text: Home / People / Federal judge orders stop to release of 3-D-printed guns
  U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik issued the order Tuesday after eight Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block the settlement allowing the plans to be made available online.
  "These 3D-printed plastic firearms can evade our detection systems and are a direct threat to our national security", Nelson said.
  The company's website says downloads will begin Wednesday, but blueprints have been posted on the site since Friday. "Under federal law it would be illegal to build a gun that's undetectable", he said.
  "There are 3D printers in public colleges and public spaces and there is the likelihood of potential irreparable harm", he said. The plans were downloaded about 100,000 times until the US State Department blocked it, claiming the distribution beyond the US borders violated laws on weapons export.
  Lasnik said First Amendment issues had to be looked at closely and set another hearing in the case for August 10.
  A Texas district court denied Defense Distrubuted's injunction request against the State Department, as did a US Court of Appeals.
  The Carolina Peace Center plans to hold a town hall on the issue next week.
  Ferguson is the lead attorney general in the multistate lawsuit that was filed in federal courts in seven other states, including NY and OR, along with the District of Columbia.
  "As a result of the Department of State's settlement with Defense Distributed, terrorists, criminals, and individuals seeking to do harm would have unfettered access to print and manufacture unsafe firearms", 21 attorneys general wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday.
  Public Safety Canada says it's closely monitoring US moves that would allow designs for 3D-printed guns to be posted online, but there are rules already in place to prevent unauthorized weapons from being made.
  "It just defies common sense and yet this is what the Trump administration has done", said Nelson, who is the lead sponsor of legislation to prohibit blueprints from being posted online.
  Defense Distributed's files include 3-D printable blueprints for components that would go into the making of a version of the AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle, a weapon that has been used in many United States mass shootings.
  President Donald Trump came under heavy pressure Tuesday to block blueprints for 3D printers to make deadly plastic guns, stepping into the dispute after his administration agreed to allow plans for guns that could be easy to hide and hard to trace.
  'I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public, ' he said. "Doesn't seem to make much sense!".
  There's a new front in the fight over gun control, people making guns at home with 3-D printers.
  "It is deeply concerning that anyone could have the ability to create untraceable and potentially undetectable deadly weapons", Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement.