A leading manufacturer of ghost guns has agreed to stop selling its untraceable, unassembled firearms to Maryland residents under a settlement agreement announced Wednesday by the city of Baltimore.
City leaders sued the company, Nevada-based Polymer80, two years ago “in response to the rapid escalation of ghost guns appearing on Baltimore streets and in the hands of minors,” according to the mayor’s office. Officials said the settlement grants the city all measures of relief requested in the lawsuit, including $1.2 million in damages.
“Nine out of ten homicides in Baltimore City are committed with guns,” Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement. “This settlement — and the statement it sends about the harmful impact of these ghost guns — is a critical victory for the effort to confront gun violence in our communities.”
The term “ghost gun” includes firearms that have had the serial number removed. That’s what people are using to commit crimes. Hardly anyone is going to go through the trouble of building a gun to commit a crime when it’s so much easier to buy a stolen gun that someone filed the serial number off of.