Judge blocks release of 3D-printed gun plans
It may soon become legal for anyone to download instructions take print a gun on a 3D printer.
And the blueprints may become legally downloadable due to a settlement between the government and an Austin-based gun rights non-profit called Defense Distributed.
But a judge has stopped the release of the blueprints for the time being through a restraining order.
Lawmakers are scrambling to find out how to regulate what Democrats have nicknamed “ghost guns” because 3D printed guns have no serial number and are theoretically untraceable.
But a local gun safety instructor doesn’t think they will be completely untraceable or cause much of a security threat.
“Just one part of the gun is made out of plastic. you still have to use metal in it. And it still has to be traceable through x-rays, which is required by the ATF,” Richard Garcia, Safety Instructor at Sportsman’s Elite, said.
Gun-rights activists see “ghost guns” as a win for freedom and the Second Amendment.
“It begins the process of putting gun control on the ash-heaps of history,” Austin Petersen, a Republican Senate Candidate in Missouri, said. “As someone who fights against democratic socialism, such as I do, we’re literally taking away from government the ability to control the means of production.”
Austin Petersen is giving away a Ghost Gunner 2, a machine made by Defense Distributed, that mills gun parts.
However, gun-control advocates are worried about what this could mean for the future.
“I think one of the main problems is that this now going to stop any kind of reasonable gun regulation we have,” Lyda Ness-Garcia, an attorney and founding member of Women’s March El Paso, said.
But Richard Garcia, the gun safety instructor thinks it’s going to just be a trend.
“”We’re not talking about the compacts made back in the 1900’s still as a problem because they were popular when they first came out, but then they decreased in popularity because they don’t fire well, they’re not accurate, and they’re not practical,” he said.
