A Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday lifted restrictions on exporting blueprints for 3D-printed guns.
The ruling comes as the Biden administration has promised a crackdown on so-called “ghost guns,” or any homemade firearm without a serial number.
The divided Ninth Circuit panel lifted a court order against two Trump-era rules that make it easier to share blueprints for 3D-printed guns, Courthouse News Service reported Tuesday.
In July 2018, the Trump administration settled a lawsuit with Defense Distributed, agreeing to remove 3D-printed gun blueprints from the State Department’s list of regulated munitions. Defense Distributed released the specs online the following month, notably making any efforts to block the dissemination of the files futile, and therefore making Tuesday’s ruling effectively redundant.
The decision overturned an injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik, according to Courthouse News Service. Lasnik “had blocked two rules that transferred regulatory control of 3D-printed gun files from the State Department to the Commerce Department. The rules also removed ghost gun blueprints from a State Department list of munitions that require a license to export. Twenty-two states led by Washington state sued to prevent the rule changes from taking effect.”
U.S. Circuit Judges Jay Bybee, a George W. Bush appointee, and Ryan Nelson, a Donald Trump appointee, found that courts lack authority to review the challenged rule changes, the report said: “They found a 1976 law, the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, and its subsequent amendments forbid judicial review of State Department decisions on what is considered a ‘defense article’ subject to regulation.”
“The U.S. Department of State (‘DOS’) and Department of Commerce appeal the district court’s order granting the motion of 22 states and the District of Columbia to enjoin DOS’s final rule removing 3D-printed guns and their associated files from the U.S. Munitions List,” Judge Nelson wrote. “Because Congress expressly precluded review of the relevant agency actions here, we vacate the injunction and remand with instructions to dismiss.”
As reported by The Daily Wire’s Beth Baumann, President Joe Biden announced earlier this month his intention to crack down on “ghost guns,” including homemade firearm kits. POTUS, though, demonstrated his ignorance about firearms and their current regulations.
Biden, for instance, did not tell the American people what’s in homemade firearm kits and conflated the background check process for stripped lower receivers and “ghost guns,” Baumann detailed.
“These are guns that are homemade, built from a kit, and include directions on how to finish the firearm. You can go buy the kit. They have no serial numbers so when they show up at a crime scene, they can’t be traced,” the president said. “… Buyers aren’t required to pass a background check to buy the kit to make the gun. Consequently, anyone from a criminal to a terrorist can buy this kit and, in as little as 30 minutes, put together a weapon.”
“I want to see these kits treated as firearms under the Gun Control Act, which is going to require the seller and manufacturers make the key parts with serial numbers and run background checks on the buyer when they walk in to buy that package,” added Biden.
Baumann outlined some of the key facts Biden obfuscated from:
Although the parts kits can be purchased online, they are still missing the critical lower receiver. The person building the firearm needs either a lower they machined themselves (a “ghost gun”) or a stripped lower receiver from a manufacturer. Without that piece, the parts kit is not functional.
… Stripped lower receivers are treated as firearms under the Gun Control Act of 1968. Receivers are the “key parts” of a firearm. Biden is essentially calling for a regulation that already exists.