3-D gun group skirts law by selling blueprint files on flash drives

The blueprint files to print your own 3-D gun are now being sold — despite a ban issued by a federal judge.

Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed, a group that distributes the files necessary to print your own “wiki weapons,” held a press conference on Tuesday announcing the release of the 3-D firearm blueprints.

This comes one day after a federal judge in Seattle extended a temporary ban placed on the 3-D gun files just before they were to be released online last month. That ban, handed down in July, was issued after attorneys general from Washington and several other states jointly filed a last minute lawsuit against the Trump administration in order to stop the 3-D gun files release. The federal judge on Monday granted a motion to extend that ban until that case is resolved. The issue came to public attention after the State Department reached a settlement with Defense Distributed in June, paving the way for the group to release the files online. 

In a press conference on Tuesday, Cody Wilson announced his plans to sell the 3-D gun blueprint files on flash drives, which can be purchased on Defense Distributed’s website. Wilson believes his workaround legally circumvents the court order which blocked him from uploading the files online and freely distributing the blueprints.

Wilson is selling the files for a pay-what-you-want value, with a suggested retail price of $9.99. At the time of the conference this morning, Wilson claimed to have already received 400 orders. 

The gun rights activist compared his new 3-D gun distribution model to Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ album, which was released online in 2007, also under a pay-what-you-want pricing model: “I’m happy now to become the iTunes of downloadable guns if I can’t become the Napster,” Wilson said. 

Wilson is also opening the platform to users looking to sell their own files, with Defense Distributed taking 50 percent of the cut. 

Still, not everyone can buy the 3-D gun files. Due to the language in the court order banning international publication of the blueprints, the flash drives are only for sale to U.S.-based customers. Even then, Defense Distributed is blocking orders coming from states the group is referring to as “blue states,” or any state that imposed a ban on these firearms. 

Customers from those states are met with the above graphic along with a message: “Oops, you’re behind the blue wall. Your masters say you can’t be trusted with this information. Sorry, little lamb.”

The 3-D gun blueprint files, which can currently be ordered online, are shipped to your home on a flash drive, and include firearms such as the Liberator pistol and the AR-15 — the weapon used in the majority of mass shootings in the last 35 years.