Eight US states craft Trump lawsuit on 3D guns

NEW YORK: Eight US states are filing a lawsuit to block a Trump administration decision enabling 3D printers to make plastic handguns that opponents say will be almost impossible to control.

Democratic Party attorney generals of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia have joined the petition, to be fi led in federal court.

The suit will seek a temporary restraining order nationwide and argue that the decision violates states’ rights to regulate firearms, officials said.

“This decision is unconstitutional. It is unlawful. Frankly it is terrifying,” said Bob Ferguson, Washington state attorney-general, taking the lead on the suit to be fi led in Seattle.

“After a lengthy legal battle, the government reached agreement last month with Cody Wilson, a militant gun rights advocate from Texas.

He successfully argued that the US Constitution’s Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to private gun ownership, should extend to a person’s right to make guns at home — uncontrolled by authorities, since they will bear no serial number.

It means anyone with a 3D printer – which can be programmed to build objects of almost any shape – will be able starting next week to make plastic-bodied guns at home for just a few hundred dollars each. — AFP