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ghost gun

noun

Etymology

From ghost + gun. Derived from the fact that these firearms are unserialized, difficult to trace, and often remain invisible to the tracking and regulation covering traditionally manufactured firearms. First use appears c. 2001 in Sunday People.

  1. inherited from gunne,gonne
  2. compounded as ghost gun — “ghost + gun”

Definitions

  1. A gun without serial numbers that cannot be easily tracked, especially a homemade gun…

    A gun without serial numbers that cannot be easily tracked, especially a homemade gun built with nonregistered, partially finished, or 3D printed components.

    • In New York, state lawmakers announced legislation on Monday that would require makers of ghost guns to have a gunsmith license and register the firearms.
    • The suspects in New Jersey are accused of trying to sell several homemade AR-15 assault-style rifles that are known as ghost guns because they cannot be tracked.

  2. A gun that is not detectable by standard gun detection measures, such as a gun without…

    A gun that is not detectable by standard gun detection measures, such as a gun without much metal and thus unable to set off metal detectors.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for ghost gun. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA