Gun-control group asks web hosting companies to shutter ‘ghost gun’ sites

A gun control group is calling on two web hosting companies to shutter websites that sell products that allow people to build their own guns. 

The Associated Press reported Friday that the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), has asked Shopify and DreamHost to shut down two websites, GhostGunner.net and GhostGuns.com, which sell parts and machines used to build firearms known as “ghost guns.”

According to the AP, lawyers for the gun control group argued that the websites sell “the sort of products that have already caused scores of senseless deaths – and are likely to cause many more, unless taken off the market.”

{mosads}

The websites sell kits that allow people to build firearms without undergoing the same background checks required for purchasing a gun. 

Cody Wilson, who operates GhostGunner.net, called the group’s request “an attempt to apply pressure to deplatform a legal, American business selling legal products to law-abiding customers,” according to the AP. 

The request comes a little more than a week after a gunman went on a 45-minute rampage in Northern California, leaving five people dead, including his wife. 

That gunman was not allowed to purchase guns, but built two semi-automatic weapons that he used to carry out the attack.

Giffords herself was the victim of gun violence. In 2011, the congresswoman was nearly killed when she was shot in the head by a gunman during a public appearance in her home state. Since then, she and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, have advocated for stricter gun control.