Ghost guns are kits that a user can purchase online to assemble a fully functional firearm at home. Critics say they are attractive to people who are otherwise prohibited from buying firearms because of the lack of requirement for background checks and serial numbers.

“Ghost guns are the gun industry’s way of skirting commonsense gun laws and arming dangerous people without background checks,” said David Pucino, legal director and deputy chief counsel of the Giffords Law Center. “We are thrilled that the Supreme Court has upheld the ATF rule that treats ghost guns as what they are: guns.”

In his dissent Wednesday, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the majority “blesses the Government’s overreach.” Thomas said he reads the federal law at issue in a much narrower way that does not cover “the unfinished frames and receivers contained in weapon-parts kits.”

“Congress could have authorized ATF to regulate any part of a firearm or any object readily convertible into one. But, it did not. I would adhere to the words Congress enacted,” Thomas wrote.

The Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the gun rights groups that challenged the ATF rule, said it was disappointed with the court’s “misguided decision.”

“This is only one battle in a multi-generational war over the scope of government and pre-existing right to keep and bear arms,” the group said in a statement Wednesday. “The Supreme Court cynically built up a falsework to shore up the ATF’s improper rule despite the text and history of the statutes.”

During oral arguments in October, several of the court’s conservatives and all of its liberals appeared sceptical of the notion that the kits were geared toward a tradition of gunsmithing hobbyists. Chief Justice John Roberts, in particular, brushed off the idea that building the kind of gun kits at issue was equivalent to someone working on a classic car. In other words, he seemed to say, the kits aren’t designed with hobbyists in mind.

“Drilling a hole or two, I would think, doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekends,” Roberts said to the lawyer representing the kit manufacturers. “My understanding is that it’s not difficult for someone to do this.”

Advocacy groups and five companies that manufacture the kits sued, arguing that the regulation wasn’t permitted by the law. The kits aren’t weapons, they said, but rather parts. A US district court in Texas threw out the rule, and the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals mostly upheld that decision.
The Black Sea has not been a central focus of fighting for some time.

In the first stages of the war, Ukraine successfully targeted Russia’s fleet in its Crimean home ports and as of last summer, Ukraine said it had destroyed 28 Russian vessels.

With what was left of the Russian fleet fleeing south and east to Russian and Abkhazian ports, Ukraine has been successfully exporting goods – with grain exports at near pre-war levels – via shipping which hugged the western seaboard of the Black Sea.

So any maritime ceasefire – if it comes into force – is unlikely to reshape the balance of the war that is largely being fought on the ground.

But Dr Jenny Mathers, a senior professor of international politics at Aberystwyth University and an expert on Russian politics, said the maritime ceasefire would provide Russia with a “big advantage” as it was currently struggling to export its agricultural produce.

“Ukraine has managed to get out a lot of its agricultural produce through the Black Sea, and it’s managed to successfully target Russian shipping, so Russia doesn’t use the Black Sea at the moment,” Dr Mathers said.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative was struck in 2022, allowing safe passage of commercial ships travelling to and from Ukraine, with UN officials helping Russia get its food and fertilizer exports to foreign markets in return.

Russia withdrew from the agreement in the summer of 2023, arguing that financial sanctions were hindering its exports, and said it would view any vessel bound for Ukraine as a potential military target.

The UN said on Wednesday that freedom of navigation in the Black Sea was a “crucial contribution to global food security and supply chains”.

A spokesperson said the UN was working with Russia to facilitate its food and fertilizer exports.
Where a maritime ceasefire could make a difference is by protecting Ukrainian ports from Russian air strikes.

“For us, a ceasefire is primarily a cessation of shelling of civilian port infrastructure,” said Dmytro Pletenchuk, the Ukrainian navy spokesperson.

“As of now, we’re in control of the situation at sea; in the Black Sea, in the Azov Sea, and the waters surrounding temporarily occupied Crimea. That’s why for us, the Ukrainian navy, this situation would not change anything.”

After announcing the agreement on Tuesday, Washington said all parties would continue working towards a “durable and lasting peace”, adding that the agreement would reopen an important trade route.

Ukraine and Russia also committed to “develop measures” to implement a previously agreed ban on attacking each other’s energy infrastructure, the White House said.

The Black Sea is located south of Ukraine and to the west of Russia and is also bordered by Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia.

It is also bordered by parts of Russian-occupied Ukraine, including Crimea.