With about a month until the 2019 legislature convenes on Jan. 9, the new Democratic House of Delegates majority leader is looking to continue the progress made last session on gun violence prevention by banning 3D and ghost guns in the state.
House Majority Leader Kathleen Dumais, D-Montgomery, said she will be introducing a bill banning the possession of 3D-printed guns — plastic guns capable of shooting live ammunition and made in a 3D printer — and ghost guns — nearly complete and without serial numbers — in Maryland.
Federal law already prohibits the creation of untraceable guns.
Dumais said her bill would provide legislative support to the legal actions already taken by Attorney General Brian Frosh.
In July, Frosh joined a lawsuit filed by Washington state’s attorney general to block the release of instructions for 3D guns to the public by Defense Distributed Inc., an organization that sought to distribute the digital schematics. A final ruling on the case is expected to be made this month.
“Obviously, the state can’t regulate the internet, but we can certainly indicate what is allowable in Maryland or what you can possess in Maryland,” Dumais said of the plastic guns. “They might be legal otherwise, but you’re not going to be able to create them or have them in Maryland.”
Specifics on how the ban will be implemented are not yet clear, but a draft of the bill would be available in the coming weeks, she said.
Mark Pennak, the president of Maryland Shall Issue, a Second Amendment advocacy group, called the potential legislation “absurd” and would represent a ban on “the possession of knowledge.”“No one has ever used it in a crime,” Pennak said. “It would cost far more to 3D-print (a gun) than
