers…during a search on March 31.”

This is nothing new anywhere, and especially in Boston. Back in October 2023, the Boston Herald published an editorial about a piece of legislation aimed at banning so-called “assault style weapons.” Buried in this editorial were what, in the Second Amendment community, might be called “gems of wisdom,” or at least common sense.

“Criminals who carry unlicensed guns are highly unlikely to secure permission before entering another’s home with a firearm,” the editorial noted. “Training happens on the street, when members of that ‘core group’ discharge weapons during commission of a crime.”

The editorial referred to the opposition of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association to the legislation, HD 4607. At the time, the association’s executive director was matter-of-fact: the bill “simply won’t reduce crime,” the newspaper said.

And then the Herald added, “We need to get illegal guns off the streets to make our communities safe. Having law-abiding gun owners jump through more hoops doesn’t help the cause.”

So-called “ghost guns” make news all the time, perhaps because they have no serial numbers, and perhaps even more likely, coverage of these guns distracts public attention from other, more serious matters.

A while back, the National Rifle Association posted an interesting piece on its website headlined “Why Gun Control Doesn’t Work.”

“Criminals, by definition, do not obey the law. Gun control laws only affect law-abiding people who go through legal avenues to obtain firearms,” NRA explained.

The article also noted, “Background Checks Aren’t Effective.” That statement is underscored by a look at just a handful of notorious cases over the past few years.

• Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas mass shooter who killed 60 people and wounded dozens more on Oct. 1, 2017. Over the course of a few years, he had amassed a lot of firearms, all purchased legally, according to investigators.
• Elliot Rodger, the notorious “Isla Vista killer,” bought three handguns in California over the course of many months. He passed three California background checks and endured three waiting periods. He used only 10-round California-compliant pistol magazines. He killed three of his victims by stabbing and slashing them, so the state gun laws had absolutely no preventive impact on his crimes.
• Omar Mateen, the terrorist who shot up The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, legally purchased the rifle and pistol used in the shooting, even though he was described as a “person of interest” to the FBI as early as 2013 or 2014, according to Wikipedia.
• Nidal Hasan, the former Army major who opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. He passed a background check.

This sort of information can be repeated several times about several different people. Gun control laws didn’t stop any of them.

In the midst of this, PCMag has published an opinion revealing how the “government’s ghost gun battle is taking aim at something much bigger.” The article, by Michael Lydick, reveals how Washington state lawmakers “quietly crossed a line that may seem small on paper but feels significant to me…”

“With the passage and signing of House Bill 2320,” Lydick writes, “the state didn’t just target untraceable firearms. It reached upstream into the ecosystem that makes them possible, regulating digital firearm files, restricting their distribution, and explicitly pulling 3D printers and CNC machines into the legal framework.”

A few paragraphs later, Lydick makes a disturbing assertion: “From my vantage point, state governments don’t just want to ban ghost guns. They want to control your 3D printer. This should alarm advocates of both the First and Second Amendments.”

Many in the gun rights community have said for years this issue is not about guns, it’s about control. Whether the bogeyman is a criminal with a gun, or an unserialized firearm, gun control proponents—which some Second Amendment journalists have recognized as gun prohibitionists—will use whatever means at their disposal to achieve their ultimate goal.

Such efforts can be stopped. Look what just happened in Minnesota, when anti-gun Gov. Tim Walz’s gun control scheme went down, as the Daily Caller headlined, “in flames.”

All of this combined is a wake-up call; a reminder that the battle between gun rights and gun control is not a spectator sport. You’re all on the playing field, and if you lose, there’s no rematch.

About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.