PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A ghost gun was used by one of the suspects in Saturday’s mass shooting on South Street. Ghost guns are untraceable firearms that come in all shapes and sizes, and there are many of them on the streets of Philadelphia.
The city is on track to recover more ghost guns this year than last. As of Monday, at least 230 ghost guns have been seized in 2022 so far. In comparison, more than 500 were taken off the streets in all of 2021.
One of them was the 9 mm used by one of the gunmen on South Street. It had an extended magazine clip with 30 rounds. Two other shooters actually had licenses to carry. However, officials said Gregory Jackson, who died in the gunfire, should not have been given a permit based on a prior gun-related arrest.
Ghost guns come in all variations — handguns, long guns, AR-15-style rifles — and look like all the different guns on the market. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said they are “just as deadly as regular guns,” because they are fully functioning once assembled.
“What makes it a ghost gun is when they come in two parts and they can easily be snapped together, with usually three to five holes that need to be drilled in it, screws that go in, to make it functioning,” he explained.
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Ghost guns are usually bought in separate pieces, and they do not have serial numbers, making them hard to trace.
And at this time, background checks are not required when buying ghost gun parts. The loophole: Separate parts aren’t considered to be a single gun until they are all snapped together.
“Ghost guns have quickly become the weapon of choice for criminals in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, in particular,” Shapiro said. “We’ve seen a 489% increase in the number of ghost guns recovered over the last two years.”
Shapiro said many people buy the parts at gun shows or online, and occasionally make them from a 3D printer.
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“This was tragic,” he said of the South Street shooting. “This level of violence needs to stop. It’s unacceptable.”
However, starting Aug. 24, new federal regulations will take effect that mandate background checks before retailers can sell kits containing parts to manufacture a gun.
Shapiro — who is running on the Democratic ticket for Pennsylvania governor against Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano — tweeted after the South Street shooting, “We need to step up with more law enforcement and better laws.”
Mastriano, on his campaign website, says he would like to establish Pennsylvania as a “Second Amendment sanctuary” and a constitutional carry state.
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