Texan behind 3D-printed guns vows legal fight as White House endorses court ruling
AFP/File / Robert MACPHERSONEight US states and the District of Columbia have argued in court that the blueprints available online to make untraceable, undetectable plastic weapons like this single-shot "Liberator" handgun could fall into the wrong hands
A US gun rights advocate began gearing up for a legal fight Wednesday to be able to publish online blueprints for 3D-printed firearms, as the White House signaled support for a federal judge's decision to block the venture.
Cody Wilson's Texas-based company Defense Distributed had briefly made the blueprints available online, but Seattle-based US District Judge Robert Lasnik granted an injunction Tuesday to take the material down.
The Donald Trump administration last month gave permission for Wilson to publish the blueprints, but the White House said Wednesday the president was unaware of the decision and was glad it was being reviewed.
Eight US states and the District of Columbia sued, arguing the blueprints could allow anyone -- from a teen to a 'lone wolf' gunman -- to make untraceable, undetectable plastic weapons.
Wilson complied with the judge's order, but put out a call for financial support for the legal battle ahead, including a scheduled August 10 court hearing.
He told CBS News ahead of the injunction that he believes "access to firearms is a fundamental human dignity. It's a fundamental human right."
"What I'm doing is legally protected," he said. "I will go to the appellate level. I will go to the Supreme Court. I will waste all my time."
- President 'glad' for review -
As uproar was building Tuesday over Wilson's efforts, the president tweeted that making plastic 3D-printed guns publicly available "doesn't seem to make much sense."
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders elaborated Wednesday, saying the administration's Justice Department had acted on its own in granting Wilson permission to publish the blueprints on his Defcad website -- settling a five-year legal battle.
"The Department of Justice made a deal without the president's approval," Sanders said. "The president's glad this effort was delayed to give more time to review the issue."
Sanders also repeated the administration's claim from a day earlier that existing law already prohibits plastic firearms.
The National Rifle Association, the nation's most politically influential gun rights group, echoed that claim, contending that the 1988 law made the current 3D-printed gun issue moot.
"Regardless of what a person may be able to publish on the Internet, undetectable plastic guns have been illegal for 30 years," the NRA said in a statement.
But Wilson has gotten around the legal prohibition by providing instructions with the digital files for 3D printing his "Liberator" plastic gun that call for an approximately six-ounce block of steel to be affixed to the weapon.
Should those who print the gun follow those instructions, metal detectors would pick up the weapons, thus complying with the law.
But while users can build the gun, there is no way to ensure they affix metal to it.
- 'The debate is over' -
Late Tuesday, dozens of Democratic senators introduced legislation to prohibit the publication of 3D-printable firearm designs, a move gun control groups applauded. But some damage was already done.
Wilson's blueprints had been posted on Defcad before the court order took effect and had already been downloaded thousands of times.
"The debate is over. The guns are downloadable. The files are in the public domain -- you cannot take them back," Wilson told CBS.
Gun control groups nevertheless were relieved by the judge's decision, with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence calling 3D-printed firearms "nothing short of a menace to society."
"There is simply no way of telling how much damage has already been done by Cody Wilson's dangerous and reckless actions," Brady Campaign co-president Kris Brown said in a statement.
"This is a strong step and a clear victory for the entire gun safety movement, but we simply can't let up."
Prior to last month, Wilson had actually been losing his drawn-out legal battle, after both a federal district court and an appellate court ruled against him.
The US Supreme Court declined to take up his case.
But in a sign of his determination to continue the legal fight, a message on the Defense Distributed website made a public appeal for financial support "to uncensor the site."
European Geosciences Union/AFP/File / Mario HOPPMANNA handout photo provided by the European Geosciences Union on September 13, 2016 shows an undated photo of a polar bear testing the strength of thin sea ice in the Arctic
Planet-warming greenhouse gases surged to new highs as abnormally hot temperatures swept the globe and ice melted at record levels in the Arctic last year due to climate change, a major US report said Wednesday.
The annual State of the Climate Report, compiled by more than 450 scientists from over 60 countries, describes worsening climate conditions worldwide in 2017, the same year that US President Donald Trump pulled out of the landmark Paris climate deal.
The United States is the world's second leading polluter after China, but has rolled back environmental safeguards under Trump, who has declared climate change a "Chinese hoax" and exited the Paris deal signed by more than 190 nations as a path toward curbing harmful emissions.
The 300-page report issued by the American Meteorological Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) mentioned the word "abnormal" a dozen times, referring to storms, droughts, scorching temperatures and record low ice cover in the Arctic.
Here are its key findings:
- Greenhouse gas surge -
Last year, the top three most dangerous greenhouse gases released into Earth's atmosphere -— carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide -— reached new record highs.
The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at the Earth's surface climbed to 405 parts per million, "the highest in the modern atmospheric measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800,000 years," said the report.
"The global growth rate of CO2 has nearly quadrupled since the early 1960s."
- Heat records -
The record for hottest year in modern times was set in 2016, but 2017 was not far behind, with "much-warmer-than-average conditions" across most of the world, it said.
Annual record high temperatures were observed in Argentina, Bulgaria, Spain and Uruguay, while Mexico "broke its annual record for the fourth consecutive year."
Smashing more heat records, temperatures reached 110.1 degrees Fahrenheit (43.4 Celsius) on January 27 at Puerto Madryn, Argentina, "the highest temperature ever recorded so far south anywhere in the world."
The world's highest temperature ever for May was observed on May 28 in Turbat, western Pakistan, with a high of 128.3 degrees Fahrenheit.
"The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with the four warmest years occurring since 2014," said the report.
Last year marked either the second or third hottest since the mid 1800s, depending on which data is consulted.
In another alarming milestone, 2017 was also "the warmest non-El Nino year in the instrumental record," referring to the absence of the occasional ocean warming trend that pushes temperatures higher than normal.
- Abnormal Arctic -
Unprecedented heat enveloped the Arctic, where land surface temperature was 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 Celsius) above the 1981–2010 average.
Arctic temperatures were the second highest -- after 2016 -- since records began in 1900.
"Today's abnormally warm Arctic air and sea surface temperatures have not been observed in the last 2,000 years," it said.
And glaciers across the world shrank for the 38th year in a row.
"Cumulatively since 1980, this loss is equivalent to slicing 22 meters off the top of the average glacier," said the report.
In the Antarctic, sea ice extent remained below average all year, with record lows observed during the first four months.
- Record sea level -
Global sea level reached record high in 2017 for the sixth consecutive year.
The world's average sea level is now three inches (7.7 centimeters) higher than in 1993.
"I think of the oceans like a freight train," oceanographer Gregory Johnson from NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory told reporters.
"If we were to freeze greenhouse gases at the level they are today, the oceans would continue to warm and seas would continue to rise for centuries to millennia."
- Extreme rain -
Precipitation in 2017 "was clearly above the long-term average," said the report.
Warmer ocean temperatures has led to increasing moisture in the air, particularly in the last three years, causing more rain.
Climate change can also exacerbate extreme weather.
Some parts of the world suffered extended droughts, demonstrating that "extreme precipitation is not evenly distributed across the globe."
- 'Most destructive' coral bleaching -
Ocean warming over the last few years has been blamed for widespread coral bleaching, as disease spreads in this precious habitat for fish and marine life.
"The most recent global coral bleaching lasted three full years, June 2014 to May 2017, and was the longest, most widespread and almost certainly most destructive such event on record," said the report.
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