By Paul Lathrop | Contributing Editor
On the inaugural broadcast of “The Weekly Bullet,” a new weekly news and commentary video series by the Second Amendment Foundation, the special guest is founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, with details about the many lawsuits that SAF has filed recently.
High on that list is the legal action SAF and Defense Distributed filed against the State Department and the State of New Jersey. Defense Distributed is the company that developed the 3D printed handgun and gun parts, but this case deals exclusively with publication of information, not the actual production of a 3D firearm or parts.
“The Federal Government basically tried to shut down the plans that were given out on the internet that had information about how to make firearms,” he explained.
The State Department claimed that those plans were not legal under ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations). Previously, the State Department had allowed the sharing of the files after a letter of agreement with Defense Distributed and the SAF ending a lawsuit. However, the State Department was subsequently sued by several states, causing them to reverse their decision. Gottlieb explained that was the reason the State of New Jersey was included in the lawsuit.
Gottlieb was then asked about the spate of lawsuits filed by the SAF over the past few weeks.
“Our Director of Operations told me yesterday that Since Jan. 1, the Foundation has now filed 23 lawsuits, mostly in Federal courts and a few in State Courts, to protect the right to keep and bear arms across the country, and that we have a 24th suit ready to be filed any minute practically,” Gottlieb said.
Other SAF activities include recent lawsuits in Pennsylvania, New York City, New Jersey, and Louisiana.
“Part of our logic in all of this is that we are trying to load up the courts right now because eventually, these cases have to get to the Supreme Court for us to win,” Gottlieb said. “Mainly because a lot of the circuit courts and appeals courts have ruled against us in similar type suits in the past.
“We are reloading everything up now that we have a new Justice in the Supreme Court who we think supports gun rights,” he continued. “We wanted to give the Supreme Court an opportunity now to rectify some of the lower court decisions that have been wrong.”
Gottlieb expectes three or four more lawsuits to be filed by the end of the year, with a significant lawsuit possibly to be filed in January after a new law goes into effect.
The Weekly Bullet is a news program presented by The Second Amendment Foundation that airs on the organization’s YouTube channel and Facebook page every Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern time, 11 a.m. on the West Coast.
