US judge blocks blueprints for 3D guns

Decision a victory for common sense and public safety, judicial official says

CHICAGO - A US judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the online publication of blueprints for 3D-printed firearms, in a last-ditch effort to stop a settlement US President Donald Trump's administration had reached with the company on releasing the digital documents.

Eight US states and the District of Columbia, which houses the capital Washington, had filed a lawsuit against the federal government, calling its settlement with Texas-based Defense Distributed "arbitrary and capricious".

In a written statement, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, one of the plaintiffs, called the ruling "a major victory for common sense and public safety".

"As we argued in the suit we filed yesterday, it is - simply - crazy to give criminals the tools to build untraceable, undetectable 3D-printed guns at the touch of a button. Yet that's exactly what the Trump administration decided to allow."

The government had settled a five-year legal fight by permitting the company to publish its website Defcad - which founder Cody Wilson envisioned as a WikiLeaks for homemade firearms, called "ghost guns".

Those weapons can be manufactured using 3D printers or personal steel mills, and lack traceable serial numbers. At least one of the guns can also be made from plastic, which is virtually invisible to metal detectors.

The company behind the plans, Defense Distributed, based in Austin, Texas, had reached a settlement with the federal government in June allowing it to make the plans for the guns available for download on Wednesday.

As uproar mounted on Tuesday, the White House expressed skepticism over the legality of Wilson's efforts, even though the administration had greenlighted the project.

Deadly hazard

Trump tweeted that he had spoken with the National Rifle Association on the issue, and said the decision "doesn't seem to make much sense!"

The guns are made of a hard plastic and are simple to assemble, easy to conceal and difficult to trace.

"We don't agree with President Trump very much," Washington state Assistant Attorney General Jeff Rupert told Lasnik, "but when he tweeted 'this doesn't make much sense,' that's something we agree with".

During the hearing in Seattle, Eric Soskin, a lawyer for the US Justice Department, said they reached the settlement to allow the company to post the material online because the regulations were designed to restrict weapons that could be used in war, and the online guns were no different from the weapons that could be bought in a store.

Since the weapons "did not create a military advantage," he told the judge, "how could the government justify regulating the data?"

But Rupert said a restraining order would keep the plans away from people who have learned about the technology and want to use it to get around gun laws.

Hours before the restraining order was issued, Democrats sounded the alarm, warning about "ghost guns" that can avoid detection and pose a deadly hazard.

The company's website had said downloads would begin on Wednesday, but blueprints for at least one gun - a plastic pistol called the Liberator - have been posted on the site since Friday.

A lawyer for the company said he didn't know how many blueprints had been downloaded since then.

People can use the blueprints to manufacture plastic guns using a 3D printer. But industry experts have expressed doubts that criminals would go to the trouble, since the printers needed to make the guns can cost thousands of dollars, the guns themselves tend to disintegrate quickly and traditional firearms are easy to come by.

Afp - Ap

(China Daily 08/02/2018 page11)