Boudin, Bonta ask courts for injunction to block sale of 'ghost gun' kits

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- State Attorney General Rob Bonta joined San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin Monday in asking a judge for a preliminary injunction, halting the sale of illegal ghost gun kits by three retailers.

Those retailers are MDX Corporation, GS Performance, LLC and Blackhawk Manufacturing.

"When firearms that do not meet California safety standards are built at home by individuals who have not passed a background check and have not had their guns properly serialized, it leaves law enforcement in the dark and hurts public safety," said Attorney General Rob Bonta in a news release.

"Companies who flout the law and endanger the public by putting untraceable weapons into dangerous hands must be held accountable," he continued.

Boudin said the injunction was another step in the legal fight against the companies. He and Bonta filed a pending lawsuit in October 2021 against the ghost gun kit manufacturer and retailers.

"Ghost guns pose a grave and urgent threat to public safety; the companies we are prosecuting make untraceable firearms readily available to children and people prohibited from owning weapons," Boudin said in the news release. "I promised last week to take aggressive action to advance this case, and on Friday we made good on that promise by filing this motion for a preliminary injunction."

Ghost gun kits, which commonly contain unfinished frames and receivers, can be unlawfully used to assemble a fully functional weapon in less than 30 minutes.      

The rise of ghost guns also impacts the work of the California Department of Justice. For example, DOJ reported a nearly 44% increase in ghost guns seized as part of the agency's efforts to remove guns from prohibited persons in the Armed and Prohibited Persons Database.