What is the “ghost gun” confiscated from Luigi Mangione, the suspected killer of the CEO killed in New York

Luigi Mangione26-year-old Italian-American alleged killer of Brian ThompsonCEO of the insurance company UnitedHealthcare killed in New York on the morning of Wednesday 4 December 2024, when he was arrested in a fast food restaurant in Altoona (Pennsylvania) he was carrying a pistolbelieved by investigators to be the murder weapon. This would be a so-called “ghost gun”, one ghost gun with components purchased and others 3D printed. The weapon found by the police on Mangione, suffering from spondylolisthesis and with a complex personality, corresponds to some of the shell casings found at the scene of the crime, committed shortly before 07:00 in the morning, while the health insurance manager was on his way to the Hilton Hotel for a conference. “The gun is in the NYPD labs and we were able to match it to three of the shell casings found at the murder scene,” he told the press Jessica Tischhead of the police of the Big Apple.

What are “ghost guns”, the lethal ghost guns

A significant detail of the weapon found in Mangione’s possession at the time of his arrest, which allegedly acted to attack the health insurance system in the USA, is precisely the fact that it is not just any gun, but a so-called “ghost gun”. ”, a ghost gun indeed. With this definition we refer to DIY weaponswhich combine commercial and other 3D printed parts, assembled thanks to projects which are located on Internet. The term ghost gun is linked to the fact that these are weapons”invisible” in the eyes of the authorities, since they lack the serial number which characterizes ordinary weapons. At least those built before a law introduced in 2022.

“Ghost guns are non-serialized (and therefore untraceable) firearms that are assembled using components purchased in kit or as separate pieces. These firearms are weapons fully functional and lethal as much as a completely finished and serialized firearm,” explains the Brady association which fights against the violence caused by shootings in the United States. Criminals usually remove the serial number (the infamous “serial number abraded”) from ordinary weapons precisely to prevent determining their history and origin. With 3D printed ones based on components in plasticwhich have evolved over the last decade into instruments of death increasingly efficient and reliable, the “problem” – if we want to call it that – is solved at the source for those interested.

In the United States there are some real ones contest on the construction of these weapons, which spring into shooting tests and reliability tests. Ever since the first ghost gun was made, theLiberator” presented in 2013, ghost guns have made enormous progress and now one of them has probably been used to carry out a very high profile murder in the heart of Manhattan.

The regulation of ghost guns

As specified, ghost guns are made up of commercial and other homemade parts. The serial number of traditional weapons is entered on the chassis and this is precisely the part together with the receiver – the mechanism which, among other things, allows you to fire – which is sold incomplete. Interested people purchase kits or individual individual parts (including chargers, reedssights etc etc) and build what is missing with one 3D printerthanks to the projects found on the internet, despite it being a law from the former president Barack Obama which makes them illegal in the United States. However, supporters of these weapons continue to promote them and spread plans to build them.

Until 2022 the kits to build the guns were sold without serial numbers and checks, now registration, serial number and all the bureaucratic procedures are necessary to verify if you meet the requirements. “A rule issued by the Biden-Harris Administration to prevent the spread of ghost guns went into effect in August 2022, clarifying that all ghost gun kits and certain parts must be serialized, sold by an authorized dealer, and are subject to a check of Brady Background Check (the NDR criminal background check),” Brady explains.

In some states such as California these kits have been banned. Despite these virtuous initiatives, a huge number of ghost guns without serial numbers are still circulating in the USA, built before the 2022 law. Precisely that year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confiscated some almost 26,0001,600 percent more than those seized five years earlier. The murder of CEO Brian Thompson, if the involvement of Mangione’s ghost gun was confirmed, would be the most high-profile, but these weapons have already been used to many murders and real massacres. As explained by the Guardian, in 2022 a man who was banned from possessing weapons killed his three daughters and his social worker (before killing himself) with a homemade gun.

The gun seized from Luigi Mangione

Based on the photograph of the weapon confiscated from the young Italian-American Luigi Mangione, on which a manifest against health insurance and a false document used in New York, 3D weapons experts indicate that it would be a Chairmanwon V1. As explained by Wired, this weapon would be a sort of modified version of the Fmda 19.2 (the name is an acronym for Free Men Don’t Ask). The difference would lie in thehandle. Beyond the technical specifications, Brady points out that once assembled, a ghost gun “has the look, feel and function of a traditional weapon, be it a pistol or an assault weapon, but is just as deadly and dangerous in the wrong hands.” Today, owning and building them in the USA is legal, but only on the basis of the 2022 federal law which requires you to register them, purchase the parts from authorized dealers and profile the customer.