While there's been a whole lot of kvetching and whinging about so-called ghost guns, the truth of the matter is that they're a small minority of the total number of firearms found in criminal hands. What's more, the genie is out of the bottle on those. People who want to make their own guns illegally can and will because the information is out there.

But California's more urban areas--the places where the vast majority of the state's gun grabbers reside and rule--still think they can stop bad people from doing bad things with a few laws.

And when anyone tries to get around those laws, well, the get ornery about it, which is what led to a new lawsuit.

The County of San Diego and national gun safety group GIFFORD Law Center have partnered on a lawsuit against Defense Distributed, a gun manufacturing company.

The county claims the company did a bait and switch on an already banned product.

“They are profiting on death and they need to be held accountable,” said county supervisor vice chair Terra Lawson-Remer.

That's not what "bait and switch" means. "Bait and switch" is when you're offering a particular product at a low price as a means of getting someone into your store, only for the product to not be there. Instead, there's a competing product available at a higher price. The goal is to get people to buy the more expensive item.

That's not what's happening here.

But the term "bait and switch" is pretty well known among people, but poorly understood. As such, they use it to make it seem like what Defense Distributed did is even more nefarious.

Yet using the term improperly isn't that much different than what they're alleging Defense Distributed did, if we're being honest.

The county is suing the company over one of their ghost gun manufacturing machines. Lawson-Remer said in 2022 the county council voted to bring lawsuits against ghost gun manufacturers.

“And we are not going to be looking the other way we are going to come after you,” Lawson-Remer said.

A lawsuit filed this week alleges that for years Defense Distributed sold a machine called the Ghost Gunner, which allowed users to build ghost guns, otherwise known as illegal untraceable and un-serialized guns.

...

“But instead of actually discontinuing the distribution of manufacturing of death, they instead rebranded it,” Lawson-Remer said.

The Ghost Gunner became the Coast Runner. The suit claims it is the same machine with a new coat of paint.

The thing is, there's no law against rebranding your product.

What's more, the law that effectively banned the Ghost Gunner in California doesn't seem to mention it by name, meaning a rebrand isn't a way to get around the ban.

Officials claim that Defense Distributed marketed the Coast Runner at a gun show in Las Vegas, which apparently prompted the lawsuit. 

Maybe it's just me, but this is absolute nonsense.

Unless Coast Runners have been found in San Diego County and there's evidence they were shipped there illegally, then there's no evidence Defense Distributed did anything against the law. 

And there's nothing in this report to suggest they've done any such thing.

I've looked at other reports and there's nothing there, either.

What's happening instead is that they're suing someone based exclusively on their fear that Defense Distributed might sell it to someone in the county. 

This is a vexatious lawsuit and should be dismissed by the courts almost immediately. 

Especially since, under Bruen, the original Ghost Gunner should be perfectly legal.