California Sues The Gatalog, CTRLPew for Distribution of Code for 3D Printing Guns

The state of California has looked into the future of gun control in America and didn’t like what it saw. The state’s ability to restrict its residents’ gun rights is increasingly threatened by affordable, accessible 3D printing technology. Like other ‘usual suspect’ states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Connecticut, California long ago outlawed the manufacture of unserialized home made firearms, what they call “ghost guns,” a term designed to scare the normies that originated on the left coast a dozen years ago.

California has a law on the books that bans, “knowingly or willfully aiding, abetting, prompting, or facilitating the unlawful manufacture of firearms.” Laws like that have spread to other anti-2A states as well. Colorado has a bill pending now that would make it illegal to possess “digital instructions that may be used to program a 3-dimensional printer or a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine to manufacture or produce a firearm or firearm component.”

And with the recent change in control of government in Virginia, Old Dominion lawmakers are currently engaged in an anti-gun bacchanal of rights abrogation that will surely include similar bans and proscriptions.

Frustrated by the spread of 3D technology and their inability to nationalize their increasingly oppressive gun control laws beyond a few like-minded blue states, politicians in California have looked for ways to spread their tentacles into free America. They took a big step toward doing exactly that on Friday when Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed suit against two popular repositories of 3D printing files, The Gatalog and CTRLPew.

The suit alleges that because both Florida-based sites’ files are available to the oppressed citizens of California, they’re violating California law. The civil complaint, accuses the defendants of . . .

distributing computer code for 3D printing firearms and prohibited firearm accessories and for promoting and facilitating the unlawful manufacture of 3D printed firearms and firearm accessories …

Defendants distributed or caused to be distributed digital firearm manufacturing code into California to unauthorized individuals. At all relevant times, Defendants aided, abetted, promoted, or facilitated the unlawful manufacture of firearms in California, including by distributing digital code and associated instructions that are intended to and do enable the manufacture or production of firearms using a 3D printer into California.

The Gatalog and CTRLPew have dared to . . .

[make] computer code and instructions for producing over 150 different designs of lethal firearms and prohibited firearm accessories available to anyone with access to the Internet, including in California. 

The problem, of course, is that 3D technology is not only widely available, but easy to use. So easy, in fact, that even civil servants can do it.

As part of their investigation, the People used Defendants’ code to build a fully functioning Glock-style handgun. The People downloaded the code and instructions necessary for building this deadly weapon from Defendants’ website with a few simple keystrokes. The download was performed from a computer in San Francisco with a California-based IP address.

Oh dear.

Make no mistake about the intent of this lawsuit. It’s unadulterated lawfare, plain and simple.

Courts have ruled that 3D print files are a form of speech, protected by the First Amendment. Guns are obviously protected under the Second. California — not to mention the other anti-gun states with which they’re no doubt colluding — couldn’t possibly care less about the First or Second Amendment rights implications of the suit. The intent here is to overwhelm two small distributors of 3D gun files with a long, expensive legal fight and send a message to anyone else who makes these kinds of files available — you’re next.

As SNW contributor and Second Amendment Foundation attorney Kostas Moros tweeted . . .

They haven’t been able to criminalize digital gun files on a federal level like they want. So instead, they are suing Florida residents under California law to try to bankrupt them, and thereby send a chilling message: if you host these files, and a Californian can download them, you are next.

That’s an attempt at national censorship. It supplants Congress, as it de facto results in our tyrannical one-party state, setting national policy.

This is one of the most evil things California has ever done, and that’s saying something. It must be defeated. And even those uneasy about 3D printing of guns should be outraged by California’s end-run around Congress. As should the leadership of other states, particularly Florida.

– Dan Zimmerman, Shooting News Weekly