A gun control group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords wants to shut down two websites that sell parts and machines to help make homemade firearms they claim are untraceable and call them “ghost guns.”.
According to Associated Press, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence asked the providers that host GhostGunner.net and GhostGuns.com to disable the websites for violating the hosting companies’ terms of service.
The sites sell kits, components and machines that help create homemade semi-automatic weapons. It’s legal to build a gun in a home or a workshop, and advances in 3-D printing and milling have made it easier to do so. The kits can be purchased legally for a few hundred dollars, Giddords claims without the kind of background check required for traditional gun purchases.
Attorneys for the gun control advocacy group said that the hosting companies, Shopify and DreamHost, should invoke their ability to disable and terminate the websites. The group argues that the two sites sell “the sort of products that have already caused scores of senseless deaths — and are likely to cause many more, unless taken off the market.”
The gunman who killed his wife and four others in a rampage in Northern California recently had been barred from having guns but built two semi-automatic rifles at home that he used in the shooting, authorities said.
Cody Wilson, who runs GhostGunner.net, was quoted by Associated Press as saying that the products he sells on his website are legal and in compliance with federal regulations. He has said although there is no legal requirement that he conduct background checks, he tries to take precautions to make sure the weapons aren’t used nefariously.
“This is an attempt to apply pressure to deplatform a legal, American business selling legal products to law-abiding customers,” he said.
According to Ammoland.com, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco, which is an antigun group, is calling on the California legislature to regulate the sale of any gun part that can be used to build a firearm.
The regulating of anything that can be used to build a rifle is very vague. The ultra-liberal governor of California, Jerry Brown, vetoed a similar bill on these grounds. Gov. Brown said that AB1673 had “far-reaching and unintended consequences.” He also vetoed a bill supported by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence that would require every gun part to have a serial number and would require background checks for ammunition purchases.
