Opponents Try to Block Posting of Blueprints for Homemade Guns

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday granted a temporary nationwide injunction blocking a Texas man from online distribution of blueprints for 3D printed “ghost guns” despite a decision last month by the Trump administration to allow the posting of instructions for making the untraceable, plastic firearms.

Cody Wilson, a champion of gun rights and anarchism from Texas who has waged a yearslong legal battle for the right to post the schematics for making homemade guns, had said he would begin making the plans available following a settlement with the State Department ending the government’s effort to stop him.

But with just hours before an Aug. 1 deadline when Wilson has said he will upload many more schematics — including instructions for making AR-15-style rifles — alarmed public officials had accelerated their efforts to prevent Wilson from moving forward with his plans.

Attorneys general in eight states and the District of Columbia filed a joint lawsuit in federal court in Seattle on Monday attempting to force the Trump administration to prevent Wilson’s nonprofit organization, Defense Distributed, from making the technical plans for the plastic guns available online.

In a decision from the bench issued immediately after an hourlong argument by attorneys for both sides, Judge Robert S. Lasnik of U.S. District Court said the state attorneys general bringing the suit had to his satisfaction established “a likelihood of irreparable harm.” He said they had also established a likelihood of success on the merits.

Lasnik said in his ruling here were “serious First Amendment issues,” that would need to be worked out later in court but that for the moment there should be “no posting of instructions of how to produce 3D guns on the internet.”

The decision followed another legal skirmish in New Jersey on Tuesday afternoon in which Wilson agreed to stop uploading new files to his website and to prevent internet users in the state from downloading the plans until a full hearing in September. State officials in Pennsylvania won a similar temporary concession on Sunday.

“Cody Wilson backs down,” said the New Jersey attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, on Twitter. “The fight for public safety continues.”

Wilson’s website touts the arrival of “the age of the downloadable gun” on Wednesday. Critics say the homemade firearms, which can be printed without serial numbers or government registration, would allow terrorists to evade detection and could lead to the widespread distribution of these untraceable weapons.

The clash over public safety and Wilson’s claim of a First Amendment right to publish the materials has been brewing for weeks. But in a tweet Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump said he is “looking into” his administration’s decision last month to clear the way for Wilson’s actions.

Trump’s comments on Twitter underscored the competing views even inside the administration and raised the prospect of another shift in his administration’s approach.

“I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public,” the president said in the tweet. “Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!”

State Department officials in the Obama administration blocked the company in 2013 from distributing the downloadable designs for the firearm, saying it violated export laws that ban the distribution of firearms to other countries. Wilson sued in 2015, and the legal case had dragged on for several years.

But last month, the State Department reversed course and said it would allow the company to post the plans after concluding that publication of the schematics does not violate the defense export controls designed to keep sensitive military technology out of the hands of the country’s enemies. A court-approved settlement between the State Department and Wilson ended the legal case and gave Wilson the right to distribute the schematics.

The judge’s ruling Tuesday evening puts a temporary halt to Wilson’s plans.

“We’re disappointed,” Wilson said. “The law is clear. These plaintiffs just don’t have standing to challenge the settlement. You can’t unclose a federally closed matter. And I consider the matter to be closed.”

In the lawsuit filed Monday, the officials had urged a judge to block that decision, saying that allowing the company to continue posting the plans online is a threat to public safety and that terrorists could use hard-to-trace plastic weapons to evade detection by metal detectors.

“3-D printed guns are functional weapons that are often unrecognizable by standard metal detectors because they are made out of materials other than metal (e.g., plastic) and untraceable because they contain no serial numbers,” the state officials said in the lawsuit. “Anyone with access to the CAD files and a commercially available 3-D printer could readily manufacture, possess, or sell such a weapon.”

On Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning, alarmed Senate Democrats declared that Trump would be responsible for any injuries or deaths resulting from untraceable 3D plastic guns, and called on him to reverse the policy immediately.

“It’s his doing, it’s his responsibility and the blood is going to be on his hands,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “He can tweet from now until the end of his administration but the hard reality is that he can stop needless death and injury in America.”

Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., said: “Donald Trump will be totally responsible for every downloadable plastic AR-15 that will be roaming the streets of our country if he does not act today, because beginning tonight at 12:01 a.m., bad people can go on Instagram and get an insta-gun.”

Blumenthal and Markey were among a group of Democrats who announced they were introducing two separate bills related to 3D guns: one that would bar the manufacture and sale of any untraceable weapon, and another that would prohibit the online publication of blueprints for the plastic guns.

