The media spun the VanDerStok decision as if it was the death of so-called ghost guns. These firearms, which is anything that is unserialized, privately manufactured--let's ignore the fact that guns with removed serial numbers were often thrown into the mix for a moment--and therefore are untraceable by the ATF.

However, that's not what happened.

The VanDerStok case was focused on kits like those made by Polymer80. It was about how the Biden administration tried to stretch a rule that would block these kits from lawful sale. It never touched on other means for making your own gun.

Over at America's 1st Freedom, NRA-ILA Executive Director John Commerford talked a bit about what the ruling was and what it wasn't.

In short, it's not a ban on privately made firearms. What it is, though, is something else.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, disagreed, inventing a new technique of statutory interpretation using a term that appeared to be making its debut in published American case law. That term was “artifact noun,” i.e., “a word for a thing created by humans.” According to the majority opinion, “everyday speakers sometimes use artifact nouns to refer to unfinished objects—at least when their intended function is clear.”

The Court then applied this concept to a Polymer80-type pattern, which it held to be a “frame” under the GCA’s “firearm” definition and to a parts kit containing such a pattern, which it held to be a “weapon” under that same definition. It likened these items to an unassembled kit from IKEA being called a “table.” To punctuate this point, the Court’s opinion included pictures of a kit containing a Polymer80 and a pistol built from that kit. “What else would you call it?” Justice Gorsuch asked rhetorically.

The court used another unconventional device to save the rule, by insisting the plaintiffs were bringing a “facial” challenge and by importing, at the government’s request, a test typically used for constitutional challenges to statutes. Under this test, a single valid application of the rule would save it from invalidity. The Court held that because the rule could at least be applied to Polymer80s and build kits containing them, it was not “facially” invalid.

...

At the end of the day, what can be said for sure about the ruling is that Polymer80s and their copies, and build kits containing these items, are now GCA-type “firearms” and must be manufactured and sold as such—through federal firearm licensees who mark them, keep records and run background checks on retail customers. That ends their availability directly to the consumer via online or unlicensed sales.

The Supreme Court indicated, however, that even if an IKEA kit is a “table,” a pile of logs is not; likewise, not everything that is in a stage of manufacture prior to completion can be regulated by ATF as a “frame or receiver” or a “firearm.” Where those lines are drawn, however, will be left to future cases.

So you can still make your own guns. They can't, for example, try to restrict material that would go into a 3D printer where you'd make your own firearm. They can't restrict a block of metal that can be milled into a receiver.

But between that and the kind of kits Polymer80 offered is a very wide gulf, and so just where does the line get drawn? That's what Commerford asks, and it's what I'm going to ask. That's kind of important information if we're going to proceed.

Defense Distributed has a frame insert that seems to skirt much of this by not looking like a gun, requiring hours using common tools, generally being designed to be modified with less than common tools, and can be dropped in a multitude of various mounts. I talked with Cody Wilson at the NRA Annual Meeting about it, and it's an interesting design specifically meant to meet what was laid out in VanDerStok.

Look, I disagree with the ruling here, but it's not a death knell for "ghost guns" or anything of the sort. It just means the gun industry will have to do what the gun industry has always done. They have to get creative.

Wilson's design is one example, but I fully expect others to come up with other ways to allow regular people to build their own firearms at home without something quite as close to what Polymer80 and others sold.

It shouldn't be necessary, but it is, so it's time to lay down the law ourselves by pushing the envelope.