Can’t Stop the Signal: 2nd & 1st Amendment Triumph
“This is a humongous loss for anti-gun Democrat State Attorneys General.”
Here at GGD and our sister publication Freedom’s Lodge, we’ve been chronicling the battle over so-called “ghost guns,” better known as 3-D printing. If you’re not familiar with the story, the short version is that a company called Defense Distributed has been publishing plans online that, when programmed into a 3-D printer, will allow the user to manufacture their own firearm.
The practice of making your own guns is, in fact, perfectly legal and has been ever since Roger Bacon figured out how to make gunpowder–as long as the resulting firearm is just for your own use. The practice of publishing information online is perfectly legal and has been ever since the First Amendment was penned. However, anti-gunners have been working overtime to try to find a way around the first two Amendments to the Bill of Rights.
They almost got their wish when 22 state attorneys general sued to force Defense Distributed to stop publishing the 3-D plans. They initially won their case. However, given those pesky first two Amendments to the Bill of Rights, that case has just been overturned. Here’s what the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) has to say:
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The Second Amendment Foundation is applauding the Ninth U.S. District Court of Appeals for its decision to vacate an injunction obtained earlier in a lawsuit filed by 22 state attorneys general and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, against an agreement between the State and Commerce departments and SAF and Defense Distributed allowing them to post data relating to 3-D printing of firearms on the Internet. The case is known as State of Washington v. U.S. Department of State.
“This is a humongous loss for anti-gun Democrat State Attorneys General,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “They consistently attack Second Amendment rights any way they can.
“This legal debacle was led by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson,” he continued, “who became famous for suing the Trump administration in a series of partisan legal actions that cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
“SAF and Defense Distributed look forward to sharing technical firearms information with millions of interested people on the Internet,” Gottlieb added.
The Ninth Circuit panel remanded the case back to the district court with instructions to dismiss.
“I want to thank the National Shooting Sports Foundation for intervening at the Appeals Court level,” Gottlieb said. “Obviously, the intent of the lawsuit was to void the agreement State had with SAF and Defense Distributed via a final rule that would remove 3-D printed guns and files from the U.S. Munitions list regulated by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). SAF and Defense Distributed were not named in the lawsuit to avoid this becoming a First Amendment case. As interested parties, we tried to get the trial judge to realize this was about our First Amendment rights to exercise our Second Amendment rights, because we were convinced we would have won on that basis.”
Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Ryan D. Nelson noted, “Because both the DOS and Commerce Final Rules are unreviewable, the States have not demonstrated the requisite likelihood of success on the merits…Congress expressly barred judicial review of designations and undesignations of defense articles under the Control Act and of any functions exercised under the Reform Act. Accordingly, the district court erred in reviewing the DOS and Commerce Final Rules, and its injunction is therefore contrary to law.”
No retreat, no surrender. Give an inch and the anti-freedom forces will take a mile.
Thank you for the article,
Will this ‘ruling’ (always subject to another court getting involved) have any effect on the really ‘evil’ ghosts – them horrible terrible vicious 80% lowers? ‘everybody knows’ those are the ‘real’ bad actors since bandits are manufacturing them left and right and using them to murder (not) all sorts of folks.
These gun banning politicians and gun banning groups will not stop until they ban all firearms in America.
Back in the 1980’s, the gun banners wanted to ban Uzi’s claiming that every gang member and every drug dealer in America owned one (they probably watched too many episodes of Miami Vice). For one thing there wasn’t that many imported and they cost a lot o money. Customers would look at them in gun stores but didn’t want to pay the high dollar.
Next the gun banning politicians and gun banning groups went after Glock pistols claiming that they were made for terrorist to hijack airplanes. Are they serious? Now Glocks are used by most police departments.
Now the gun banners say all criminals and crime in America is because of “ghost guns”. Now how would they know this for a fact? They want to scare the average American with scary terms. The gun banners make outrageous claims like “it only takes 15 minutes to make a 80% into a functional firearm and one can make a 80% faster than you can pump gasoline into your car! What utter nonsense! To properly build a 80% one needs to use a machine shop with jigs. Do the gun banners really believe criminals are going to machine shops to build a firearm?
This is just another step towards regulating firearm parts, they want serial numbers on triggers, barrels, etc, and one would have to go through a background check just to purchase parts. Could you imagine the jam up of phone lines?
Plus the gun banning groups now propose a person go through a background check to purchase ammo.
These are the same people who a 100 years ago said “ban all alcohol” and all societies problems would go away. All that did was increase crime, start the mob and have bootleggers smuggle in booze. Even the politicians who voted for it would go to underground bars and drink! Now they want to ban firearms in America.
Most of these gun banning groups are funded by micheal bloomberg, george soros, the Chinese government, Russia, the U.N.
Durning WW2, Germany and Japan had plans to attack and invade the USA, but were afraid of “all those gun owning American’s”!
If they somehow banned firearms in Am9, how long do you think it would be before one or more foreign countries attack America?
Germany and Japan were NOT afraid to attack United States because of gun ownership. Sure maybe now another country would be wary of invading with so many armed citizens but logistics would have been more of a consideration than guns. You conspiracy peeps need to chill a bit. Sure be ready but Your side is just as intolerant as the other side.
Zack is a troll! Get him under a rock before the sun petrifies him.
Another Gottlieb victory. Thank you Alan!
Thanks for the invitation… Lookin forward to updates.
roger bacon invented gunpowder? that”s funny I thought the chinese did.
Everyone knows the Chinese never invented anything, they are very much like the Go’auld, they have stolen all of their technology and inventions from other countries and societies. Look at Chinese firearms, almost all of them are direct descendants of Russian or American patents.