Maryland Lawmakers Aim To Ban Untraceable Ghost Guns
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Lawmakers testified in front of a Judicial Proceedings Committee about a bill that would ban ghost guns in Maryland on Wednesday.
"If we do not intelligently deal with the issue of ghost guns, we will render 25 years of gun control legislation effectively meaningless," Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy said.
Ghost guns are untraceable guns without serial numbers. They're made at home with parts purchased online without background checks.
"Children can buy them," McCarthy said. "Children can build them and children can use them."
McCarthy said his office just convicted an 18-year-old high school student last week for having a ghost on the property of an elementary school last year.
In Baltimore, police said they're seizing more and more of them and that they're being used to commit violent crime.
"In 2018, we only seized 12 ghost guns," Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said. "In 2021, we seized 345. That's a 2,775 percent increase." .
This bill would ban ghost guns beginning June 1, 2022, and would require anyone who has one to have it properly serialized by Jan. 1, 2023.
"This is common-sense legislation that's really going to make us all safer and it will protect the rights of gun enthusiasts to get these guns as long as they go through the same kind of background checks they would get if they went to a registered gun dealer and bought a gun," McCarthy said.
McCarthy said he's confident the bill will be voted out of committee after Wednesday's testimony, so it can be voted on by the senate.
WJZ will keep following the progress of this bill.
