20 States Ask Court to Vacate Final Rules for Transfer of Gun Export Controls

Twenty states and Washington, D.C., sued the State and Commerce departments and asked a court to vacate the Trump administration's recently released final rules to transfer gun export controls to Commerce. The rules, scheduled to take effect March 9 (see 2001170030), will transfer export control authority from the State Department to Commerce for a range of firearms, ammunition and other defense items. The lawsuit said the rules will create a dangerous lack of oversight over technology and software used for the 3D printing of guns, and violates federal “notice-and-comment procedures” and the Arms Export Control Act.

“The Final Rules are an illogical means of achieving the federal government’s stated goal of continuing to regulate the export and internet publication of Firearm Files,” the lawsuit said, referring to software used to print firearms. “The federal government’s own actions will make these illegal weapons widely available, undermining its ability to enforce its own law.”

The states said the rules violated public comment procedures because the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls and the Bureau of Industry and Security “failed to give adequate notice of the import of their proposed rules.” They also said the rulemaking is “contrary to the purpose” of the AECA because the rules do not improve “world peace and the security and foreign policy of the” U.S. The rules will exempt certain firearms from “any meaningful regulation,” the lawsuit said, and cause 3D printable guns to “instantly become easily accessible” within the U.S. and abroad.

“In actuality, the Final Rules are toothless: they contain significant loopholes that will permit Firearm Files to be globally disseminated with ease, implicating all of the undisputed safety and security threats the government has acknowledged,” the lawsuit said. “The Final Rules effectively deregulate 3D-printable gun files entirely.”

The states also said the rules “are the product of arbitrary and capricious rulemaking” and represent an “abuse of agency discretion.” The State and Commerce departments did not “meaningfully” consider “factors Congress identified as relevant to whether an item should remain on the” State Department’s U.S. Munitions List, the lawsuit said. The changes would drastically affect “long-established practice and policy regarding export control of Firearm Files,” the states said. In addition, the agencies treated the notice and comment procedure as a “pro forma exercise rather than an important information-gathering step that should precede an agency decision.”

Along with Washington, D.C., the states that filed the lawsuit are: Washington, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.