“A U.S. judge on Friday rejected a last-ditch effort by gun control groups to block the Trump administration from allowing the public to download blueprints for 3-D printable guns, declining to intervene just days before the designs are expected to go online.” So reports Reuters.
Defense Distributed reached a settlement agreement with DOJ last month in DD’s suit against the US State Department over its requirement that the company cease distribution of the files due to national security concerns.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin, Texas, denied the request for an order by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence at a hearing, saying he would state the reasons for his decision in a written order to follow.
At the hearing, the judge said he was sympathetic to the gun control groups’ concerns but questioned their legal standing to intervene in the case.
Pitman, by the way, is an Obama appointee.
Defense Distributed’s suit against the State Department claimed infringement of their First and Second Amendment rights. Gun control groups and a range of media outlets have been sounding hair-on-fire alarms since the settlement agreement was announced.
The groups in court filings said not halting the blueprint distribution by a Texas-based company called Defense Distributed would “cause immediate and irreparable harm to the United States national security” and that of individual U.S. citizens.
“The stated goal of Defense Distributed is to sound the death knell for gun control,” David Cabello, a lawyer for the Brady Center, told Pitman during the hearing.
That really would be a shame, no? Defense Distributed is free to distribute the files as of August 1. That still gives the forces of civilian disarmament a little time for another futile and stupid gesture or two. Stay tuned.