Toy company Lego has issued a legal notice demanding a gun manufacturer stop selling a firearm encased in the brand’s interlocking plastic bricks, which critics argue make it resemble a children’s toy.
The Utah-based manufacturer, Culper Precision, recently began selling its “BLOCK19” gun for between $549 and $765, noting on its website that “we have been building guns out of blocks for the last 30 years and wanted to flip the script to aggravate Mom.”
A Lego representative confirmed the cease-and-desist letter sent to Culper Precision to the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.
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“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,” the spokesperson said.
Culper Precision, in a statement posted on its website, said it’s “grateful” for the attention the gun has received because it provides the company with “an opportunity to talk about the enjoyment of the shooting sports and the joy that can only be found in marksmanship practice and training.”
“It has long been the expectation of the firearm community that each of us as responsible owners of firearms take measures to secure our firearms from ANY unauthorized person,” the company added. “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.”
This “Lego Glock” is an actual thing you can buy, build and shoot: “…honestly what childhood toy is more welcoming than a big ole pile of blocks:” https://t.co/wBXl5GP6an
Unintentional shootings among children have risen by 30% in the past year. pic.twitter.com/ZmQXiefOE7
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) July 8, 2021
Culper Precision President Brandon Scott defended the product in response to criticism from some, saying the Lego-covered firearm is “super cool,” “hilarious,” and a “10/10 meme gun.”
The gun has been taken off the store’s website.
Scott, in an interview with the Washington Post, said that he considered the downsides of making a firearm resemble a children’s toy, though it didn’t stop the company from pursuing the product development. He also said that fewer than 20 of these guns were purchased before the notice.
“There’s a lot of sports in the United States that are, in my opinion, a lot more dangerous than firearms,” Scott said, “and frankly, you know, kill more people on a yearly basis.”
The Lego spokesperson did not respond to additional questions regarding the legal notice.
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Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a group dedicated to ending gun violence, said she was “sick” when she first saw an image of the firearm and that she thinks “children would die” as a result of the product, per the Washington Post.
The number of unintentional shooting deaths by children increased by nearly a third from March 2020 to December 2020 compared to the year before, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. Overall, there were nearly 4,000 more firearm-related deaths and more than 9,000 additional related injuries in 2020 in comparison to the year before.
