Supreme Court upholds federal regulations on ghost gun kits

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld government regulation of self-assemble firearm kits that produce untraceable weapons known as "ghost guns."

The 7-2 decision came from Justice Neil Gorsuch. Justices Thomas Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

"The Gun Control Act embraces, and thus permits ATF to regulate, some weapon parts kits and unfinished frames or receivers, including those we have discussed," Gorsuch wrote.

In 2022, the Biden administration cracked down on the self-assemble kits with a new rule subjecting them to the same checks as traditional firearms -- including background checks, age verification, serialization and more.

Challengers of the rule, which included gun manufacturers and individual gun owners, contended the 1968 Gun Control Act didn't apply to weapon parts kits and that the administrative action was an overreach.

Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, made a textual case for why gun parts kits can be subject to federal regulations in the same way as any other gun.

"The [Gun Control Act] authorizes ATF to regulate "any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive," Gorsuch wrote.

"A person without any specialized knowledge can convert a starter gun into a working firearm using everyday tools in less than an hour. And measured against that yardstick, the 'Buy Build Shoot' kit can be 'readily converted' into a firearm too, for it requires no more time, effort, expertise, or specialized tools to complete. If the one meets the statutory test, so must the other," he concluded.

The Supreme Court upheld government regulation of self-assemble firearm kits that produce untraceable weapons known as ghost guns.

Justices Thomas and Alito dissented.

"The statutory terms 'frame' and 'receiver' do not cover the unfinished frames and receivers contained in weapon-parts kits, and weapon-parts kits themselves do not meet the statutory definition of 'firearm,'" Thomas wrote. "That should end the case. The majority instead blesses the Government's overreach based on a series of errors regarding both the standard of review and the interpretation of the statute."

Wednesday's ruling from the high court is significant for gun control advocates as the number of firearms recovered from crime scenes without a serial number rose sharply in recent years: nearly 17-fold between 2017 and 2023, according to the Justice Department, with 19,000 untraceable weapons recovered in 2021 alone.

"This Supreme Court decision is great news for everyone but the criminals who have adopted untraceable ghost guns as their weapons of choice," John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement. "Ghost guns look like regular guns, shoot like regular guns, and kill like regular guns -- so it's only logical that the Supreme Court just affirmed they can also be regulated like regular guns."

The court's opinion acknowledges that the exponential proliferation of ghost guns has posed an urgent problem for law enforcement nationwide.

"Efforts to trace the ownership of these weapons, the government represents, have proven almost entirely futile," Gorsuch wrote.

ABC News' Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.