AJC Misses The Point On "Ghost Gun" Story

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File

Some cases you read about are absolutely heartbreaking. A prime example of that is the accidental killing of a youngg girl in Atlanta. Her brother manufactured so-called ghost guns and then sold them. During a deal for one of those gone bad, the brother fired a shot that ultimately took his sister’s life.

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It’s absolutely awful.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has decided to run a story on these homemade weapons, because why would the media miss an opportunity to talk about such weapons?

It’s not as hard as one might think.

A quick internet search, credit card payment, and everything needed to make a firearm can be delivered to the front door. And it’s perfectly legal to make your own gun and has been for decades, according to federal law. No background checks or proof of age are required, so the “ghost guns” are appealing to those too young to buy a gun in a store or who are banned from having weapons, such as convicted felons. The weapons don’t have to be registered, and no license is needed.

Of course, there’s no gun registration for any firearm in the state of Georgia.

They leave that part out. Then again, they leave a lot out.

The story continues:

But when the so-called “ghost guns” end up in the wrong hands, they are deadly like any store-bought firearm. In one metro Atlanta community, investigators believe a 13-year-old boy was making guns to sell on the streets. When a potential buyer tried to rob him, the boy pulled out another gun and fired a shot, accidentally striking and killing his own 14-year-old sister, according to Douglas County Sheriff Tim Pounds.

The products to make firearms are available without background checks, Skaggs said. That makes them attractive to those who can’t legally buy them, such as convicted felons, he said.

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Yet in all the fearmongering of criminals and “ghost guns,” what the AJC managed to completely miss is that total breakdown in parenting that facilitated this kind of thing.

Look, I get that kids do things their parents don’t know about. I did and I suspect most of you did as well. Some were mild, others weren’t, but that’s normal. Kids are trying to establish their own identities separate from being so-and-so’s kid, so they’re going try to do things without Mom and Dad finding out. Many times, they’re successful.

But to get all the goods needed to build these kinds of firearms at home…

No, none of them require background checks, but most of them do require ordering something online and having it delivered to your home, which means you need some kind of banking information to use. Why were there no questions about the hundreds of dollars spent at a time? Why was there no digging into what these businesses were actually about? In fact, why no questions about the tool noises coming out of the boy’s room or the garage that never seemed to result in finished projects to show the family?

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There are so many questions that should have been raised here, and absolutely none of them were.

That bit is missing from the report. Instead, it’s another hack job designed to make you fear “ghost guns,” rather than acknowledge that irresponsible parenting was likely a much bigger factor in this horrible tragedy.

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