A kit to cover Glock 19s in red, yellow and blue LEGO blocks has stirred controversy online, resulting in the Utah-based company that sold the custom modification removing the product from its lineup.
The 'BLOCK19,' sold by Provo-based Culper Precision sold for $549 to $765 depending on the specific modifications the owner wanted made to their guns. They are made with plastic bricks, that look like LEGOs, that are superglued on to the gun.
It was described as a way to exemplify the joys of shooting, mimicking the 'pretend guns' people made 'out of the LEGOS you got from Santa.'
'We have been building guns out of blocks for the last 30 years, and wanted to flip the script to aggravate Mom,' the since-deleted product description on the company's website read, according to the Washington Post.
'There is satisfaction that can ONLY be found in the shooting sports, and this is just one small way to break the rhetoric from anti-gun folks and draw attention to the fact that the shooting sports are SUPER FUN,' it continues.
'Guns are fun. Shooting is fun. Thirty rounds full auto is fun.'
Utah-based Culper Precision sold a kit to cover Glock 19s in red, yellow and blue LEGO blocks
The company posted about their new product on Facebook on June 24
But it soon drew backlash, with some gun owners calling the modification 'irresponsible'
The company posted about their new product on Facebook on June 24, resulting in backlash as it came amid a rise in children accidentally shooting themselves or others.
Ethan Jensen replied to the post saying: 'this is, without exception, the stupidest thins I've ever seen offered for sale. The folks who designed it need to get their heads checked.
Lisa Paulson wrote: 'That steps over the boundaries into being irresponsible.'
Kristin Song has been advocating for legislation that requires gun owners to lock up their weapons if a child could access them after her 15-year-old son died in 2018 after shooting himself.
She told the Washington Post that she thought it was a joke at first, but became upset when she realized the BLOCK-19 is a real product.
'How is this even legal,' she asked.
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, also said she thought it was 'sick' and that 'children would die' from the new product.
She tweeted about it on July 8, resulting in more people calling out Culper Precision on Twitter, even as some defended the company.
One user, @astrosteve, wrote that he was 'surprised by the amount of people defending this, saying anything from "It's the gun owner's fault if a kid gets a gun" to "We have a right to own guns and do whatever we want with them.'"
Phil Riggan, who said he is not usually opposed to guns, also said that 'guns that resemble cute children's toys are asking for consequences.'
And @littlellama mentioned how she once wasn't allowed to bring her 5-year-old's backpack onto a flight because it had LEGOs in it, that TSA agents said could be used to build a gun.
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, tweeted about the new product last Thursday with a link to a blog that recommended it
One user replied that he would 'totally buy' the modification if he were a Glock fan
But many others called out the company for creating a product designed to resemble children's toys
Some gun owners also seemed to be outraged by the kit, expressing their dismay in the comments section of a firearms blog that posted about the modification, recommending it to others.
One user, identified only as 'Chris,' wrote: 'This, if real, is the most irresponsible gun modification I have seen in a long time,' calling it the 'perfect fodder for the "Everytown for Gun Safety people,'" referring to a national anti-gun organization.
'Billy Bob' replied to the comment, saying, 'just because we can, doesn't necessarily mean we should,' while 'Mitch' said that he also thought it is 'clearly a bad idea to make a deadly weapon that looks like a child's toy.
'I don't mean to be judgmental,' he wrote, 'but I honestly struggle to understand how [or] why anyone would find this amusing in the slightest.'
Others, however, supported the idea, with many writing in the comments section of a firearms blog, which posted about the modification and recommended it to others, that it was 'super cool,' 'hilarious,' or a '10/10 meme gun.
There are no federal laws prohibiting guns from being made to look like toys, according to the Washington Post, and in 2016 a Texas graphic shop coated handguns with a Hello Kitty image before the company that owned the image demanded it stop.
And in March, the Washington Post reports, police officers in North Carolina found that a Glock with a 50-round drum magazine had been altered to look like a Nerf gun.
In 2020, there were at least 369 unintentional shootings by children last year, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, resulting in 142 deaths and 242 injuries
And so far this year, there have been 167 unintentional shootings by children, resulting in 64 deaths and 112 injuries
Meanwhile, there were at least 369 unintentional shootings by children last year, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, resulting in 142 deaths and 242 injuries.
So far in 2021, the organization reports, there has been at least 167 unintentional shootings by children, resulting in 64 deaths and 112 injuries.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Culper Precision's president Brandon Scott, said he had thought about how children might think the altered guns are toys, but it did not dissuade him from creating the kit.
He said he and his three children play with LEGOS all the time, and he keeps all of his guns locked up in his home, which he expected other gun owners to do as well.
He also said that if a child of one of his customers finds the LEGO-altered gun and shoots himself with it, it would be the customer's fault, not his.
'I know that in some places that there are laws in place for negligence like that,' he said, but he does not believe an adult who allows a child to access a gun, even one that looks like a toy and results in the child's death, should be held criminally liable for their actions.
He said he does not want the government 'regulating common sense,' and suggested that the 'pain and anguish caused by losing a child' would be enough of a punishment.
And if another child gets access to someone's toy-like gun, his or her parents, he said, could 'obviously sue.'
Scott also maintained that guns are maligned, and sports, like motorcycling, could be more deadly than the weapons - even though, the Washington Post reports, guns killed at least eight times as many people in 2020 than the number of people that die in motorcycle crashes every year.
But, eventually LEGO sent him a cease and desist letter, and a lawyer told him that the company may have a case against him if he kept offering the BLOCK-19.
He said he had sold fewer than 20 of the kits by the time he took the product off the company's website on Tuesday.
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