WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Guy Boyd was hanging out with friends he had known for years in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the night an accidental gunshot tore into his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The high schoolers were too young to buy guns legally, but federal and state laws<\/u><\/a> didn\u2019t apply to the gun parts kit his best friend bought online and assembled himself to fashion a so-called ghost gun<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somehow, the gun went off and a shot struck Boyd in the eye. He felt a searing pain in his head and his vision went red. \u201cI remember hearing, \u2018I love you, bro.\u2019 And I said it back, but I didn\u2019t know who said it,\u201d Boyd said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He spent nearly a week in the hospital after that night in May 2021. Bullet and bone fragments remain embedded in his brain, causing seizures that make his dream of going to culinary school in New York seem hopelessly out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was in good health before, playing football, didn\u2019t have any medical problems,\u201d said Boyd, now 20. \u201cAnd now it\u2019s one thing after another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Biden administration rule<\/u><\/a> passed the following year now blocks teenagers and people who can\u2019t pass a background check from buying the kits. But manufacturers and gun-rights groups pushed back in court, and on Tuesday the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the regulation will stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe court\u2019s conservative majority may come in somewhat skeptical of ATF\u2019s reach here, both as a federal agency and as a matter of gun rights,\u201d said Timothy Lytton, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The number of ghost guns around the country has soared in recent years, going from fewer than 4,000 in 2018 to nearly 20,000 recovered at crime scenes in 2021, according to Justice Department data. Since the regulation went into effect, several cities report the number of privately made firearms recovered at crime scenes has flattened or declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ghost guns are privately made firearms without serial numbers. The 2022 regulation was focused on those sold online in kits with everything needed to build a functioning firearm \u2014 sometimes in less than 30 minutes, according to court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The kits, long popular with hobbyists, were considered gun parts rather than firearms under federal law, so buying one didn\u2019t require the kind of background checks and age verification that licensed gun stores run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That also made the products popular, authorities say, with people who couldn\u2019t legally buy a gun, including those who were under 21 or couldn\u2019t pass a background check. Without a serial number, ghost guns found at crime scenes are also nearly impossible to trace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The kits can still be sold, but after new regulations and a series of local lawsuits against manufacturers, police have seen the number of recovered ghost guns decline in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, according to court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen them drop pretty significantly off the radar, I think, because of that regulation,\u201d said Adam Garber, executive director of the gun violence prevention group CeaseFirePA, based in Philadelphia, where a mass shooting carried out<\/u><\/a> with an AR-15-style ghost gun left five people dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Baltimore, a city long plagued by gun violence, ghost gun recoveries have dropped last year for the first time since 2019, according to court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe biggest problem is, people who aren\u2019t able to purchase a gun, whether prohibited adults or under 21, were able to purchase these guns through the mail and the internet,\u201d said police Commissioner Richard Worley. \u201dBottom line, we want less violence. We just have to limit that as best we can by the process of getting illegal guns off the street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But industry and gun rights groups say the ATF overreached by targeting a product that had long been legal. More than two dozen Republican-leaning states backed those arguments in documents filed before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo matter how wise ATF\u2019s final rule or how \u2018weighty\u2019 petitioners\u2019 policy concerns may be, the final rule exceeds ATF\u2019s statutory authority. And that should be the end of the matter,\u201d the states said in the brief authored by the West Virginia Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many ways people can get guns, and the best way to address violence is enforcing the laws already on the books, said Lawrence Keane, the senior vice president and general counsel at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry group. \u201cNobody wants to see any product used to harm another person, whether it\u2019s a firearm, a bat or a car. But those are criminal justice issues. Congress would need to take action,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote<\/u><\/a>, previously intervened to keep the regulation in effect during the legal fight. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court\u2019s three liberals to form a majority, but four conservative justices would have kept the regulation on hold while the case played out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The justices expanded gun rights in 2022 with a landmark opinion that found the nation\u2019s historical traditions, rather than modern public safety concerns, determine which gun laws can stay on the books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ghost gun case, though, isn\u2019t directly about the Second Amendment. Instead, it deals with the powers of federal agencies. That\u2019s an area where conservative justices have often been deeply skeptical, overturning a 40-year-old decision<\/u><\/a> that made it easier for federal agencies of all stripes to regulate everything from the environment to consumer protections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n