Editorial: Ghost guns decision makes sense

On Monday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro officially stated his legal opinion that most of a gun is a gun.

That means that felons and others barred from buying or possessing guns in Pennsylvania can’t buy something called an 80% receiver — a kind of building block for a weapon that fell just outside of what needed serial numbers and background checks.

“These are DIY firearms that lurk beneath the shadows,” Shapiro said.

The lurking is over, and it wasn’t the very political- savvy AG’s idea. It was a move he said came at the request of law enforcement. More than 100 of the “ghost guns” were recovered in Philadelphia in 2019 alone, but they floated in a limbo of uncertainty — legal but situationally not allowed.

It makes sense that if you are not allowed to have a gun, you should probably not have most of a gun that can be converted into a fully-functioning weapon. It makes even more sense that once you take the steps to turn what is not a gun into a gun, you have crossed a legal line that requires permissions and disclosure.

If you built a car from randomly, legally acquired parts in your garage, it wouldn’t have a vehicle identification number, but to drive it, you would be required to register it and get a license plate. If your driver’s license was suspended, the fact that you bought a muffler and an engine and a frame separately and assembled them on your own would not give you the right to drive your automotive science project on a public road.

Shapiro’s decision is comparable. It is also precisely the kind of move that should be applauded. It is a move to get guns out of the hands of those who have been prohibited from having them already.

This decision does not take one gun away from a lawful owner and doesn’t prevent a legal enthusiast from amateur gunsmithing.

It does what many gun rights advocates encourage when more restrictions are proposed, like those passed in Pittsburgh this year and now being litigated. It enforces what has already been decided.