The Associated Press ran a story about the terrible proliferation of privately manufactured “ghost guns” in the hands of those who can’t legally possess firearms. They probably should have taken a closer look at their own data.

California law enforcement seize 54 ghost guns last year from people who can’t legally own firearms
California law enforcement took away 54 so-called ghost guns last year from people who can’t legally own firearms, a 38% jump in the number of the hard-to-trace weapons seized since 2021 under a unique state program, officials said Monday.

I’ve written about the “unique state program” before. It doesn’t work very well. From 2018 to 2019, their backlog of people to shake down more than doubled, to over 23,000. Following that trend, I suspect the backlog is around 100,000 now. But as for what they are getting…

Oh, dear; a 38% increase. Terrible, eh?

Wait a sec.

The ghost guns, which are privately made firearms without a serial number, were part of nearly 1,500 guns taken statewide last year through an only-in-California program called the Armed and Prohibited Persons System, known as APPS.

54 out of 1,500 is just 3.6% of the total. It turns out PMFs aren’t really too popular with bad guys. Hardly a surprise to anyone who pays attention, what with some five million stolen guns already on the street. And that estimate was from nearly four years ago; the number is probably closer to six million now.

 

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