Colorado Democrats are once again trying to Californicate the state's gun laws by aping several restrictions the Golden State has already placed on 3D printing and home-built firearms. In addition to SB 43, which would require background checks to be performed on the sale of every standalone gun barrel, several House Democrats recently unveiled HB 1144, which prohibits manufacturing or producing a "firearm, unfinished frame or receiver, large-capacity magazine, or rapid-fire device (firearm or firearm component) by 3-dimensional printing," as well as making it a crime to possess or distribute "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."
California is trying to enforce their own statute against Gatalog Foundation, CTRLPew, and several individuals (including 100 unidentified "John Does") for "making 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."
Matthew Larosiere, one of the defendants in the case and a Second Amendment attorney, has fired back with a countersuit, suing San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu and California Attorney General Rob Bonta to "to prevent the extraterritorial application of California Civil Code §§ 3273.61 and 3273.625 to Plaintiffs’ protected speech and lawful conductoccurring wholly in Florida."
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As we discussed in our previous coverage of California's lawsuit, courts have generally held that computer code is speech protected by the First Amendment, and I would argue that when it involves the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms it's even easier to recognize that criminalizing that speech violates the Constitution.
The countersuit filed by Larosiere on behalf of CTRLPew and Alexander Holladay points out just a few of the problems with California's law:
Plaintiff has registered many of the guides, photographs, models, and instructional materials he owns with the United States Copyright Office. Plaintiff fears that, because the deposit copies of such works could be obtained by a California resident from the Library of Congress or from the Copyright Office itself, Plaintiff will be unable to register any additional copyrights with the United States Copyright Office. As a result, Plaintiff has been forced to cease registering his works with the United States Copyright Office.
Because Plaintiff fears he is unable to register his works, Plaintiff loses out on his effective registration dates for the relevant works with each passing day. Because Plaintiff would lose the benefit of registration, Plaintiff has been forced to elect not to publish additional works. Because Plaintiff fears he is unable to register his works, Plaintiff is unable to enforce the copyrights relevant to his works.
Plaintiff is unable to enforce the copyrights which he currently has registered, as doing so would involve filing exhibits which would be available through PACER to Californians, and thus subject Plaintiff to further harm from Defendants. Plaintiff wishes to attach examples of some of his works as exhibits to this complaint, but cannot, as they would subject him to further harm from Defendants.
Under California's Kafkaesque law, even submitting these files as evidence could be construed as disseminating forbidden speech.
If Colorado (and other states) follow California's lead, Larosiere and his co-defendants would soon be forced to defend themselves in multiple lawsuits across the country, all for protected activity that took place outside of the blue states suing them.
Unlike bills in Washington and New York, Colorado's legislation doesn't attempt to outlaw 3D printers that can be used to print gun parts, and the term "firearm component" is defined as any "unfinished frame or receiver, large capacity magazine, or rapid-fire device", so it won't entrap anyone who uses their 3D printer to make a spring or a screw.
Still, the bill blatantly infringes on the right to build a firearm, which is an inherent part of our right to keep and carry arms. There's a long tradition of home-built guns that stretches back long before the ratification of the Second Amendment, ahd HB 1144 treads all over that right.
We'll be talking more about this bill and the other anti-2A measures introduced in Colorado this session on Thursday's Bearing Arms' Cam & Company with FASTER Colorado's Laura Carno, so be sure to tune in for the latest developments.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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