Opponents Pack Hearing on Proposed Homemade Gun Ban

Dozens of gun-rights advocates testified in Annapolis on Monday on a bill that would ban 3-D printed and other homemade guns that lack serial numbers, what are sometimes referred to as “ghost guns” because they are harder to trace. House Majority Leader Kathleen Dumais, the bill’s sponsor, told the House Judiciary Committee that the bill is targeted at guns made via 3-D printing or from kits ordered online. “I became interested in this when a young man went to Clarksburg High School in my district the day after the Parkland shooting with a homemade gun,” Dumais said, referring to the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida last year. Though no one was injured by that student at Clarksburg High School, she said, homemade guns have also been used in crimes elsewhere. “Kevin Neal in California murdered five people with an unserialized rifle that he constructed in Northern California in 2017,” she said. “He was a felon and prohibited from owning firearms.” California is one of two states that have laws similar to the one Dumais has proposed. In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a ban on ghost guns in November. In addition to being untraceable, 3-D printed guns are often made entirely of plastic, meaning they can evade metal detectors, said Monisha Smith, the regional director for government affairs at the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. “Now types of disguised guns which are all built to look like wallets, lighters or cell phones can be easily concealed, which is dangerous for all communities,” she said over the jeers of gun rights advocates. But dozens of opponents told lawmakers that homemade guns are rarely used in crimes and that 3-D printed guns don’t pose much risk. They’re expensive, they said, and those plastic parts break

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