A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The legal fight over ghost guns is heating up again. In March, the Supreme Court upheld restrictions on build-it-yourself gun kits from the Biden administration. Gun rights groups are hoping those restrictions will be swept away anyway. And as NPR's Martin Kaste reports, they're looking to the Trump administration and the courts.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: The kits are called ghost guns because when they first came out, manufacturers sold them as if they were just parts - no serial number and untraceable - and you could assemble that gun without getting the usual background check. Bill Brooks chairs the Firearms Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
BILL BROOKS: The people who make them, oftentimes, and put them on the street are putting them in the hands of people who are prohibited, putting them in the hands of convicted felons, as evidenced by the fact that so many now are showing up at crime scenes.
KASTE: That's why the chiefs welcomed the Biden administration's rule in 2022, which required background checks and serial numbers for certain gun kits, and the subsequent Supreme Court decision in March.
BROOKS: It was good news that the court upheld the ATF regulation.
KASTE: But that didn't end the matter. The ATF has told NPR that it's now reviewing the rule, along with other Biden-era gun regulations, under an order from President Trump. Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation says he expects the ATF will change the rule, making gun rights challenges to it, quote, "moot."
ALAN GOTTLIEB: We've urged the administration to act as quickly as possible. However, there's a lot on their plate, and I don't know how quickly it will happen. But we'd like it as soon as possible.
KASTE: But others in the gun rights movement are not willing to wait for the administration. Cody Wilson is known for pioneering 3D printed guns. Now his company, Defense Distributed, sells the G80. It's a product he's careful not to call a gun.
CODY WILSON: You know, we're amping up production of this thing. What is this thing? You know, it's at least a kit with fixtures and unfinished components that you can ultimately build into a 9-millimeter pistol, let's say.
KASTE: He suspects that the Trump administration actually sympathizes with law enforcement and is quietly planning to maintain some version of the ghost gun rule. So in June, he filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to suspend it. The case is in the 5th Circuit, which has been hostile to gun kit restrictions in the past.
WILSON: I actually want there to be some law before this administration is over, that the Second Amendment includes the right to build arms and not just keep them.
DAVID PUCINO: There are folks out there who want there to be no gun laws at all, and they see this as being the avenue to do it.
KASTE: David Pucino with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence agrees that the status of ghost guns is still in play, in part because of legal moves like this one.
PUCINO: They are trying to leverage all of these interventions and legal challenges. And the idea is that if they can sell a gun in parts without it counting as a gun, there are no gun laws that apply at all. That's the end goal here.
KASTE: Both sides are now watching to see just how hard the Trump Justice Department will fight to defend a ghost gun regulation that's already been upheld by the Supreme Court.
Martin Kaste, NPR News.
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