CARSON CITY, Nev. (Legal Newsline) - A Nevada statute banning the sale of unfinished gun parts that can be assembled into untraceable “ghost guns” is constitutional, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled, even as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a similar ban at the federal level.
Polymer80 sued to block Nevada’s “ghost gun” law, which bans the sale of “unfinished frames and receivers” that can be assembled into guns that lack federally required serial numbers. A trial court granted summary judgment and issued a permanent injunction against the law.
Nevada appealed and the Nevada Supreme Court vacated the injunction in an April 18 opinion written by Justice Lidia Stichlich.
“The terms used to define `unfinished frame or receiver’ have ordinary meanings that provide sufficient notice of what the statutes proscribe, such that it cannot be said that vagueness pervades their texts,” the judge wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a challenged to a similar federal regulation banning ghost guns, which a judge in Texas struck down last year. The Supreme Court reinstated the rule pending its decision.
The Federal Gun Control Act requires manufacturers to put a serial number on every weapon. Nevada legislators in 2021 passed A.B. 286 to address what they called a loophole allowing companies to sell gun components that can be easily transformed into handguns in a machine shop. A second statute prohibits the possession, sale or purchase of unfinished frames and receivers.
Polymer80 says it makes parts that allow customers “to participate in the build process.” It argued that the law doesn’t specify when raw materials become an unfinished frame. Judge John Schlegelmilch agreed, but the state Supreme Court rejected that reasoning.
It is commonly known that guns are heavily regulated and must have serial numbers, the court said. So anyone who makes or buys parts that are intended to be assembled into a gun knows that they may be breaking the law, the court went on. It is still up to prosecutors to prove a defendant was making a gun, but trial courts are well equipped to handle such cases, the court concluded.