SCOTUS Ruling on Ghost Guns protects enforcement for now, sets up future legal battle
“I was happy to hear it and I was cautiously optimistic. And I’m still cautiously optimistic, but it’s a step in the right direction,” said Delaware Speaker of the House Valerie Longhurst, who helped push for a Ghost Gun Ban in 2021 in the first state.
She says since passing, the number of ghost guns used to commit crimes has dropped, and law enforcement has used the laws to build substantial cases for those who used the homemade weapons, without serial numbers, to commit crimes.
“When I talked to the attorney general’s office, she has several cases that they’ve been able to convict people of these ghost guns, and I think it really set a tone in the state of Delaware that these ghost guns are not acceptable in the state of Delaware,” Longhurst said.
But the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling isn’t the end, as the case progresses through the lower courts, it could be settled before the Supreme Court as soon as next spring.
DSU Constitutional Law Professor Dr. Samuel Hoff says, when the court struck down a New York gun law, it ruled public safety can’t be the only consideration when limiting the 2nd amendment key rational proponents of the legislation have argued in lower court decisions.
He predicts that if placed before the court as a full case, conservatives Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts would not side with the liberal justices as they did during this week’s decision.
“Sooner or later, it looks like it’s going to go back to the Supreme Court for a ruling that would integrate these guns into a greater right, and I would remind folks of the 2016 Supreme Court decision that said weapons that even weren’t conceived by the founders are included under the Second Amendment right,” Dr. Hoff said.
Dr. Hoff tells us both Delaware and Maryland also have similar cases making their way through the lower courts, and that while their laws seem safe for now the Supreme Court has far- from a pro-gun-control record.
“The court has seemed to open up a can of worms by their ruling in the New York Rifle and Pistol Vs Bruen last June,” Hoff said.
Speaker Longhurts tells 47ABC, a reversal of the law would send a dangerous message to criminals.
“You see all these different attachments that you can buy and put these guns together and create in 3D machines to make these guns, I mean, people get very creative on these and we have no regulation and nothing that would stop that from happening,” she said.
Hoff says in a 3rd Option, the court could rule to side-step the 2nd amendment question, and require any laws governing ghost bills to require licenses, in effect making them no longer ghost guns, and impose a tax.
He tells us similar arguments were made during the rollout of Obama Care, arguing that states had a defined right to tax items classified as commerce.
“Let’s say that Maryland, on top of the regulation, already has to register the ghost guns all of a sudden puts a 50% tax on them, and then, of course, other people protest because of that tax, the court might uphold it based on the tax rationale that the Chief Justice used the same rationale that he used in the Sebelius[Obama Care] ruling,” Hoff said.
