A company made guns look like Legos; toymaker told it to stop
At first glance, the gun resembled a toy, one whose building blocks were the ubiquitous red, yellow, blue and green Legos.
But beneath the surface of its colorful shell was something lethal: a Glock 19 pistol that had been customized by a Utah-based company that specializes in modifications to firearms.
The Lego Group, the Danish brand known for being fiercely protective of its intellectual property and likeness, recently demanded that the company, Culper Precision of Provo, Utah, stop selling the casing. The product, which was called the Block 19, cost $549 to $765.
The objections came amid intense criticism of the Lego-inspired kit by gun-control groups, which had warned that children easily could mistake the Block 19 for a toy.
Since the pandemic began last year, they said, unintentional shooting deaths by children had risen sharply.
“We have contacted the company, and they have agreed to remove the product from their website and not make or sell anything like this in the future,” Lego said in an email statement last week.
In a Facebook post, Culper Precision said it would comply with Lego’s calls for it to stop selling the product.
“We have decided to take the product down after some communication with Lego,” said the post, in which the company blew a kiss emoji to all the “haters” of the Block 19.
A person who answered the phone at Culper Precision last week declined to make available its founder and president, who told The Washington Post on Monday that he had received a cease-and-desist letter from Lego and that his company had sold fewer than 20 of the kits.
In a now-deleted product page for the Block 19, which it began promoting in late June, the company boasted, “We have been building guns out of blocks for the last 30 years and wanted to flip the script to aggravate Mom.”
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, which is part of the group Everytown for Gun Safety, said Wednesday that she was appalled by the product’s toylike appearance. “It’s just so dangerous and irresponsible,” she said.