"Ghost guns" on the rise in Colorado, Denver lawmaker to introduce bill cracking down on them

Colorado district attorneys are seeing a spike in teen violence and in many cases, the perpetrators are using homemade firearms called ghost guns.

"Almost every single week to every two weeks, I'm seeing or hearing about another case of someone in possession of a ghost gun," says 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner.

The guns come in kits you can buy online or, if you have a 3D printer, make at home. They look like and work like a firearm you would buy at a store. 

The only difference is that homemade firearms have no serial numbers so there is no way to trace them if they are used in a crime, which is why they're called "ghost guns."

"When a gun is used in a crime we're going to trace the serial number back to the seller," says Kellner. "It could lead us to the person who used the gun in a crime, a straw purchaser who bought the gun on behalf of a criminal, it could use to gun trafficker organization." 

While it's a crime to file off the serial number on a gun, it's not a crime to own a gun that never had a serial number to begin with. Kellner says that the loophole needs to be closed. 

Most of the people who are in possession of the guns, he says, are people who aren't allowed to have guns in the first place, "We're talking about convicted felons, people subject to a domestic violence restraining order, we're talking about 15 and 16-year-old kids." 

He says kids are taking the guns to school with alarming frequency, "Because they can get them online, with no background check, and they can have these parts shipped to their homes and they can easily assemble these firearms." 

17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason says he too is seeing a growing number of ghost guns in the hands of kids and criminals.

"Kids shooting kids has become an absolutely indescribable problem and it keeps me up at nights literally. It's very vexing because people can get them so easily,"  he said.

Too easily says state Sen. Chris Hansen, "We want to see if we can put an end to the huge number of weapons coming into our state."

Hansen, who is running for Denver mayor and has championed previous gun control measures, plans to introduce a bill requiring ghost guns to have serial numbers.

"It's not going to solve the problem overnight but, I think, if it's not illegal, if we have no way to have a penalty, we're never going to see a change. So, this is a really important bill," he said. 

Kellner agrees, "We need to get a handle on this market online where people are able to buy these guns and circumvent all our checks and balances all of our systems and are putting guns in the hands of dangerous people."  

He says people can also buy 3D-printed switches that convert a semi-automatic gun to an automatic gun.

Hansen says his bill will include a grace period for people who own ghost guns now to get serial numbers added to them, but any new guns sold would have to include them.