Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Ruling blocks 3-D gun plans online

- MARTHA BELLISLE

A U.S. judge in Seattle blocked President Donald Trump’s administra­tion Monday from allowing a Texas company to post online plans for making untraceabl­e 3-D guns.

The judge agreed with 19 states and the District of Columbia that access to the plastic guns would pose a security risk. The states sued to stop an agreement that the government had reached with Austin, Texas-based Defense Distribute­d, saying guidelines on how to print undetectab­le plastic guns could be acquired by felons or terrorists.

U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik extended a temporary restrainin­g order, and his new decision will last until the case is resolved. He said Cody Wilson, owner of Defense Distribute­d, wanted to post the plans online so that citizens can arm themselves without having to deal with licenses, serial numbers and registrati­ons.

Wilson has said that “government­s should live in fear of their citizenry.”

“It is the untraceabl­e and undetectab­le nature of these small firearms that poses a unique danger,” Lasnik said. “Promising to detect the undetectab­le while at the same time removing a significan­t regulatory hurdle to the proliferat­ion of these weapons — both domestical­ly and internatio­nally — rings hollow and in no way ameliorate­s, much less avoids, the harms that are likely to befall the states if an injunction is not issued.”

The State Department had reached the settlement with the company after the agency removed the 3-D gun-making plans from a list of weapons or technical data that cannot be exported overseas.

The states argued that the federal agency didn’t follow the law when it removed 3-D guns from the munitions list. They said the government was supposed to notify Congress and provide a 30-day window before making a change to that list, but it did not.

Lasnik criticized the government for switching its position on the threat posed by the 3-D gun-making plans.

Up until April, the government argued the distributi­on of the guidelines “posed a threat to world peace and the security and foreign policy of the United States,” the judge said.

Despite those fears, the government decided that it only needed to restrict the internatio­nal availabili­ty of firearms up to .50 caliber. That’s when they reached a settlement with the 3-D gun company.

There was no indication the government evaluated the unique characteri­stics of the plastic guns when it considered deleting that category of weapons from the prohibited list, the judge said.

“Nor is there any reasoned explanatio­n for its change in position,” Lasnik said.

The federal government didn’t immediatel­y respond to a request for comment on the judge’s ruling.

A lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department had argued against the injunction, saying possessing 3-D plastic guns is already against the law, and the federal government is committed to enforcing that law.

But the judge said it wasn’t enough.

“While the court appreciate­s the earnestnes­s with which this commitment was made at oral argument, it is of small comfort to know that, once an undetectab­le firearm has been used to kill a citizen of Delaware or Rhode Island or Vermont, the federal government will seek to prosecute a weapons charge in federal court while the state pursues a murder conviction in state court,” Lasnik said.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson praised the ruling.

“Once again, I’m glad we put a stop to this dangerous policy,” Ferguson said. “But I have to ask a simple question: Why is the Trump administra­tion working so hard to allow these untraceabl­e, undetectab­le 3-D-printed guns to be available to domestic abusers, felons and terrorists?”

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a progun control group that has aggressive­ly fought the online release of the gun plans, praised the judge’s ruling “as a tremendous victory for the American public.”

Avery Gardiner, co-president of the group, said 3-D-printed guns “represent a supreme threat to our safety and security, and we are grateful that Judge Lasnik recognized it as such.”

The states suing are Washington, Connecticu­t, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Massachuse­tts, Pennsylvan­ia and the District of Columbia.

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