“Ghost gun” gets used loosely in coverage, but it has a specific meaning worth being precise about before getting into the actual regulatory landscape.

What “ghost gun” actually refers to

A ghost gun is a firearm assembled from parts — commonly an unfinished frame or receiver, sometimes called an “80% receiver” — that wasn’t manufactured with a serial number and wasn’t sold through a licensed dealer with the usual background-check paperwork. It isn’t a separate category of weapon; it’s a firearm missing the identification and sale-tracking steps that apply to a factory-built one.

The federal rule change and what it requires

In 2022, the ATF finalized a rule updating the regulatory definition of a “firearm” to include certain unfinished frames and receivers once they’re readily convertible to a functional firearm, requiring manufacturers and sellers of those kits to add serial numbers and run background checks the same way they would for a complete gun. The rule faced years of legal challenges, including a trip to the Supreme Court — see below for how that was resolved.

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Where state law goes further than federal law

A number of states have passed their own ghost gun statutes independent of the federal rule — some requiring individuals, not just manufacturers or sellers, who build their own firearm at home to obtain a serial number from the state, and some banning unserialized homemade firearms outright regardless of federal rule status. This varies meaningfully by state, and state law can be more restrictive than federal law even where the federal rule is being litigated.

Where the litigation landed

The scope of the federal rule — specifically which unfinished parts count as “readily convertible” — was a recurring point of legal dispute for years, working through lower courts with inconsistent results before reaching the Supreme Court as Bondi v. VanDerStok. The Court upheld the ATF’s rule in a 7-2 decision, meaning the requirement to serialize and background-check readily-convertible unfinished frames and receivers is now settled federal law, not an open question. That doesn’t freeze the rule’s exact edges in place forever — the “readily convertible” line for specific new products can still generate disputes — but the core rule itself is no longer in doubt the way it was for the several years it spent in litigation.