But passing gun legislation in Congress has proved nearly impossible and the House of Representatives is already gone for its August recess, which means no bill can be taken up until September. While the lawmakers said they are soliciting Republican support, at least one Republican, Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, said it would be extremely difficult to stop the proliferation of the weapons.

“This is a new technology which you’re not going to put back into the bottle, it is there,” Rounds said, adding that the smarter course would be to “create new technologies and utilize new technologies” — such as metal detectors that could also recognize plastic — in schools, airports and other public places.

It is not clear what Trump is prepared to do in the wake of his tweet. The president has been a staunch supporter of gun rights and has repeatedly said that he is the best friend of the National Rifle Association, which contributed about $30 million to his presidential campaign.

Dana Loesch, a spokeswoman for the NRA, mocked Democrats last week for concerns about the 3D guns, and said that attempts to regulate the technology would be “absolutely unenforceable.” The guns were “what the rest of us call freedom and innovation,” she said in a video segment posted last week on NRATV, the organization’s online video channel. Lawrence Keane, who handles government affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said that the gun group does not “see this as a significant issue from a law enforcement, public safety perspective.”

“It’s just not really at all probably or likely that criminals will spend the tens of thousands of dollars to buy a 3D printer, buy the material to print and spend the many hours, if not days to 3D print an object that doesn’t work and will likely fall apart the first time you try to use it,” he said.

But as he downplayed any effect downloadable guns could have on crime, he also discouraged gun enthusiasts from trying to print firearms themselves.

“As an industry, we certainly don’t advocate that hobbyists try to do this in their basement, any more than General Motors would encourage someone to go out and build a car at home,” he said. “If they want a firearm, they should go to a local, licensed retailer and buy a product made by a reputable manufacturer.” Defense Distributed officials have argued that they have a First Amendment right to post the blueprints for the guns online, and have characterized the government’s long-running attempts to block it as an ideological, anti-gun campaign. Josh Blackman, a lawyer representing Wilson, said in an interview that the state officials are demanding that his client remove documents that he has already posted online. He compared the case to other First Amendment cases involving the government’s attempts to restrain publishers.

“This is a huge free speech case. It’s the Pentagon Papers all over again,” Blackman said. He said he would fight efforts to prevent Wilson from posting his documents online.

“I don’t care what the president tweets,” Blackman added. “I will be in court tonight defending the rights of my clients and of all Americans facing government censorship.”

Wilson also dismissed the president’s tweet. “It’s a typical Trump tweet and doesn’t really show a grasp of the issue,” Wilson said in an interview. “Whatever.”

Wilson is a well-known figure on the far right, seen as a champion for both firearms enthusiasts and anarchists. But his efforts to distribute instructions to create 3D printed guns on his website could lead to divisions between the groups, said Timothy D. Lytton, a law professor at Georgia State University who has studied guns.

“This could be one of the first issues ever to come along that represents a wedge between two constituents that are very vocal in their support for Trump,” he said. “Gun enthusiasts are generally in favor of some sort of background check system, for law and order — they don’t want a free-for-all where everyone can get guns, unlike anarchists.”

Homemade firearms are not illegal, but all-plastic versions are. The Undetectable Firearms Act prohibits owning a gun that can pass through a metal detector unnoticed. Firearms commerce is more regulated. Dealers must be licensed and customers must pass a federal background check, although private sellers are sometimes able to bypass the requirement.

Due to congressional protection granted in 2005, gun manufacturers and sellers are largely shielded from liability when their weapons are used in crimes. But Wilson might be vulnerable to negligence lawsuits because he has presented himself as a purveyor of digital data, rather than as a producer or dealer of firearms, Lytton said.

Homemade guns predate computer code by decades. Consumers have long been able to purchase kits with unfinished, untraceable gun parts and assemble the firearms themselves.

The advent of 3D printers, the cheapest of which can be bought for a few hundred dollars, made possible the creation of functioning weapons with one of the printers, though currently only more expensive ones are likely to be able to reliably make the firearms. “This is a high-tech version of what’s been going on in the margins of the gun industry for a long time — looking for clever ways to market firearms that evade federal restrictions,” Lytton said.

Rep. Eliot L. Engel, D-N.Y., urged Trump in a statement on Tuesday to ask the State Department to reinstate the block against Defense Distributed.

“The president’s eleventh-hour awakening stretches credulity, and now that the software is online, it’s there forever,” Engel said.

A petition promoted by actress Alyssa Milano asking Congress to permanently prohibit 3D printed guns from being produced or sold garnered nearly 5,000 signatures by Tuesday.