NEW YORK — President Joe Biden is expected to announce a nationwide crackdown on so-called “ghost guns” during his Thursday visit to New York City, where the untraceable weapons have proliferated in the past two years, according to administration officials.
The homemade weapons, which typically aren’t subject to background checks and lack traceable serial numbers, have contributed to a spike in gun violence during the pandemic, especially in large cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
While in the city for a meeting with Mayor Eric Adams and other officials on Thursday afternoon, Biden will lay out a new initiative aimed at prioritizing federal investigations and prosecutions of people who use the weapons to commit crimes, a senior administration official said.
As part of the initiative, the Justice Department “will train a national cadre of prosecutors on enforcement issues that are specific to the use of ghost guns and crimes,” according to the official.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will also deploy ghost gun coordinators to every agency field office in the country as part of the effort.
The specialized prosecutors and ATF coordinators will work with state and local governments to confiscate illegal ghost guns and bring cases against those who use them.
“These specialists will serve as a resource in every district across the country,” the Biden administration official said.
Biden will make the announcement during a meeting about gun violence prevention at the NYPD’s downtown Manhattan headquarters. He will by joined by Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and other federal and local officials.
The new program is likely to receive praise from Adams, who cited the sketchy weapons as a significant challenge while unveiling his administration’s anti-gun violence plan last month.
According to NYPD statistics, police confiscated a local record of 135 ghost guns in the city between last January and October.
On a national level, 8,712 ghost guns were confiscated by law enforcement in 2020, a 400% increase as compared to 2016, according to ATF data.
Acting ATF Director Marvin Richardson said in a Wednesday interview on CBS News that ghost guns carry much blame for a recent surge in violent crime across the U.S. and noted how easily the weapons can be purchased and assembled.
“You can buy a box of firearms parts, and you can assemble those firearms together. And I’ve seen videos on YouTube, where you can see people doing it in record time — 20, 30 minutes,” Richardson said.
In addition to announcing the anti-ghost gun push, Biden is expected to renew calls for Congress to allocate more federal resources for local police departments. He will also call on Congress to pass long-stalled gun control bills, including ones that would mandate universal background checks for firearm purchases on a federal level, according to an administration official.
Biden’s visit to New York comes on the heels of a string of horrific shootings in the city, including the slaying of two NYPD officers in Harlem last month.
A Biden administration official said the president picked New York for the announcement because of the city’s recent uptick in gun violence.
“The president is going to New York City because it is a community where they continue, like many other cities across the country, to experience a spike in gun violence as a result of the pandemic,” the official said.
———
