Lego to gunmaker: Cease making a Glock that appears like our toys
Gun firm Culper Precision has stopped promoting a brand new pistol personalized with brightly coloured block items after toymaker Lego issued the corporate a cease-and-desist letter.
Culper’s handgun, dubbed the Block19, is a personalized semiautomatic Glock firearm lined with crimson, yellow and blue Lego-like items on the barrel and the grip, giving the totally practical weapon the looks of a toy. Culper, based mostly in Provo, Utah, launched the Lego-style gun final week.
On Wednesday, Danish toymaker Lego mentioned in an announcement that it had requested Culper to cease promoting the Block19. “We have now contacted the corporate, they usually have agreed to take away the product from their web site and never make or promote something like this sooner or later,” Lego mentioned.
The product web page for the Block19 had been taken down from its web site as of Wednesday. Culper declined to remark and directed individuals to an announcement on its web site.
“We right here at Culper Precision are grateful for the eye that Block19 is presently getting throughout the globe,” the corporate mentioned within the assertion. “Plainly it doesn’t matter what we create within the firearms trade, anti-gunners appear to leverage each true innovation shortly after its launch to speak about why weapons are unhealthy.”
Culper additionally mentioned that it made the Block19 “to create a possibility to speak concerning the enjoyment of the capturing sports activities and the enjoyment that may solely be present in marksmanship follow and coaching.”
Shannon Watts, founding father of the gun-control group Mothers Demand Motion, drew consideration to the Block19 on Twitter final week. She known as the personalized gun “a recipe for catastrophe.”
The controversy comes amid document gun gross sales within the U.S., coupled with sharp rise in gun violence this 12 months. Individuals purchased roughly 23 million weapons in 2020, a rise of 65% over the virtually 14 million weapons bought in 2019, in accordance with information from consulting agency Small Arms Analytics. Gun gross sales are on tempo for an additional document 12 months in 2021.
A report launched in Might from gun management group Everytown for Gun Security discovered “a tragic surge” within the variety of unintentional shootings by kids in the course of the pandemic, as gun gross sales soared and extra youngsters stayed house from college.
Unintentional capturing deaths by kids of themselves or others rose greater than 30% between March and December of 2020 in contrast with the identical interval the earlier 12 months, analysis from Mothers Demand Motion discovered.
