Redwood City – San Mateo County supervisors on Tuesday agreed to join a coalition of cities and counties in support of a nationwide legal effort to curtail often untraceable ghost guns.
In a unanimous vote, supervisors authorized filing a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court reject a challenge to the Biden administration’s regulation of kits that can be assembled into homemade firearms. These are dubbed ghost guns because they lack serial numbers and are used by criminals to evade background checks.
Regulations are “urgently needed to stop the dangerous proliferation of ghost guns and to protect public safety,” according to a report presented to supervisors.
“If someone can’t pass a background check to legally own a firearm, they should not own a firearm,” said Warren Slocum, president of the Board of Supervisors.
Supervisors authorized joining a legal case that began in 2022, when the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) broadened the bureau’s definition of a firearm to include major component parts. That meant manufacturers and dealers of ghost gun parts would have to be federally licensed; the precursor parts would have to be marked with serial numbers; and, purchasers would have to pass a background check before buying ghost-gun parts.
Opponents won two lower court rulings that said the ATF exceeded its authority. The federal government appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case during its 2024-2025 term.
Local officials say ghost guns pose a threat to public safety. Since 2019, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office found ghost guns in the hands of individuals convicted of domestic violence and other serious crimes, according to a presentation at Tuesday’s meeting.
District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe has told media outlets that up to 40 percent of guns seized by police now are ghost guns. The weapons – which in some cases can be made by 3D printers – are turning up at anonymous gun buybacks hosted by the Sheriff’s office. A buyback in May 2024 netted four ghost guns.
The case is Garland v. VanderStok.
Michelle Durand
Chief Communications Officer
mdurand@smcgov.org