Nationwide Order Follows Earlier Court Ruling in PA Case Filed by AG Shapiro that Blocks Access to 3D Gun Files by Pennsylvania Consumers
HARRISBURG — Attorney General Josh Shapiro, with eight other Attorneys General, won a nationwide temporary restraining order today that blocks the federal government from allowing the distribution of downloadable 3D guns online. The federal court ruling in Seattle came just hours before an August 1 deadline in which a Texas company was prepared to make 3D gun files available nationally.
“This is a tremendous win for public safety and common sense,” Attorney General Shapiro said tonight. “It is temporary – and we’ll be back in court immediately seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction. But this is a victory for law enforcement in Pennsylvania and throughout the country to enforce and protect our state firearms laws and our citizens.”
The national restraining order comes less than two days after a federal court in Philadelphia directed Cody Wilson and his Texas companies, Defense Distributed, DEFCAD and Ghost Runner to make their websites inaccessible to Pennsylvania users, and to not upload any new 3D gun files. The Pennsylvania case, filed Sunday by Attorney General Shapiro and his legal team, is active and ongoing. Attorney General Shapiro is joined in that lawsuit by Governor Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania State Police.
On Monday, Attorney General Shapiro joined eight other states, including Massachusetts, Washington, and others, in filing a multistate lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State, seeking a nationwide injunction preventing these 3D downloadable gun files from going online.
The lawsuit by Attorney General Shapiro and his colleague attorneys general argues that the State Department’s action to reverse course and allow the release of these gun files violates the Administrative Procedure Act and violates states’ rights to enforce their own firearms safety laws.
The public safety controversy erupted last week after Defense Distributed settled with the federal government following a lengthy litigation, allowing it to continue its ‘at home’ gun-printing business. Left unchecked, Americans would be able to download a wide range of actual, working guns, including AR-15s, and 3D print their own guns – without serial numbers and without being subjected to the background check system for gun sales currently in place under federal and state law through licensed firearms dealers.
Before today’s nationwide restraining order, the company, Defense Distributed, had promised that tomorrow – August 1 – “the age of the downloadable gun formally begins.”
“The harm to Pennsylvanians would have been immediate and irreversible,” Attorney General Shapiro said. “Defense Distributed was promising to distribute guns in Pennsylvania in reckless disregard of the state laws that apply to gun sales and purchases in our Commonwealth. Once these untraceable guns are on our streets and in our schools, we can never get them back. The nationwide restraining order we won tonight is an important step forward for states’ rights and public safety, but we will not rest until we permanently stop this company from moving forward with its reckless plans to make these 3D gun files available everywhere on the Internet.”
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