States suing Trump administration, company over 3D guns
Source: AP
Eight states are filing suit against the Trump administration over its decision to allow a Texas company to publish downloadable blueprints for a 3D-printed gun, contending the hard-to-trace plastic weapons are a boon to terrorists and criminals and threaten public safety.
The suit, to be filed Monday in Seattle, asks a judge to block the federal governments late-June settlement with Defense Distributed, which allowed the company to make the plans available online. Officials say that 1,000 people have already downloaded blueprints for AR-15 rifles.
I have a question for the Trump Administration: Why are you allowing dangerous criminals easy access to weapons? Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday. These downloadable guns are unregistered and very difficult to detect, even with metal detectors, and will be available to anyone regardless of age, mental health or criminal history.
Joining the suit were Democratic attorneys general in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Maryland, New York and the District of Columbia. Separately, attorneys general in 21 states urged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday to withdraw from the settlement with Defense Distributed, saying it creates an imminent risk to public safety.
People can use the blueprints to manufacture a plastic gun using a 3D printer. But gun industry experts have expressed doubt that criminals would go to the trouble, since the printers needed to make the guns are very expensive, the guns themselves tend to disintegrate quickly and traditional firearms are easy to come by.
Read more: https://apnews.com/0337401e6cf04ad8a84dcc2b96f9c6d2/States-suing-Trump-administration,-company-over-3D-guns?utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)on similar issues.
When the plans are published in book form will these AGs be calling for those to be banned (burned perhaps)?
Prior discussion of Pennsylvania's suit on this issue in LBN here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142121767
PSPS
(13,579 posts)The first amendment plays no role in this whatsoever. Nevertheless, their method of blocking this is problematic from a practical standpoint. I presume the best course of action here may be to have 3-d printer manufacturers block the 'printing' of certain types of things kind of like they do now with drones/geo fencing and copiers/currency.