Why we had a reporter build a ghost gun

For months, we’ve seen the headlines in Sonoma County, in California and around the country: More ghost guns seized; police alarmed.

The term describes guns that were made from kits or even 3D printers that have no serial numbers and are therefore untraceable.

The consequences have been palpable. In Santa Rosa, police officials say the weapons are flooding neighborhoods and the problem is only getting worse. In Southern California, five law officers were shot with ghost guns, one fatally.

Politicians from President Joe Biden to California Attorney General Rob Bonta say something must be done about the threat.

The U.S. Justice Department estimates from 2016 to 2020, more than 23,000 “un-serialized firearms” were reported to have been recovered by authorities from potential crime scenes — including in connection with 325 homicides or attempted homicides.

At The Press Democrat, as this statewide and national trend blossomed into an important local story, our editors began discussing ways to explore the problem in ways that readers could relate to and easily understand.

But in order to solve or explain a problem, you have to understand it, and frankly, we didn’t understand much about ghost guns.

To get a better handle on the issue, we asked one of our veteran reporters, Austin Murphy, to do two things: Tell readers how serious the problem is and also see how easy it is to obtain a weapon that has no serial number.

His attempt to answer that question started when he placed an order online for the parts needed to build a working firearm.

The journey would take him through the maze of gun laws and loopholes and through the heartbreaking stories of lives tragically ended by ghost guns.

Our goal in telling this story is not to glamorize or sensationalize the issue, but to answer a very important question: “How easy is it to get your hands on a ghost gun?”

And what Austin’s research showed is that the question has a two-word answer: Incredibly easy.

Feel free to share your thoughts with me at rick.green@pressdemocrat.com.

Thanks for reading.

Richard A. Green

Executive Editor