The US Supreme Court issued an order on Tuesday allowing the Biden administration’s regulations on “ghost guns” to continue.
In a narrow 5-4 vote, the court permitted President Joe Biden’s regulations banning the manufacturing of unserialised “buy build shoot” kits, otherwise known as ghost guns, to continue.
The court did not provide any reasoning or detail to its miscellaneous order other than clarifying that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the liberal justices in the decision.
The order will allow the regulation to remain in place as challenges to it continue in court.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh voted against the regulation remainining in place.
Mr Biden’s regulation, enacted last year, re-defines the meaning of a “firearm” to include ghost guns, which can be easily sold and bought online or in a store without a background check.
After the rule, manufacturers of “ghost guns” must obtain a license, conduct background checks and sell their products with serial numbers.
It is part of an effort to reduce gun violence by making untraceable firearms less accessible to the public.
As of 2021, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) reported approximately 20,000 suspected ghost guns had been recovered by law enforcement officials in criminal investigations.
Gun advocates, including gun rights groups and firearm part manufacturers, challenged the regulation in court.
A case, brought forward by Tactical Machining LLC but joined by Polymer80, Defense Distributed and Blackhawk Manufacturing Group disputed that the regulations contradicted wording in the 1968 Gun Control Act that defined a firearm.
The Supreme Court’s order was a response to a challenge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas where a judge struck down the ruling.
Judge Reed O’Connor argued that a “weapons part kit is not a firearm” and even if it is interpreted as such it is ultimately up to Congress to decide.
In the Biden administration’s emergency application, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar appealed to the Supreme Court to keep the regulations in effect due to “the urgent public safety and law enforcement crisis posed by the exponential rise of untraceable firearms.”
She wrote: “Every speaker of English would recognize that a tax on sales of “bookshelves” applies to IKEA when it sells boxes of parts and the tools and instructions for assembling them into bookshelves.”
“The court’s insistence on treating guns differently contradicts ordinary usage and makes a mockery of Congress’s careful regulatory scheme.”
