GREENSBORO, N.C. — Investigators say the teenager who brought a gun on Forsyth Tech's campus Thursday shot himself with a ghost gun.
Ghost guns are guns without serial numbers that are hard to trace.
Private investigator and former Greensboro police officer, Ed Cobbler says guns like these used to be rare.
"Here in this area, you don't hear it a lot about ghost guns, now it's just like the gun violence. We're probably going to start hearing more about the ghost guns because they're hard to trace," said Cobbler.
People who assemble ghost guns buy them in parts and put them together at home. The process is even more dangerous because you don't need a background check to buy the parts.
Thomas Massey is a concealed carry instructor. He says since anybody can buy the parts and put it together, it's dangerous in the wrong hands.
"A gun in the hands of a competent, trained, responsible, person, adult, is really not that dangerous as long as they act responsibly, but when children especially get their hands on a gun, if they're not trained, if they haven't had any experience with guns I can't think of anything that's much more dangerous than that because they're not aware of the safety issues and it's so easy especially with a handgun to point a handgun at something you don't want to shoot," Massey explained.
There are efforts to make ghost guns traceable.
Last year, the Department of Justice banned ghost gun production and reclassified them as firearms.
The move means manufacturers must license them and include serial numbers; it requires all sellers to make their clients go through background checks.