Washington State Prohibits 3D Printed Guns

The Washington state legislature has passed a bill that would prohibit the manufacture or possession of 3D-printed firearms. In April, the Washington House approved a Senate amendment to HB1739.

The bill in Washington also makes it illegal to send printable gun files to someone who is otherwise prohibited from owning a gun. Governor Jay Inslee signed the bill on May 7.

“3D printers are becoming more advanced and more available to everyday consumers,” said the bill’s sponsor, Seattle Democrat Rep. Javier Valdez. “These undetectable guns pose enormous threats to public safety. This is one of those issues that requires lawmakers to be proactive before it’s too late.”

In 2013, the U.S. State Department took action against a website called Defense Distributed and gun rights activist Cody Wilson after Wilson test fired a 3D printed gun called the Liberator and released its blueprints online. The State Department threatened prosecution under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) statutes. Defense Distributed filed a lawsuit against the State Department, alleging its First Amendment rights had been violated. In 2018 the State Department settled the case, effectively freeing Wilson to provide the plans online.

Wilson relaunched his website and planned to publish open source weapons plans online. (Wilson officially resigned from Defense Distributed after being charged with sexual assault.)

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson originally requested the bill, and testified in January that it was directly aimed at Wilson’s Defense Distributed operation. In 2018, Ferguson was one of 19 attorneys general that sued the Trump administration after it settled with Wilson. A federal judge has since blocked the administration’s decision, barring the free distribution of the printing files. That lawsuit is still pending.

In his decision, Judge Robert S. Lasnik (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington) said that that plaintiffs have “a legitimate fear that adding detectable and traceable guns to the arsenal of weaponry already available will likely increase the threat of gun violence they and their people experience.”

However, the order only blocked Wilson from giving away the files for free online. He has continued to sell the plans and ships the files to customers on USB drives.

Ferguson (whose office has filed several dozen lawsuits against the Trump Administration), has stated that there was no study or determination made by government defendants in the suit that was settled with Wilson, and that the Trump administration failed to get approval for the settlement form the Department of Defense or provide notice to Congress. The ongoing lawsuit also claims the settlement violates the Tenth Amendment by circumventing states’ rights to regulate firearms.

The Federal Undetectable Firearms Act makes it illegal to manufacture guns that cannot be detected by a metal detector. Last year, New Jersey passed a law that restricted production of 3D printed guns and distribution of digital plans. California enacted limitations on printed weapons production, and the city of Philadelphia has banned 3D printed guns.

Source: The News Tribune