Breaking: Federal Court Issues Nationwide Injunction Temporarily Stopping the Trump Administration’s Reckless Decision to Permit Online Publication of Downloadable Guns

Ruling Comes in Suit Filed Monday by Nine Attorneys General

NEW YORK – Everytown for Gun Safety, the country’s largest gun violence prevention organization, today applauded a ruling from a Washington State federal court temporarily blocking a company run by a self-proclaimed anarchist from posting its downloadable gun blueprints online in the form of Computer Aided Design files.

“Publishing blueprints for untraceable guns isn’t just dangerous – it’s illegal,” said Nick Suplina, Everytown’s managing director for law and policy. “Attorneys general from Washington to New Jersey have stepped up to protect the public, and already their actions are keeping us safer.”

The suit, filed Monday by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and the attorneys general of seven states and the District of Columbia, is asking the court to bar the government from lifting its prohibitions on companies publishing online blueprints for downloadable guns. The Attorneys General for Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Maryland, New York and the District of Columbia are joining Attorney General Ferguson in the suit.

The suit – which follows the legal roadmap first laid out in a legal action filed late last week by Everytown, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence – was one of several developments in recent days related to downloadable guns:

• On Tuesday, several members of Congress introduced legislation to protect the public from the clear risks associated with the online release of blueprints for downloadable, untraceable guns.
• Also on Tuesday, the New Jersey Attorney General obtained a court order blocking the website offering downloadable blueprints from being viewed in New Jersey.
• State attorneys general and city attorneys have also taken a number of additional actions on the issue in recent days, including more than 20 attorneys general who sent a letter to the State Department on Monday raising concerns over its settlement allowing a single company to publish online blueprints for downloadable guns.

On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump tweeted that he is “looking into” the issue of downloadable guns and that while he’s consulting with the NRA, publication of blueprints for 3D printable guns “doesn’t seem to make much sense.” To protect the public from this senseless situation, the president should direct the State Department to block any further publishing of the designs for downloadable, untraceable guns.

More information about downloadable guns is available here.