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The White House and media have recently claimed the following:

Law enforcement officers across the country increasingly find there is no way to trace certain guns they recover from crime scenes. [emphasis mine]

The article also references this recent announcement by the Department of Justice, which has a chart showing that the number of "ghost guns" in the US is increasing but doesn't give the actual source of their data.

  • Is there any data to back up this claim?
  • To what extent is this trend "increasing?"
JRE
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JacobIRR
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  • I migrated this from politics stack exchange because one of those people said it belonged here..... were they mistaken? – JacobIRR Apr 16 '22 at 19:31
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    Note that a gun which has been stolen is likewise effectively untraceable. Thus this smells deceptive. – Loren Pechtel Apr 16 '22 at 22:52
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    @LorenPechtel An untraceable firearm means any and all serial numbers or identifiable marker's marks are removed. A gun being stolen doesn't make it untraceable. – Legion600 Apr 16 '22 at 23:02
  • @Legion600 Trace what? It leads back to the person it was stolen from, not to the person who actually has the gun. – Loren Pechtel Apr 16 '22 at 23:08
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    @LorenPechtel Being able to trace where a gun originated from can help the police find how it got into the hands of a person who committed a crime with said gun. – Legion600 Apr 16 '22 at 23:21
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    @LorenPechtel : It's more clear in the DOJ announcement, but the article and announcement are mostly referring to [privately made firearms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_made_firearm) and not guns that were stolen. – Giter Apr 17 '22 at 00:27
  • I guess that by "ghost guns" they mean the (partially) [3D printed ones](https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/04/16/what-are-3d-printed-ghost-guns-and-are-they-a-threat-in-europe-too). – Fizz Apr 17 '22 at 05:55
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    Ghost guns include, but are not limited to, partially 3D printed firearms. – JacobIRR Apr 17 '22 at 19:03
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    The website of [Everytown for Gun Safety](https://everytownresearch.org/report/ghost-guns-recoveries-and-shootings/) carries reports of gun shootings and gun recoveries. Of their list of 25 items about gun recovery, 16 make a comparison of increased numbers of ghost weapons. It is anecdotal evidence though, not a formal statistic so I deleted the answer I originally posted. – Weather Vane Apr 18 '22 at 18:41
  • FWIW, the quoted report discusses an increased number of "suspected PMFs recovered by law enforcement", with PMFs being "privately manufactured firearms" with a note of that number including "692 homicide or attempted homicide investigations" involving some of those guns. That's a little over 65 "ghost guns" per investigation, which suggests to me that the figures might be more about seizures of guns that have no been involved in crimes. – Sean Duggan Apr 18 '22 at 19:36
  • Or, possibly, it might simply be crimes that were not a homicide attempt that the rest came up on. I'm skeptical of the legislation simply because the two many thrusts are requiring serial numbers of "buy-build-shoot" kits, which were already required to have serial numbers on the receiver (which is the part that makes it shoot) and to increase the records requirements from 20 years to the life of the business (which feels more like an attempt to suppress via bureaucracy, like the abortion clinic laws requiring them to act like surgery units). – Sean Duggan Apr 18 '22 at 19:48
  • @Fizz, "ghost guns" are mostly made through conventional machining techniques. – Mark Apr 19 '22 at 01:57
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    Oh how I love those frame challenges... "is the number of 'ghost guns' in the US increasing?" -- That would boil down to "are there more 'ghost guns' in the US *produced* than being *destroyed*". Or are you asking about them being found by police? Involved in a crime? Held by private citizens? ;-) – DevSolar Apr 19 '22 at 09:28
  • Maybe they are untraceable because of the current tracing system, as described here: https://www.nbcchicago.com/violence-in-chicago/how-crime-guns-are-traced-in-the-us-one-page-at-a-time/2615068/ . – til_b May 03 '22 at 08:07

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