AG sues to bar online 3D printer gun plans
Attorney General Maura Healey is suing the Trump administration for allowing a website to post plans that let people print a gun with a 3D printer.
The lawsuit — filed in U.S. District Court by Washington, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Oregon and Pennsylvania — calls for an injunction to halt a settlement with the federal government allowing open source gun website Defense Distributed to post the files online.
“The federal government is trying to allow access to online plans that will allow anyone to anonymously build their own downloadable, untraceable, and undetectable gun,” Healey said in a statement.
“This is an imminent threat to public safety and violates the law. We have a responsibility to ensure that these files are not made easily available to the public.”
Defense Distributed in 2013 was stopped from posting the online gun plans by the State Department.
In 2015, the company sued the government, which relented recently and allowed the company to post the plans.
The company’s website says it will relaunch today after the settlement with the State Department.
The website says: “The age of the downloadable gun begins.”
Twenty-one attorneys general signed onto a letter calling on U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to back out of the settlement with Defense Distributed.
The letter argued the plans will let terrorists, criminals and individuals seeking to do harm have “unfettered access to print and manufacture dangerous firearms.”
“Some of these weapons may even be undetectable by magnetometers in places like airports and government buildings and untraceable by law enforcement,” the letter said.