Since tracking began in 2019, Boston has seen a 280% increase in the number of so-called “ghost guns” recovered during the course of criminal investigations, reflecting a national trend highlighted by President Biden last week.
“Since statistics have been tracked, the numbers have been going up. All firearms are a concern for the department, but these are all connected to criminal cases,” officer Andrew Watson, a Boston Police spokesperson, told the Herald.
In 2019, the city recovered 15 unserialized or homemade weapons, Watson said. The next year it was 23. Last year the number jumped to 58. So far in 2022, there have been 16 recovered, he said, meaning the department is on track for another year with dozens of such firearms confiscated.
This isn’t just a Boston or even a Massachusetts problem, according to Norwood Police Chief William Brooks.
“So-called ghost guns, or in law enforcement known as unserialized firearms or privately made firearms, have been growing in popularity,” Brooks said in an emailed statement.
Brooks, a board member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the former president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, was in Washington, D.C., last week when Biden announced his administration would crack down on the proliferation of unserialized firearms with new regulations.
“Last year alone, there were approximately 20,000 suspected ghost guns reported to ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations — a ten-fold increase from 2016,” the Biden administration said in a release.
Brooks said the problem isn’t legal gun owners — or even homemade firearms — but the ability for criminals to easily come into possession of them.
“Obviously, those bought and assembled by hobbyists or firearm enthusiasts are not the problem. The problem is that people who are not permitted by law to possess firearms can purchase unserialized parts online and assemble a firearm, or can make the parts that would have been serialized using a 3D printer,” Brooks said.
A spokesperson for the Massachusetts State Police said the department does not track so-called ghost guns but has been recovering more and more of them as they become more widely available.
In July 2019, State Police arrested a Springfield man with a gun they said was manufactured illegally. In February 2021, troopers in Boston found another after an illegal window tint stop. The next month, staties arrested a Randolph man with two — one was silenced. In April 2021, a man was arrested in Lawrence with another, State Police said.
In July 2021, a Lowell man was found with two such weapons and a third with an obliterated serial number, State Police said. In August 2021, staties stopped a Springfield man in Chicopee and four homemade guns — and the parts for a fifth — were found. This February, a Worcester man was found with two during a drug bust, police said.
Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League, said that the move to crack down on ghost guns is nothing more than the politics of panic.
“They get the public so upset about serial number — but those don’t mean anything. Mass. has been registering handguns for 100 years — how many crimes have been solved with that database of serial numbers? They have the public so scared of something that is meaningless actually,” Wallace said.
“The problem is when the gun is in the hands of a criminal, not that it’s a ‘ghost gun.’ They made up a term to get the public scared about something that’s not a problem,” he said.
______
