Who Sold the Gun — Ghost or Real?
Untraceable ghost guns are on the rise. Image: Mark Harris/The Guardian
By Kath Tsakalakis
Guest Writer
When COVID-19 broke out last year, I wondered whether gun violence would stop while more people were at home. Would a coronavirus pandemic help us get a grip on the gun death epidemic?
Sadly, the answer is no. In San Francisco alone, murders were up by 35 percent in 2020. To put this in context, the FBI reported an increase in killings of 37 percent for more than 50 of America’s largest cities last year, the biggest spike since the FBI started tracking data in 1960. FBI data analyst, Jeff Asher, told the San Francisco Chronicle: “It’s everywhere. There are very few places that did not see a dramatic rise in gun violence.”
As a result, we continue reading harrowing interviews with families about their loved ones; too many lives cut short too soon. But one important factor seems to go overlooked in every article on gun violence: Where did the perpetrators get their guns? Who is profiting from the massive spike in gun sales and the ongoing violence?
Here in San Francisco, our elected officials are taking action to improve public safety by targeting ghost guns which are unregulated, untraceable, unregistered firearm kits. A bill introduced on May 11 by Supervisor Catherine Stefani (District 2) with Brady United Against Gun Violence, the longest serving of the national gun violence prevention organizations, stops the sale of untraceable ghost guns with no background checks at all. As San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott told CBS news, ghost guns are a rapidly growing problem: “The 27-fold increase in the number of ghost guns we’ve been confiscating over the last five-years is alarming, and I’m concerned that it’s only the tip of the iceberg.”
In 2020, ghost guns represented 16 percent of all firearms seized in San Francisco. Who sold the remaining 84 percent of guns that were used in crimes? Many of these guns were legally purchased and can be traced back to their origins. When guns are stolen or trafficked, we can still find out where they came from. Did a gun dealer allow an illegal straw purchase where the actual buyer wouldn’t have passed a background check? Why don’t law enforcement release data to the public on the local gun dealers who are selling crime guns? Asking these types of question help prevent shootings and homicides by stopping guns from reaching the wrong hands in the first place.
Let’s focus on who is supplying guns as part of the big picture. If every gun dealer sold guns responsibly, there would be fewer guns used in crimes. If every gun owner stored their guns in a locked safe bolted to a structural wall, guns would be harder to steal. After all, if a gun had not been accessible, there would have been no shooting. Now is the time to call your elected officials and ask them to support commonsense gun laws such as banning ghost guns nationwide. We can put an end to gun violence.
Tsakalakis is a San Francisco resident and member of the SF Brady Chapter.
Editor's Note: We welcome guest writers to share their expertise and experiences on the Stop Crime SF blog. The dialogue needed to achieve criminal justice accountability in San Francisco requires a diverse range of voices. The opinions and external links featured in the Stop Crime SF blog are those of the individual guest writers. To contribute as a guest writer, send your story idea to info@stopcrimesf.com