We don't know definitively if the suspect was the killer. We don't know a lot right now, but we have an identity and it's entirely possible that they've got the right guy. It's probable, even.

But that's not the big story for some people. Oh no, it's something more.

According to The New York Times, police believe the suspect who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan last Wednesday used a 9mm ghost gun with a silencer installed to quiet his gunshots. Police arrested the suspect in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday, December 9, and recovered the weapon “believed to have been used in the shooting.” The frame, or bottom half, of the 9mm pistol and the silencer appear to have been made using a 3D printer.

The news comes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule regulating ghost guns as commercially made firearms in Garland v. VanDerStok. Since it went into effect in August 2022, the ATF’s “frame and receiver” rule has helped shrink the market for ghost gun parts and kits. However, 3D printing is still

Gun groups like the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade association, have also celebrated the recent surge in silencer sales, claiming the devices are now “as normalized among the shooting and hunting community as TikTok is with Gen Z.” The National Firearms Act (NFA) imposed strict registration requirements on silencers after they were used in several high-profile crimes in the early 1900s, but gun groups have worked to weaken silencer regulations in recent years.

THE assassin’s gun HAD A SILENCER

Silencers, or sound suppressors, are devices that dampen a firearm’s sound signature, making it difficult to determine where gunshots originate. In the wrong hands, silencers can be used to ambush unsuspecting victims, as this shooting makes clear. Surveillance footage shows the masked gunman firing three shots before fleeing the scene. It took a bystander several moments to realize shots had been fired — most likely because of the silencer — before they ran the other direction.

It took people several moments to realize shots had been fired because most people don't seem to know what gunshots actually sound like. There's a reason people assume backfires are gunshots, after all.

However, in The Smoking Gun's hand-wringing, there are a few things they seem to completely miss.

Now, let's assume that all the information we're getting is accurate. I'm not quite ready to assume that, but for the sake of argument, let's do just that.

The killer had a 3D-printed receiver on his firearm and he had a suppressor.

First, the gun. If he had exactly what's been described, then he likely had it because the media has gone on about "gun tracing" so much that he had concerns about just that. Never mind that they can't trace a gun they don't have in possession. They can only trace guns they recover. If they recover it on someone's person, they don't really need to trace it except to determine how he got it in the first place, and most of the time, that's pointless.

Moreover, from what I've seen of this guy's bio, he could have lawfully purchased a firearm. He didn't need a "ghost gun" to carry out this murder. He opted for one because of media hysteria, most likely.

And now, let's talk about the suppressor.

One of two things happened here. He either bought a suppressor lawfully, which he probably could have done depending on which state he called home--but it's unlikely since he showed police a New Jersey ID card and they're unlawful there--or he acquired it via some illegal means.

If he made it, then all the hysteria about "ghost guns" sort of needs to go out the window, because there is no lawful ability to make one's own suppressor and yet, that didn't stop him, either. Plus, if he does live in New Jersey, building your own firearm is illegal, so that's another law he broke.

If he got it off the black market somehow, then he could easily have gotten a gun via a similar source. 

We know that some will try to make this all about the fact that he got his gun in this particular manner, but the presence of a suppressor, under current laws, sort of invalidates that completely. It won't stop them, of course, but it doesn't change the truth.