You see, back in the day, I don't recall any law that dealt with serial numbers on guns or anything of the sort.

That's likely to be relevant here and now because the most high-profile arrest in recent weeks is the guy who tried to lay in wait to take a shot at Donald Trump. It seems his rifle didn't have a serial number anymore.

The investigation and case against alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Wesley Routh is ongoing. While information is still coming to light, we now know several important details. The FBI is treating the case as an assassination attempt. Routh apparently scouted the area and was there for 12 hours prior to being arrested. During this time, he had in his possession an AR-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks, and a GoPro.

For now, Routh has been charged with several federal gun crimes, including being a felon in possession and possessing a gun with a wiped-out serial number in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(k). This last detail is interesting, as there have been recent legal developments in federal courts regarding serial numbers on guns. 

...

Since Bruen, federal judges must only uphold gun regulations that infringe on Second Amendment rights that are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

This novel framework set off a flurry of challenges to gun control laws, sometimes leading to contradictory rulings across federal jurisdictions.

Gun control laws prohibiting possessing a gun with a removed or altered serial number was one such challenge. In U.S. v. Price (2022) a federal district judge in West Virginia held that any law prohibiting the possession of a firearm with a removed, altered, or obliterated serial number violated the Second Amendment. This is because, according to Judge Joseph Goodwin, prohibiting firearms without serial number infringed on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and was not a mere commercial regulation, as the U.S. argued. Moving on to historical analysis, the second step in Bruen, Judge Goodwin found that there was no requirement to have serial numbers on guns when the Second Amendment was ratified in the 18th century. Instead, this only appeared in the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Now, the article notes that an en banc panel reversed the ruling, but this is likely to become an issue going forward since Routh's gun had an obliterated serial number.

For me, there are two different concerns here. One is the overall charge itself. Should people be required to keep the serial numbers on their guns or should they be free to remove them if they so desire? One could argue that charging someone for doing so to someone else's gun should be a charge--it's not their property, after all--but what about my own?

I don't have a great answer for that because I like serial numbers from a theft standpoint. They may help me get my guns back whereas no serial number means I'll never see it again.

But I don't like the fact that they provide a way to track gun ownership. That makes me nervous.

However, I do find it interesting that Routh, a convicted felon, had a gun with the serial number destroyed. I mean, it's almost like gun control doesn't do a blasted thing and felons who want guns badly enough will find a way to get guns.

Routh, despite his rap sheet, wasn't someone surrounded by the criminal class. He wasn't a career drug lord or someone who knew the ins and outs of the black market by virtue of his existence. He was, from the outside, a seemingly regular dude.

And yet, he got a gun. It's not the first illegal gun he got, either, having been charged with illegal possession of a machine gun previously.

So it seems that what Routh has really done is shown that laws against removing serial numbers work just as well as literally every other gun control law on the books. We knew that, but it really just kind of drives the point home, doesn't it?

Which is why all the calls for new gun control would be hilarious if they weren't so serious.