Attorney General Karl A. Racine today announced two new grant programs to improve public safety and reduce crime.

District of Columbia Attorney General Karl A. Racine today announced that he joined with Delaware and New Jersey to lead a coalition of 11 attorneys general supporting the recent decision of the world’s largest credit card companies—Visa, Mastercard, and American Express—to adopt a new merchant category code for the sale of firearms and ammunition that will support law enforcement efforts to help combat the gun violence epidemic.

Attorney General Karl A. Racine, Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D-PA), and Attorney General Matt Platkin (D-NJ) today co-led a group of 20 Attorneys General in filing a friend of the court brief supporting the federal government’s efforts to regulate “ghost guns”: unserialized, untraceable weapons that are often made at home and purchased without background checks.

Last week, we won a major victory for District residents and public safety: a court permanently banned ghost gun manufacturer Polymer80 from selling untraceable firearms and build-at-home gun kits to DC residents. And the court ordered Polymer80 to pay $4 million in penalties—the maximum allowable penalties—for breaking District law.

Attorney General Karl A. Racine today, alongside his counterparts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, led a group of 20 Attorneys General in filing an amicus brief supporting an important new federal rule regulating “ghost guns”: unserialized weapons that are often made at home from weapon parts kits or partially complete frames and receivers and can be purchased without background checks. 

Today, Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced that the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) won a $4 million court judgment in its lawsuit against Polymer80, a ghost gun manufacturer and distributor. In a landmark ruling, the court permanently barred Polymer80 from selling unserialized, untraceable firearms to District residents and ordered the company to pay more than $4 million in penalties for making false and misleading claims about the legality of its products. 

Attorney General Karl A. Racine today, alongside his counterparts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, led a group of 20 Attorneys General in filing an amicus brief supporting an important new federal rule regulating “ghost guns”: unserialized weapons that are often made at home from weapon parts kits or partially complete frames and receivers and can be purchased without background checks. 

Attorney General Karl A. Racine today announced the resolution of three cases including one in which the owners and property managers of two apartment buildings in Ward 4 will pay the District more than $2 million for public safety and housing code violations and remedy those conditions, and two other resolutions requiring owners in Wards 7 and 8 to make needed updates to the properties to make them safer for residents.

Statement of Assistant Attorney General Jose Marrero, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia

The bill includes small but important modifications to the District’s prohibitions on ghost guns and firearms manufacturing to help ensure those prohibitions remain effective.