Encrusting a Gun With LEGO Does Not Change Hearts and Minds, however It Does Attract Lawyers

We’ve realized the arduous method that sure poisonous mixtures set off such foreseeable hurt that they need to by no means have made it previous the drafting board. Medical recommendation and Lysol. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Facebook. Cops and surveillance toys. In that vein, in the present day we be taught what occurs when LEGO bricks merge with Glocks: Lawyers come knocking.

LEGO has despatched a cease-and-desist order to a Utah-based customized gun firm for “Block19,” which, in accordance with the Instagram promotion, brings “one of those childhood dreams” to life. On June twenty fourth, the corporate Culper Precision defined the motivation behind its deadly arts and craft: “We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on, so there was only one logical solution.”

They gleefully reveal that they simply glued some LEGO on there, and so they caught fairly good: “We superglued it all together and surprisingly it survived a little over 1500 rounds in full auto at Shootah this past weekend!” Another marketed perk is the power to construct further LEGO creations onto the gun’s physique, a basic grownup pastime.

Before the corporate eliminated the gun from its web site, the Guardian reports, it marketed the firearm for $549 to $765, effectively above its common Glock price ticket.

The gun additionally reenforces Second Amendment rights, in some way, they argue, in a blogpost following widespread criticism. “We are sick of the past 30-40 years of slowly capitulating our rights away in the fear of what someone who hates us for exercising our 2nd Amendment rights thinks about us,” they wrote. They added that they launched Block19 to liberate gun homeowners from the “fear of the loud voices on social media,” to indicate that weapons are “for EVERYONE,” that Block19 steps nearer to creating weapons “the great unifier.”

The Gun Violence Archive has found that in 2020, gun violence killed or injured 5,137 teenagers and youngsters—a spike from an already-horrifying 3,818 teenagers and youngsters in 2019 and three,547 in 2018. By comparability, FBI information reveals that 47 regulation enforcement officers have been killed by guns in 2019. Research by the Children’s Defense Fund found that from 2008 to 2017, weapons killed twice as many youngsters beneath age 5 than regulation enforcement officers on responsibility.

Yet whereas manufacturing weapons to appear like toys is in opposition to federal regulation, customizing and proudly owning a toy-disguised gun is authorized, the Washington Post reported. Earlier this yr, North Carolina regulation enforcement claimed to have found a gun disguised as a Nerf alongside 20 different firearms. The proprietor wasn’t charged for the gun however possession of mushrooms and hashish.

Gun violence has spun thus far uncontrolled within the U.S. that, in 2019, Amnesty International issued a journey advisory for guests to train “extreme caution” as a result of gun violence now quantities to a human rights disaster.

Related gun accounts that Culper Precision tagged on its Block19 publish appear to be pondering alongside the identical traces. A Toy Story gun (“for portfolio purposes only”). A Nintendo gun. A gun plausibly inspired by Toys R’ Us. Storm Trooper gun? A gun in front of a Marvel emblem.

Culper Precision additionally tagged LEGO on Instagram, maybe bringing the merchandise to the corporate’s consideration, if not a wave of disgusted gun control advocates. In a press release to Gizmodo, LEGO declined to touch upon the wedding of deadly weapons and their toys, however that they’ve requested Culper Precision to cease selling the Block19. “We have contacted the company and they have agreed to remove the product from their website and not make or sell anything like this in the future,” it mentioned.

While most commenters on the LEGO gun publish applauded Culper Precision for lighting the web on 🔥🔥🔥, others didn’t fairly see how gluing LEGO bricks on a gun makes a pro-Second Amendment assertion. “I support the second amendment, but this looks too much like a toy,” one wrote. “Is no one worried about a kid killing himself or others with it?”

Yes. It’s a gun.