GOP senator blocks Nelson’s attempt to call for vote on bill banning blueprint release
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s attempt to call a vote on a bill banning publication of 3D-printed gun blueprints was blocked by a Republican senator Tuesday.
Nelson took to the Senate floor to ask for unanimous consent to take up his bill, signed onto by 21 Democrats according to the handwritten notes, which would have barred the threatened publication Wednesday of 3D printer plans that opponents say could be used to create plastic, untraceable guns.
Nelson’s request was objected to by U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, which stopped the bill from reaching the floor for now.
Last month, the Department of State settled a lawsuit against the group Defense Distributed, allowing the Texas company to publish 3D-printed weapons blueprints online.
New Jersey and a separate group of eight states filed suits on Monday in an attempt to block publication, and a federal judge issued a restraining order late Tuesday blocking any release of blueprints.
But when Nelson spoke Tuesday afternoon, the company planned to publish beginning today.
“Tonight at midnight, American national security is going to be irreversibly weakened because of the actions of the administration because [it] will allow the online publication of blueprints to manufacture 3D manufacturing of plastic guns,” Nelson said on the floor, according to a transcript provided by Nelson’s office.
Lee, in objecting, said he first saw the legislation “literally moments ago” and only briefly reviewed it.
But he added the fact the legislation includes the phrase “it shall be unlawful for any person to intentionally publish” “should attract the attention of anyone who's concerned about our First Amendment and other constitutional rights. … That ought to be concerning to us, to each and every one of us, Democrats and Republicans alike.”
Nelson responded, “There are many limits on our First Amendment rights of speech. You cannot say ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”
“Why in the world would you assert First Amendment rights to publish instructions to do a plastic gun that someone could take through a metal detector into a crowded theater and start shooting in that theater instead of shouting fire, which is clearly an understood limitation upon our First Amendment rights of speech?” Nelson continued.
Nelson also quoted President Trump’s tweet saying that allowing the publication of 3D-printed gun blueprints “’doesn't seem to make sense.’”
“I would say amen to that, Mr. President,” Nelson said. “But it's your administration that has allowed this to happen because after years of winning this issue in courts at every stage of litigation, the administration has surrendered to the crazed demands of a self-described anarchist who is going to put this up on the Internet.”
The weapons, he said, “could be printed anywhere in the world and, therefore, it can give national security apparatuses a great, great headache because they can't detect them.”
Nelson said he also introduced a bill to require every gun to have a serial number and to have a main component made of metal, so that it would be detected by metal detectors.