Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito compared a ghost gun to an omelet, before Amy Coney Barrett used a chilly analogy, during oral arguments on Tuesday.
The court was hearing arguments in Garland v. VanDerStok, a challenge to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulation that places new requirements on previously untraceable “ghost guns” assembled by the buyer. The parts are typically purchased online and their use has surged in recent years.
Alito was listening to Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argue that a self-assembly gun kit can be easily converted to a fully usable gun with the addition of one small additional part.
Discussing how components can be defined as a weapon, Alito asked Prelogar if a notebook and a pen were together a shopping list. She replied that they were not.
The conservative justice then asked: “If I put on a counter some eggs, some chopped-up ham, some chopped-up pepper and onions, is that a western omelet?”
Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito (pictured in the Oval Office on July 23, 2019) and Amy Coney Barrett (seen during her confirmation hearing on October 13, 2020, on Capitol Hill) used grocery items and meals to discuss the definition of weapons during oral arguments on October 8, 2024, over a proposed bn on so-called ghost guns.
Carolyn Kaster/Greg Nash/AP Photo
Prelogar replied that they do not, as they can be used to make many other dishes, whereas the components of a ghost gun can only be used to make a firearm.
“The key difference here is that these weapon parts kits are designed and intended to be used as instruments of combat and they have no other conceivable use. And I think the further evidence comes from the fact that respondents themselves agree that a disassembled gun qualifies as a weapon,” she said.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett then asked: “Would your answer change if you ordered it from Hello Fresh, and you got a kit and it was like turkey chilly but all of the ingredients are in the kit?”
Prelogar replied: “Yes, and i think that presses on the more apt analogy here, which is that we are not suggesting here that scattered components that might have some entirely separate and distinct function could be aggregated and called a weapon in the absence of this kind of evidence that that is their intended purpose and function.
“But if you bought from Trader Joe’s some omelet-making kit that had all of the ingredients to make the omelet and maybe included whatever you needed to start the fire to cook the omelet … we would recognize that for what it is.”
The ATF rule, introduced in April 2022, amends the definition of a firearm to include self-assembly kits. It also stipulated that partially assembled weapons that can easily be converted to full firearms must be registered as guns.
That means the owners must have a gun license and undergo background checks, and the guns must have traceable serial numbers.
Gun dealers challenged the regulation and were victorious in a federal appeal court. The government is now challenging that decision.
