BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today joined Defense Distributed of Austin, Texas, in filing a federal lawsuit against Secretary of State John Kerry, the Department of State and other federal officials, seeking to stop the Government’s unconstitutional censorship of information related to the three-dimensional printing of arms.

The Government’s restraint against the publication of this critical information, under the guise of controlling arms exports, violates the First Amendment right to free speech, the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and the Fifth Amendment right to due process, the lawsuit alleges.

SAF and Defense Distributed seek to publish 3-D printing information at no cost to the public. Constitutional attorney Alan Gura of Gura & Possessky leads the litigation team, which also includes William “Tommy” Jacks, Bill Mateja, and David Morris of Fish & Richardson; export control counsel Matthew Goldstein, and constitutional law Professor Josh Blackman.

“Americans have always been free to exchange information about firearms and manufacture their own arms,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We also have an expectation that any speech regulations be spelled out clearly, and that individuals be provided basic procedural protections if their government claims a power to silence them.” Read more

At the same time, however, Cleveland, Ohio, a growing, vibrant city with good hotels, restaurants and a vibrant social life, effectively told the shooting industry they weren’t interested in their dollars. The City Council passed sweeping gun-control legislation, ranging from redundancies of state laws to local regulations described as a “revenue stream with new fines” that included requirements to report private gun sales to police, restrictions of firearms by anyone under 18 years of age without adult supervision and requirements to report lost or stolen firearms.

“In light of these developments,” blogged the NSSF’s Chris Dolnack yesterday, “NSSF can no longer consider the City of Cleveland a candidate for hosting an event as important to our business as the Industry Summit. Events such as the Summit require a significant investment of our and our members’ dollars and time for the betterment of our industry. NSSF cannot permit that investment to benefit a city whose current leaders will not in turn support our 2nd Amendment rights and the continued success of the firearms industry. “