The nation’s leading gun safety groups are asking a judge to block an online company’s plan to publish downloadable blueprints for 3D-printed plastic firearms, information that they say would open the door for people to secretly produce fully functional, untraceable weapons.
In a Thursday
filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Western Texas, the organizations questioned the federal government’s recent decision to settle a lawsuit with Defense Distributed. The settlement allows the Texas-based digital firearms nonprofit company to post its controversial gun blueprints online, which it will begin doing on Aug. 1, according to the Defense Distributed website.
Defense Distributed celebrated the decision, saying it would soon bring upon the
“age of the downloadable gun.” But in a letter to the judge this week, gun safety groups called the agreement
“troubling,” “dangerous” and “potentially illegal,” while claiming it could have a “significant and permanent impact” on national security and public safety. The three organizations ― the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence ― are now seeking an emergency injunction to halt the publication of the blueprints. They want the court to have additional time to consider their concerns. A hearing is reportedly scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
Shortly after the settlement was announced, the Brady Campaign filed a Freedom of Information Act, hoping to get additional details about the reversal. But those documents likely won’t be returned until after Defense Distributed reposts the blueprints online, at which point the gun safety groups say the potential damage would be “irreparable.”
“Part of what we’re asking the judge to do is to keep the status quo as it is until we can get more information about what caused the government to change its mind and to see if that’s proper,” said Gardiner.
“This isn’t the way we’re supposed to govern,” she added. “We’re supposed to govern by having open and transparent processes.”
Ghost gun technology has evolved rapidly since the early days of Wilson’s Liberator. Defense Distributed has already developed schematics for an AR-15 ― or technically for each of the dozens of components needed to construct one of the semi-automatic rifles ― which they
intend to make available to the public. With these blueprints, anyone with a 3D printer and the ability to follow directions could build their own military-style rifle without anyone else’s knowledge.
The surreptitiousness of DIY gunsmithing is a draw for some firearms enthusiasts. Defense Distributed has profited off and propelled the practice by
selling a $1,500 “Ghost Gunner” milling machine that can be programmed to construct individual firearm components out of metal to be assembled by the user.
Wilson has said his ultimate vision is to develop blueprints that will deliver working firearms even on the cheapest 3D printers.
“Anywhere there’s a computer and an Internet connection, there would be the promise of a gun,” he
told Forbes in 2012.
Wilson meanwhile seems to be reveling in the idea that his campaign could disrupt efforts to regulate firearms in the U.S. and abroad. In a tweet after the announcement of the settlement this month, he appeared to celebrate
the death of “American gun control.”
Wilson later told Wired that he was on the verge of unleashing a “Cambrian explosion” of digital content related to firearms. He hoped it could extinguish the current youth-led movement for stronger gun laws that emerged in response to routine gun violence and high-profile mass shootings in places like Las Vegas or Parkland, Florida.
“All this Parkland stuff, the students, all these dreams of ‘common sense gun reforms’? No. The internet will serve guns, the gun is downloadable,” Wilson said. “No amount of petitions or die-ins or anything else can change that.”
Over the past few days, congressional lawmakers have called for
hearings on 3D-printed guns, as well as
new legislation to block the release of Wilson’s blueprints. At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he’d
“take a look” at his department’s policy on sharing that sort of data.
But with Aug. 1 rapidly approaching, Gardiner said she’s worried the time to act is running out.
“We need to block this settlement from going into effect so that Congress can hold hearings and do its job as a check on the executive branch,” said Gardiner. “It’s unlikely that this all gets figured out and resolved unless there’s a delay of the settlement going into effect.”