Ever since Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) came out victorious in a deal with the Department of Justice to allow Wilson to post blueprints for 3-D printed guns, lawsuits have become rampant. Now, one Congressman is looking beyond the judiciary to squash 3-D printed guns once and for all.
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey) plans to introduce legislation that would outright ban 3-D printed guns, WCBS radio reported.
During an interview with WCBS 880’s Joe Avellar on Friday, Pallone explained why he wanted to introduce this legislation.
“The State Department under President Trump reached a settlement with Defense Distributed, which publishes, or wants to publish the designs for people to create these 3D guns. So that means as of August 1, next week, people – they could actually hand out or, you know, give out the designs, and people could start doing this if they have a 3D machine, and as you say, it’s largely untraceable, and you know, they’re making them at home or in the business, and you know, no one’s going to know what they are,” Pallone told Avellar.
The Congressman's main issue with 3-D printed guns is the lack of "monitoring" that the government would be able to do. He used an example of a person taking a 3-D printed gun on an airplane because they wanted to commit harm to others.
“I never doubt the ability of people that want to, you know, murder people or cause injury to find a way if it’s not traceable, frankly,” Pallone said.
According to the New Jersey Congressman, a flat-out ban seems to what lawmakers are looking at pursuing.
“I think we’re going to have to ban the design as well as the production of them, you know, on a machine. We might also have something about warnings, you know, that says that, you know, it’s illegal under federal law to use this machine for that purpose, so various things that we’re thinking up. But basically, it would be banned, yes,” he said.
Pallone said he expects to receive bipartisan support on his bill, which would be introduced after Labor Day when Congress comes back from August recess.