Everytown Announces Ad Buy Urging ATF to Finalize the Ghost Gun Rule

WASHINGTON — Today, Everytown for Gun Safety announced a new digital ad buy that will urge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to finalize the proposed ghost gun rule that would gut the market for untraceable, unserialized ghost guns. The buy will start with banner ads on the Wall Street Journal website and feature ads on the Washington Post website and elsewhere. 

“Ghost guns are the most dangerous public safety threat I’ve seen in my over 20 years working in the field,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “ATF must finalize this rule and faithfully enforce it — there is no time to waste when it comes to getting these deadly weapons off our streets.” 

“Ghost guns aren’t just the weapon of choice for criminals and terrorists, they’re also being accessed by minors and have been used in school shootings,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “ATF can and must put an end to this madness that allows anyone to purchase ghost gun kits online and assemble untraceable firearms, no questions asked.”

Everytown has been on the forefront of the fight for an administrative rule regulating ghost guns. In December of 2019, Everytown filed a petition for rulemaking, urging ATF to address the rising threat posed by ghost guns. In August 2020, after ATF failed to undertake the rulemaking requested by the petition, Everytown, joined by the cities of  Syracuse, NY, San Jose, CA, Chicago, IL, and Columbia, SC, sued ATF to compel the agency to correct its misinterpretation of federal law that had allowed the ghost gun threat to emerge. ATF first proposed the rule in May 2021 as part of a slate of executive actions announced by President Joe Biden to curb gun violence. President Biden also mentioned ghost guns as a major contributing factor to the rise in gun violence in his CNN Town Hall over the summer.