WASHINGTON: A gun rights advocate is vowing to take his fight to publish online blueprints for 3D-printed firearms to the US Supreme Court, if necessary, after a court temporarily blocked the controversial venture.
A judge in Seattle granted the injunction Tuesday after eight US states and the District of Columbia argued that criminals and terrorists would use the blueprints to make untraceable, undetectable plastic weapons.
Cody Wilson, the founder of a company called Defend Distributed that has published the blueprints online, told CBS News 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 in an interview hours before the injunction was handed down by US District Judge Robert Lasnik.
"I will go to the appellate level. I will go to the Supreme Court. I will waste all my time," Wilson said.
The states acted to block publication of the blueprints after the Trump administration settled a five-year legal fight by permitting the company to publish its website Defcad.
The website was shut down by Wednesday, but blueprints that had been posted online before the court order had already been downloaded thousands of times.
In a message on the website, Defense Distributed made a public appeal for financial support "to uncensor the site."
As uproar mounted Tuesday, the White House expressed skepticism over the legality of Wilson's efforts, even though the administration had green-lighted the project.
"I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public," the president said. "Already spoke to NRA, doesn't seem to make much sense!"
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley expanded on the president's comments Tuesday night, telling reporters: "It is currently illegal to own or make a wholly plastic gun of any kind -- including those made on a 3D printer. The administration supports this nearly two-decade-old law."