14-Year-Old In Custody Had Fully Automatic 'Ghost' Gun: Police

RACINE, WI — Racine police officers took a 14-year-old who had a 9mm "ghost gun" into custody on Wednesday, the agency said in a Facebook post Thursday morning.

The juvenile's gun had a full auto-selector switch and a 40-round magazine, police said. Typically, ghost guns are firearms that can be assembled at home from online kits, and they do not have serial numbers, according to Racine police.

"To truly emphasize the seriousness of this, a 14-year-old juvenile had in his possession a fully automatic ghost gun," reads the agency's Facebook post. "This is the reality Racine Police Officers are dealing with on a daily basis.

More information about how exactly the 14-year-old came into possession of the gun in Racine was not immediately available, but the rise of other ghost guns has raised questions and new attempts at regulation in recent months across the country.

In 2021, there were about 20,000 ghost guns reported to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms after they were recovered in criminal investigations, a tenfold increase since 2016, according to a statement the White House made announcing plans for new regulations in April.

Because the weapons are missing serial numbers, tracing the weapons when they are found at crime scenes can be difficult, the White House statement said.

The new plans for further regulation by the Biden administration won't outright ban ghost guns, but will treat them more like traditional firearms, requiring them to be produced by licensed manufacturers, requiring background checks for buyers and mandating that serial numbers are placed on the main part of the gun, Alex McCourt, an assistant professor for the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management, told NPR for a report in April.