Opinion: Ghost gun ban pushed by San Diego County supervisors needed to address a growing scourge

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Ghost guns — hand-built weapons assembled from kits sold on the internet and at stores — are a public-safety scourge because they have no serial numbers and are very difficult to track. In April, one person was killed and four were injured in an unprovoked attack in the Gaslamp Quarter in which the accused shooter — a convicted felon who couldn’t legally buy a regular gun — allegedly used a ghost gun. That case and the sharp jump in ghost guns seized by local law enforcement agencies prompted Councilmember Marni von Wilpert to introduce, and the City Council to pass a law, last month intended to keep ghost guns out of San Diego.

Now county supervisors are taking similar steps. On Wednesday, board Chair Nathan Fletcher and Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer announced their plan to prohibit the possession or distribution of the unserialized parts used to build ghost guns and to update legal definitions to clarify what constitutes such a weapon. The proposal includes a ban on the 3D printing of unserialized firearms or the parts used to make them. It also requires that all legal firearms be safely secured by their owners.

Fletcher depicted the proposal as common sense. Lawson-Remer said it is crucial to stopping preventable tragedies. They’re both right. With homicides up by 31 percent in California in 2020, the last thing the state needs is easy access to ghost guns.