Utah custom gunmaker Culper Precision has stopped selling a custom Glock 19, jokingly named the “Block 19,” after receiving a complaint from toymaker Lego over the firearm resembling the popular children’s building block toys.
The Danish toy company reached out to Culper Precision after the Lego-style gun was brought to their attention by the gun-control organization Moms Demand Action. The group raised concerns the gun, made to look like a toy, could be mistaken for an actual toy by a child who found it unattended.
On Tuesday, Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts tweeted, “Last week, I tweeted about this gun meant to look like a toy last week and our organization reached out to Lego, which then sent a cease and desist letter to the reckless gun maker – he says he’s complying.”
A spokesperson for Lego told NPR, “We contacted [Culper] and they agreed to remove the product from their website and to not make or sell anything like this in the future.”
The “Block 19” no longer appears on Culper Precision’s selection of custom Glock designs, but the Lego-style design is visible through an archived link.
Culper Precision’s president, Brandon Scott told the Washington Post that he had received positive feedback from some of the company’s supporters, with comments calling the gun “super cool,” “hilarious” and a “10/10 meme gun.”
Scott said the original intention of the gun design was to share his joy for firearms practice and pay homage to the childhood experiences of his adult customers who made “pretend guns” as children “out of the Legos you got from Santa.”
As of Tuesday, a statement appears at the top of Culper Precision’s website, stating, “We here at Culper Precision are grateful for the attention that Block19 is currently getting across the globe.”
“While we are never in support of legislating personal responsibility, we understand that many municipalities have current laws in place to penalize or hold responsible those who fail to secure their firearms and allow unauthorized access to a firearm by juveniles or any other prohibited person,” the company added. “We would remind everyone that failing to secure a firearm of ANY color from unauthorized persons is irresponsible. There are many solutions for balancing safety and readiness for under $100 all over the marketplace.”
The company added, “It seems that no matter what we create in the firearms industry anti gunners seem to leverage every *true* innovation (block19 is NOT an innovation it is a fun safe queen) shortly after its release to talk about why guns are bad.”
The company statement’s concluding paragraph reads, “We built block19 to show all these new firearms owners that guns are not JUST for Law Enforcement and current or former Military, or the types that are prone to overt bravado that is so often portrayed on social media, guns are for EVERYONE, and we want to be the first to welcome new firearms owners from any personality type or political affiliation, if you own a firearm, you are our friend.. Whatever that may or may not be worth to you… if you are a human being that is alive and legally able to purchase a firearm we built this to be a welcome and a gesture of friendship and inclusion.”
David Pucino, a lawyer for the Giffords Law Center gun-control group told the Washington Post that custom firearm, including ones made to look like toys are “dumb” but also legal in most of the U.S. Pucino said New York state bans people from disguising firearms as something else, which could potentially make a gun like the Lego-style Glock illegal. Pucino said he doubted that many other states had passed similar regulations.
In 2016, another Texas company that specializes in making graphic coatings for firearms, caught media attention for a “Hello Kitty” handgun coating. The Texas company ultimately discontinued the design after complaints from Hello Kitty’s intellectual property owners.
