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When is a gun not a gun?

A "ghost gun" is basically a kit: you get a box full of parts, make some tiny modifications, and then put it together. Today the Supreme Court pondered whether ghost guns could be regulated like regular guns—i.e., require serial numbers, background checks, etc.

Early in the argument, while Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was making the government’s case, Justice Samuel Alito asked her a series of hypotheticals about incomplete objects. Is a pen and a blank pad of paper a “grocery list?” Does a bunch of uncooked eggs, ham, and peppers constitute an “omelet?” Alito’s point appeared to be that, just like untouched ingredients don’t constitute an “omelet,” an incomplete firearm is not a gun.

Huh. I sure wish Alito could bring the same analytical power to bear on the question of whether an embryo is a baby. After all, the difference between a fertilized egg and a baby is far greater than the difference between a ghost gun and a gun. But I don't imagine he'll ever admit that, will he?

27 thoughts on “When is a gun not a gun?

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      Making an omelet requires some ingredients, some skill, a stove and an omelet pan. To make a ghost gun requires parts and a screwdriver. Buying a ghost gun has the same effect on society as buying an assembled gun. Then again this is a court that ruled firing a rapid fire gun with a bump stock was totally different than buying a conventional raid firing gun.

  1. Martin Stett

    "Is a pen and a blank pad of paper a “grocery list?” Does a bunch of uncooked eggs, ham, and peppers constitute an “omelet?” Alito’s point appeared to be that, just like untouched ingredients don’t constitute an “omelet,” an incomplete firearm is not a gun."

    So when a stranger appears on Alito's front walk with an unloaded pistol in one hand and a full magazine in the other. . . . he WON'T call the cops?

    1. coynedj

      A crucial distinction to me is that the pen and paper, and the eggs, ham, and peppers, have other uses. The ghost gun parts have no alternative use.

      1. cld

        Exactly. The gun parts can come together to do exactly one thing, the one thing they were intended for, while a pen and paper can come together to make almost any sophistry.

        1. Batchman

          That's the missing piece in the judge's argument. If there is some regulation or law on the books (anywhere) that governs omelets, then the question can be applied to the collection of ingredients. Otherwise it's just an idle philosophical musing and can't be used to conclude anything about the ghost guns case.

  2. realrobmac

    If a "ghost" gun is not a gun then it should be afforded no protection at all under the Second Amendment, right?

    1. Batchman

      FWIW, news items reporting on the case state specifically that the Second Amendment is not involved, presumably because the laws in question have not been struck down or declared unConstitutional (yet).

  3. ColBatGuano

    Do eggs, ham, and peppers that have been combined, placed in a pan and cooked to 90% of done constitute an “omelet? Yes they do, Alito, you disingenuous f@**

  4. D_Ohrk_E1

    Prelogar is a super star. She can frustrate Alito and Gorsuch like no one else can. She might not change their minds, but she exposes their bad faith arguments for everyone to hear.

  5. J. Frank Parnell

    I have a chemist friend who was seduced by the dark side and ended up in club fed for making drugs. What they really got him for was buying all the precursors to make drugs. When he pointed out to his lawyer there was no solid proof he was making drugs, his lawyer told him it didn’t make any difference to the feds, and that he should cut a deal.

    1. MikeTheMathGuy

      I was on a grand jury once, and we heard a meth lab case. A state trooper came in as a witness and basically taught us how to cook meth. It turns out that in our state, the crime of "Unlawful manufacture of methamphetamine" consists of possessing a certain number of precursors, a certain number of items of equipment, and a certain number of reagents or solvents, so we needed to hear how the process worked. It apparently doesn't matter if they actually used it or not.

    2. MarkHathaway1

      It doesn't make any difference until it does.

      "When they flip the switch...you're done." -- character in a movie

  6. Bobby

    Besides the comparison to abortion, the other issue with that argument is that once the pen and paper make a grocery list there is a grocery list. Once those parts come together to make a gun, there is a gun. That gun should be regulated just like a homemade car should be regulated.

    Also, the pen and paper could also make a poem, a novel, a picture, an essay, a love letter, an airplane, a piece of origami. There are tons of things they can make.

    Those ghost gun parts can only be used to make a gun, and only with the intent to obviate state and federal law.

  7. akapneogy

    As they say in legal circles " If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. And if neither is on your side, pound the grocery list."

  8. larkin

    It seems that the obvious difference is that if omelets and grocery lists were very dangerous things, we would indeed be asking whether eggs and peppers should be regulated, just like we regulate the raw materials of illegal drugs and fertilizer that can make bombs.

  9. Anandakos

    Ghost guns are the firearms equivalent of Cryptocurrencies: they have NO legal usage. They exist only to skirt, avoid, defy, flaunt, and otherwise break the law.

    If one of their Canon of Supermen fell to one, maybe Republicans would see the fundamental unity between them and "pre-assembled kits".

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