A California man who shot and killed his three daughters, a chaperone who was supervising a visit with the girls and then himself last month was armed with a ghost gun, law enforcement officials revealed.
David Mora Rojas was visiting his daughters Samarah Mora Gutierrez, nine, Samantha Mora Gutierrez, 10, and Samia Mora Gutierrez, 13, at a Sacramento church on 28 February when he opened fire. Nathaniel Kong, 59, an employee of the church who was supervising Mora Rojas’s time with the children, was also killed.
Mora Rojas, 39, was banned from owning any guns and ammunition due to a domestic violence restraining order filed by the girls’ mother. But he was still able to get a ghost gun, a firearm without a serial number, usually bought online and assembled in someone’s home. Mora Rojas used a homemade semi-automatic rifle-style weapon and an extended magazine with 30 rounds. He used 17.
“It’s horrifying but not surprising,” said David Pucino, deputy chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center, of the use of a ghost gun in the Sacramento church shooting.
The proliferation of ghost guns
Do-it-yourself firearm kits – once a niche hobby among gun enthusiasts – have been around since the 90s. But they grew into an evening news staple in the 2010s. In California, homemade guns were used in a 2013 mass shooting in Santa Monica, a 2014 bank robbery in Stockton and a shooting spree in rural Tehama county that killed six in 2017. In 2019, a 16-year-old killed two students and injured three others before killing himself with a ghost gun at a school in Santa Clarita. The next year, as protests over police violence filled city streets, Steven Carrillo used a homemade machine gun to shoot two security guards at a federal building in Oakland and a sheriff’s deputy in an ambush in Santa Cruz.
Law enforcement agencies have said they mainly recoverd ghost guns during large police raids and in underground trafficking operations. But in recent years they have also increasingly been found in the trunk of vehicles and in the hands of individuals and during gun buybacks. Violence preventionists say ghost guns have also become popular in lower-income Black and Latino communities where gun violence tends to be concentrated.
Ghost guns are not subject to some of the laws regulating firearms purchases, especially in a state with strict weapons laws like California. In October, California added ghost guns to the prohibited list of firearms for people with a domestic order against them.
California law requires anyone who buys a firearm to pass a background check and, if they assemble one themselves, they also must apply for a serial number. But when it comes to homemade guns, that process is usually only followed by gun hobbyists. Without a serial number or unique manufacturer markings, the guns are nearly impossible to trace through traditional means.
These days, ghost guns are easier to get than other trafficked weapons, advocates and police have said. “Ghost guns are a really attractive way for traffickers to source guns quickly,” Pucino continued. “And California’s laws about homemade firearms don’t actually inhibit someone from getting one.”
Legal challenges have come at the local level
Amid their high profile proliferation – 65% of the ghost guns seized nationwide in 2020 were found in California – local and state officials have attempted to prevent ghost guns from entering city streets with lawsuits and bans.
Prosecutors and attorneys have filed lawsuits against popular ghost gun manufacturers over alleged illegal business practices and negligence that led to shootings like that of Mia Tretta at Saugus high school in 2019.
Localities including San Diego, San Francisco and Oakland have also levied city-wide bans that make it illegal for any resident to possess or buy an unserialized gun. In January, state assembly member Mike Gipson, of southern California, introduced a bill that would ban ghost guns statewide, and later that month he joined Senator Dianne Feinstein in calling on the nation’s mayors to enact similar prohibitions.
And in July, an amendment to a California ammunition law will require people to pass a background check before buying a gun kit and mandates ghost gun retailers submit purchase records to the state’s department of justice. The amendment, also authored by Gipson, passed in 2019, and is set to be implemented three years earlier than originally planned due to concerns over the use of ghost guns.
But violence prevention advocates say the efforts are only a bandage until the federal government creates policies that would regulate ghost guns and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) closes the legal loophole that has allowed ghost gun makers to evade federal gun guidelines like background checks and serial numbers.
“Ghost gun companies have been resistant to any regulations and it’s clear that they see their business model existing because of the legal loopholes they can exploit,” Pucino said. “They don’t want to compete with the gun manufacturers that have to follow regulations.
“[States and local governments] are using the tools at their disposal but the federal government needs to step in,” he added. “The longer ATF delays, more ghost guns will be available and they will be used in more shootings.”
During a recent firearm trade show the ATF’s acting director told attendees that a long-awaited rule that would require a background check before someone buys untraceable gun parts would not be ready in July, according to the New York Times.
This most recent high-profile mass shooting has intensified calls for gun control, increased protections for domestic violence survivors and their children.
“Time and time again, we see these high power weapons on our streets that land in the hands of those who continue to kill our babies,” assembly member Gipson said in a statement after the Sacramento shooting. “This is exactly what keeps me up at night! We are not safe. Our babies aren’t safe. Even when we go to the extent of getting a restraining order and following every step possible to protect them.”
