Inside The Right-Wing Movement To Boost Untraceable Ghost Guns

Pink and green grenades covered in Bitcoin logos. Conference attendees decked out in either Hawaiian florals or camouflage, posing on ranges and bedrooms with their creations. Print Guns Not Money T-shirts, available for just $32.

Welcome to the Instagram feed of Guns N Bitcoin, a community for the growing movement to ensure an endless source of untraceable firearms.

The group, founded in 2019, promotes new ways to develop and purchase so-called ghost guns guns that are 80% complete gun and are often sold with a kit of the materials needed to finish building the firearm. Another increasingly popular option is building ghost guns out of entirely 3D-printed parts. While legal, these guns have no serial number and dont require background checks; their documented rise poses serious obstacles to law enforcements ability to track sales and distribution. These kits account for a growing number of guns used in crimes, and have led to a flurry of stories in recent months.

Less documented, however, is the growing popularity of these weapons among far-right and anti-government movements.

Ghost guns fit into a perfect niche of undetectable, untraceable and keeps the government away from you.
- Jon Lewis, Program on Extremism at George Washington University

Gun safety advocates say ghost guns are ending up in the hands of individuals who are radicalized through online channels and predisposed to violence, and that its a recipe for disaster. These people are finding new ways to anonymize the design, purchase and dissemination of weapons creating an entire industry beyond government regulation.

Almost 24,000 ghost guns were recovered from potential crime scenes between 2016 and 2020, according to a classified alert for law enforcement that media obtained earlier this year. Two years ago, the Homeland Security Committee found that ghost guns are a threat to national security because of their appeal to anti-government extremists and terrorists.

In a joint report released in May, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security identified domestic lone wolf actors as the greatest terror threat to the U.S. and noted that internet forums enabled radicalization and a capacity for violence. The report did not explicitly mention ghost guns, but the groups of concern certainly overlap.

Its not an overstatement to say that the propagation of ghost guns increases the likelihood that individuals in these far-right movements have the tools they need to engage in mass violence, said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. Ghost guns fit into a perfect niche of undetectable, untraceable and keeps the government away from you.

Gun safety advocates have pushed for stronger legislation to control this flow of guns for the last decade. But only 11 states regulate the sale and possession of ghost guns, and in eight of those states, these laws were passed in 2018.

Marketing for firearms relies on reminding people that they can provide a feeling of power, according to new research that Everytown For Gun Safety shared with HuffPost. The gun safety organization also found that online communities can easily allow a socially isolated and irritable person to obtain a gun and carry out a mass shooting.

Although ghost guns have been available online since the early 2010s, Everytown For Gun Safety released a report last year that found that 68% of online ghost gun sales have occurred since 2014, and that the most viewed instructional videos were posted on YouTube as recently as 2019 and 2020.

Since Jan. 6, however, the industry around these weapons has moved away from mainstream websites like Facebook and YouTube. Interested parties now congregate on decentralized, private social media platforms like Zion, LBRY and GAB. Many of these users also exclusively use anonymous cryptocurrency to purchase 3D printers and 3D-printed parts, further obscuring any traces of the people behind these transactions.

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When you pay for a Bear Arms N' Bitcoin ticket using bitcoin or Monero, you don't have to input your real name & address
The separation of money from identity is a powerful feature of cryptocurrencies over 3rd party payment processors
Screenshot below of a recent order#BANB2022 pic.twitter.com/5nun99TpGu
Guns N' Bitcoin (@GunsnBitcoin) November 4, 2021

Guns N Bitcoin has provided a forum for enthusiasts of that niche, both online and off. Since 2020, the group has held two in-person Bear Arms N Bitcoin conferences to share the latest technology, tips and improvements on gun part manufacturing, as well as information on how to further anonymize cryptocurrency transactions. Featured speakers discuss topics that extremism researchers have said provide a handbook for far-right extremists who want to operate completely under the radar.

For five months, HuffPost has tracked the activity of these Bitcoin and ghost gun influencers on Twitter and the video streaming platform Odysee, scoured the newsletters of major ghost gun sellers, and interviewed Guns N Bitcoins founder. The people behind these accounts are often anonymous, but their online footprint suggests a large and growing network of far-right ghost gun sellers and enthusiasts driving the industry even deeper underground.

Forums That Prize Anonymity

Influencers and leaders in the ghost gun movement are overwhelmingly anonymous online characters, and the Bear Arms N Bitcoin conference encourages attendees to use pseudonyms and otherwise obscure their real identities. Guns N Bitcoin also does not allow live photos or videos at its events.

Privacy is a human right. Those who seek to violate it have the burden of proof to justify it, founder Ragnar Lifthrasir told HuffPost. (Unlike most in this community, Lifthrasir claims to use his real name, saying he doesnt have cause to hide his identity.)