The president is expected to announce a series of directives related to gun control later this week, as the U.S. confronts an increasing incidence of gun violence nationwide.
President Joe Biden is expected to include a federal directive mandating background checks for individuals purchasing “ghost guns” this week, alongside a wider series of executive orders addressing U.S. gun violence, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. Ghost guns are handmade firearms, which can be assembled without commercial serial numbers and sold to buyers who have not undergone background checks necessary for retail purchases. In the aftermath of two mass shootings that took place in Georgia and Atlanta last month, a group of Democratic state attorneys expressed concern about the lack of regulations effected to manage ghost gun sales in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. “This is not a theoretical problem: more and more, criminals are taking advantage of this loophole to obtain guns that are later used in crimes,” the letter stated, noting that these firearms are untraceable given the absence of serial identification.
