Supreme Court will hear a challenge to ghost-gun regulation

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear a challenge Tuesday to a Biden administration regulation on ghost guns, the difficult-to-trace weapons with an exponentially increased link to crime in recent years.

The rule is focused on gun kits that are sold online and can be assembled into a functioning weapon in less than 30 minutes. The finished weapons don't have serial numbers, making them nearly impossible to trace.

The regulation came after the number of ghost guns seized by police around the country soared, going from fewer than 4,000 recovered by law enforcement in 2018 to nearly 20,000 in 2021, according to Justice Department data.

Finalized after an executive action from President Joe Biden, the rule requires companies to treat the kits like other firearms by adding serial numbers, running background checks and verifying that buyers are 21 or older.

The number of ghost guns has since flattened out or declined in several major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Baltimore, according to court documents.

But manufacturers and gun-rights groups challenged the rule in court, arguing it's long been legal to sell gun parts to hobbyists and that most people who commit crimes use traditional guns.

They say the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives overstepped its authority. "Congress is the body that gets to decide how to address any risks that might arise from a particular product,” a group of more than two dozen GOP-leaning states supporting the challengers wrote in court documents.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas agreed, striking down the rule in 2023. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld his decision.

The administration, on the other hand, argues the law allows the government to regulate weapons that “may readily be converted” to shoot. The 5th Circuit's decision would allow anyone to “buy a kit online and assemble a fully functional gun in minutes — no background check, records, or serial number required. The result would be a flood of untraceable ghost guns into our nation’s communities,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote.

The Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration last year, allowing the regulation to go into effect by a 5-4 vote. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court’s three liberal members to form the majority.

Denise Wieck and her son Guy Boyd, who was shot in the eye with a ghost gun, pose in Ypsilanti, Mich., Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Supreme Court to hear challenge to ghost-gun regulation

Supreme Court to hear challenge to ghost-gun regulation

FILE — Ghost guns are displayed at the headquarters of the San Francisco Police Department, in San Francisco, Nov. 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File)

BRAUNSCHWEIG, Germany (AP) — A German court on Tuesday acquitted a man who is also under investigation in the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann in a trial on charges of unrelated sexual offenses.

The Braunschweig state court acquitted the 47-year-old German national, who has been identified by local media as Christian Brueckner, of two counts of rape and two of sexual abuse.

However, Brueckner will remain in prison another year because he is still serving a seven-year sentence for rape in a different case, German news agency dpa reported.

Brueckner had been on trial since February over offenses he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. Defense lawyers had pointed to what they labeled a lack of evidence and witnesses who weren’t credible, and suggested he might not have been charged if he hadn’t also been a suspect in the McCann case.

Prosecutors had argued he should be given a 15-year prison sentence and kept in preventive detention once he has served it.

“The evidence we had was not enough to convict the defendant,” presiding judge Uta Engemann said, according to dpa, adding that “we were dealing with unreliable witnesses, some of whom deliberately lied to the court.”

Engemann argued that witnesses had been influenced in their statements by the media's reporting on Brueckner, who she said had been “stylized as a sex monster and child murderer."

Prosecutors said they would appeal the ruling.

“We believe that the decision is wrong, so we will appeal to the German supreme court so that the supreme court can check the verdict for mistakes,” prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said.

Brueckner has not been charged in the McCann case, in which he is under investigation on suspicion of murder. He spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance there in 2007. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.

He is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2019 by the Braunschweig court for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal in 2005.

The Braunschweig state court has jurisdiction because Brueckner had his last German residence in that city in Lower Saxony.

Christian Brueckner, center, stands in the courtroom at Braunschweig District Court before the start of the trial, in Brunswick, Germany, Tuesday Oct. 8, 2024. (Michael Matthey/dpa via AP)