Tens of thousands of 'ghost guns' legally ordered in pieces online and then assembled at home are flooding the United States

• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms connected ghost guns to 692 shootings in 2021.
• Ghost guns are made from individual parts sold online, making them both legal and untraceable.

Shooters used ghost guns — untraceable, homemade firearms — in 692 shootings in 2021, raising concern among authorities that the weapons are too easy to access.

Ghost guns are weapons built from individual components that are legal to sell on their own and lack any kind of traceable serial number. While it is also not illegal to build one of these guns, it is illegal to transfer them to others.

Anyone can easily go online and purchase a ghost gun kit. The kits are legal because the US government does not recognize them as guns until they are fully assembled, NPR reported last year.

As a result, ghost guns are particularly accessible to teens. There have been more than 50 incidents of gun violence committed by teens with ghost guns since 2019, according to the Post.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms identified 25,758 ghost guns in 2022. The year before, the federal agency identified 19,344. That's a 33% increase, the Washington Post reported. The ATF has identified more than 10,000 ghost guns in the first six months of 2023 alone.

While the Biden administration and the ATF enacted a new rule to classify these kits as firearms last year, the companies selling them are challenging the change in court. While these companies have lost in two different courts, they won in a northern Texas court last month, when the judge vacated the new rule.

The case will likely go to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Post reported, and from there could end up at the Supreme Court if the Justice Department loses and appeals the decision.