President Trump claimed on Twitter Tuesday that he had spoken with the National Rifle Association about 3-D printed guns and asserted that publishing instructions for making the weapons “doesn’t seem to make much sense!”
I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018
The tweet came just an hour after “Fox and Friends” ran a story on the attorneys general of eight states and the District of Columbia who filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to keep blueprints for 3-D printed guns offline.
After reaching a settlement with the federal government in June, a Texas-based company plans to publish the instructions for 3-D printing weapons starting Aug. 1. The company, Defense Distributed, settled with the federal government after fighting the Obama administration in court for five years. The Obama administration argued that publishing the instructions for printing the weapons was a violation of firearm export laws, while Defense Distributed claimed the State Department was violating its First and Second Amendment rights.
Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed the lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court in Seattle Monday and is asking the court for a temporary restraining order to keep the blueprints from going live on Wednesday.
“I have a question for the Trump Administration: Why are you allowing dangerous criminals easy access to weapons?” Ferguson said in a statement. “These downloadable guns are unregistered and very difficult to detect, even with metal detectors, and will be available to anyone regardless of age, mental health or criminal history. If the Trump Administration won’t keep us safe, we will.”
I’m sure Trump doesn’t like the idea of 3D printable guns. They’re easy to sneak past the Secret Service. Live by the gun, die by the gun, I suppose.
Of course, the NRA doesn’t like printable guns. They’re not sold by Smith & Wesson; Colt Defense; Heckler & Koch; and so on.
I guess Trump could not reach anybody in ATF (Alcohol FIREARMS Tobacco) for their opinion.
Before he checked with the NRA he probably called Maria Butina to see if she could come over to talk about it.
They morphed from a safety-oriented gun owners association to a lobbyist front for the gun manufacturers. Now they are morphing again to a political front organization for wealthy funders who (well, Russia at least) are more interested in sowing discord and destabilizing America.
Asking Smith & Wesson how they feel about the 3-D gun issue is so 1980s. The real question is, how does Putin feel about it?
“If the Trump Administration won’t keep us safe, we will.”