BELLEVUE, WA –-(Ammoland.com)- The Second Amendment today joined several other organizations in a lawsuit against New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against enforcement of provisions in a 2018 law that criminalizes constitutionally-protected speech.
SAF is joined by Defense Distributed, the Firearms Policy Coalition, Firearms Policy Foundation, Calguns Foundation, California Association Federal Firearms Licensees and a private citizen, Brandon Combs. They are represented by attorneys Chad Flores, Daniel Hammond and Hannah Roblyer of Beck Redden LLP in Houston and Daniel L. Schmutter of Hartman & Winnicki, P.C. in Ridgewood, N.J.
The lawsuit contends that after New Jersey lawmakers passed the new statute last November, Attorney General Grewal censored the plaintiffs’ free speech rights by threatening to jail them or anyone else that violates a section of the law that criminalizes distribution of digital instructions that may be used to produce a firearm with a three-dimensional printer.
“This isn’t about firearms, it’s about freedom of speech,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “If Attorney General Grewal can suppress the sharing of technical information about the production of firearms components using modern technology, what else might he, or another attorney general choose to suppress at some future date if he or she doesn’t like it?
“Section 3(I)(2) of the law doesn’t criminalize conduct,” he observed, “it criminalizes speech, the mere act of sharing information. We are hopeful the court will recognize the Orwellian nature of this prohibition and conclude, as we have, that it is an unconstitutional abridgement of protected speech.”
The lawsuit notes that all types of digital firearms information are censored, including computer aided design files and other code or instructions stored and displayed in electronic format as a digital model. Under the law, it does not matter whether anyone actually uses the information, only that it is available and “may be used.”
“With so much media attention on 3-D technology in recent months, the public has a right to know what the controversy is all about,” Gottlieb said. “But Grewal won’t allow that so we’re taking him to court.”
About the Second Amendment Foundation
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
This guy with the turbine thinks he is or was elected king of NJ. I hope these organizations can put him in his place. As far as I am concerned his place is back on his magic carpet. As someone else said, I was not in the military to defend someone such as this guy. I was there to defend a Constitutional country.
Look at the NJ Attorney General, you don’t have a chance. I see that and it makes me sick to think I spent time in the service to defend our country.
OK, the legal system/Matrix is now 100% corrupted and acting in an ultra vires manner. It is run by and for criminals, therefore it has ZERO power or authority over us. Who can commit a crime and get away with it? You? Me? Can the actors, operators and agents of the legal system/Matrix commit crimes of fraud, theft and murder and get away with them? I say a resounding NO!! Now is the time to expose the legal system/Matrix for what it always has been a scam and a rip off of people who were too trusting of it to… Read more »