Shannon Watts of Everytown for Gun Safety is claiming victory today for shutting down the sale of the “Block19.”
Created by boutique firearms dealer Culper Precision, the Block19 is a Lego-inspired design, chambered in 9mm, that really functions.
The Utah-based company released the piece last month as a part of a PR move to get folks on both sides of the gun divide talking. Needless to say, it worked!
“We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on, so there was only one logical solution,” Culper Precision said in a Facebook post on June 24th, showcasing the gun.
“Here’s one of those childhood dreams coming to life, the Block 19 prototype, yes you can actually build Legos onto it,” they continued. “That RMR is comprised of miscellaneous pieces and a red lightsaber. We superglued it on and surprisingly it survived several hundred rounds in full auto at Shootah this past weekend!”
Watts probably had a conniption when she first laid eyes on it. Because she wasted no time reaching out to The Lego Group to encourage the toy bricks company to issue a cease and desist letter to Culper.
Lego carried out Watts’ demand and Brandon Scott, the president of Culper, was now faced with a potential lawsuit if he didn’t comply with the c&d letter.
Scott told The Washington Post this week that he would no longer offer the pistol for sale.
SEE ALSO: SIG Sauer Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight with the New Switchblade
“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,” said Watts on Twitter Tuesday, referencing Scott’s response.
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. Read the story here: https://t.co/hl5P7OKiVW https://t.co/SH4QbwHfPw
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) July 13, 2021
Though Watts believes she scored a big win for the gun prohibitionist movement, from the sounds of Culper’s most recent statement on Facebook, it appears she played right into their hands.
“We here at Culper Precision are grateful for the attention that Block19 is currently getting across the globe. We built Block19 to create an opportunity to talk about the enjoyment of the shooting sports and the joy that can only be found in marksmanship practice and training,” they said.
By taking the bait, Watts inadvertently exposed Culper to a range of potential customers that it might not have been able to reach organically while, in the process, getting an untold number of people to acknowledge that 2A rights are for everyone, not just those in military and law enforcement.
As Culper stated, “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.”
Shannon Twatts really is a annoying twit , and for the record I’d rock that.
You got to love it a new toy..lol
Call it the Loc-blok Then they can’t do anything. There are several companies that make blocks that are virtually the same as Legos. You can find them in almost every 99 cent and dollar store.
Dumbest firearms related product I’ve ever seen as is the entire premise behind it. It’s so unbelievably stupid that it’s offensive to gun owners with any kind of functioning brain……WTF was the manufacturer thinking?From it’s obvious attraction to children to it’s copyright infringement aspects it is a product and concept of warped thinking…All this idiot Lego thing did was make gun manufacturers look irresponsible and it gave more ammunition to the anti-gun loons to paint the gun industry as a bunch of ignorant profiteers who actively disregard the safety of the general public. Nice going morons.
Time travel back, stop the Suffrage movement, stop the creation of power steering and automatic transmissions, stop WW II that put women en masse in the workforce, and maybe, just maybe, women won’t be screwing up everything today.
Told this to my wife, woke up 3 days later.
Weapons are to be used on a firing range NOT on another human being. Those who own weapons legally know it. Only criminals, thugs, and illegal persons who have weapons illegally defy the law and shoot humans. Liberals, Socialists, and Communists do not want anyone but them to have weapons and they have armed bodyguards. Conservatives know the law. Liberals, Socialist, and Communists hate the 2nd Amend.
Your comment is BS! Guns were designed for killing, whether game or humans, not for range shooting. Range firing is simply an activity to practice for their true designed use. Killing a human must meet specific laws that also meet the requirements of GOD’s law, which includes self defense and acts of war; it can also include judicial punishment – a firing squad. The problem is not guns, nor is it the millions of law abiding gun owners, but is criminals and the judicial system that refuses to punish those criminals properly!
He could change the name to Mega Glock
“ Unintentional shootings among children have risen by 30% in the past year.”
I would be willing to bet they are including the numbers of innocent children shot on the street by stray thug bullets and trying to sway them towards accidental shootings in the home.
That is a complete false hood.
Seems like Shannon snd other DemoCruds may shoot their eye out with this. I Obviously don’t have a clue how an inanimate object, a gun, pulls it’s trigger to hurt someone?
If it looked a lego cannon would it be a bad thing , or maybe a long. Turd shaped like gun ???
Only adults can buy this gun. Sure it looks like something a child would want to play with. Kids are intrigued by any gun and there are irresponsible adults in this world. but should the fact that there are a few stupid adults ban this American from the right to buy one? I raised my kids to respect firearms. Ms. Watts has a right to her opinion and Lego has a legitimate gripe but I have the right to buy any legal pistol even if it is a goofy oddity that my grandkids would find fascinating. It’s a matter of personal responsibility.
BLOCK 19 IS A FANTASTIC IDEA BEAUTIFUL WEAPON FOR ADULTS ONLY WITH EXTREME KNOWLEDGE OF FIREARMS!! NOT A TOY!!? DAH!!
Colorful. Not a good idea, but some clown might want one.
There should be no law or government agency to forcibly stop sale of this gun. But being able to use your brain should prevent you from manufacturing or purchasing this gun. If people don’t buy it they won’t make it.
Brandon Scott, the president of Culper, may be the stupidist company president in the world.
Well done Mr. Scott!
Regardless of the underlying intent of the manufacturer, in attempting to bring 2 sides of a most controversial subject to the discussion table, a moot point since we are talking about one of our oldest standing foundation laws of this great country, I have to agree with the obvious nonsense of the idea. There has to be a sensible line drawn in the “legal sandbox” over which nobody is allowed to cross to prove a point or to cause a reaction against some concept with which they agree or disagree.
What were they thinking??? Next on the agenda might be a set of 9mm Lincoln Logs?? Or a fully functional .38 Special +P Hot Dog, [with or without mustard and onion, please]? I wonder how long it would take Apple to design and showcase their “New iPhone Desert Eagle” available in .44 magnum or .50 cal. AE? [WARNING! Please install earbuds before operating your iPhone DE in personal defense mode.]
We still have some remnants of our former “Democracy” intact and it is stupid moves like this which erodes at the foundation of our concept of laws as our forefathers meant it to be. If ridiculous ideas such as this Lego Glock are taken seriously, how long will it be before the normal aging process becomes a sinister act of “rebellion” against the Federal Government or a mental illness is “outlawed” and the alleged “perpetrators” are confined to some sort of “protective isolation” and treated as criminals?
And for those who scoff at my “fantasy” examples, there was a time in MY generation to stare at someone, [who tendered the idea of carrying around a tiny device which could be used to talk to anyone on this planet simply by entering a numerical code onto the small screen and waiting for 4 or 5 seconds for the recipient of the communication to switch their equally small device on to receive a real time message as it was spoken], and quietly walk as far away as possible from “that nut case” in total disbelief! How many readers can remember the “wrist radio” of Dick Tracy fame not too many years back? It was total comic book fantasy back then, now that same “concept” is the foundation of more major corporations than one could ever include in this message.
When the entire world may be facing a potential global food shortage and constant power outages coupled with more potential “accidental” experiments such as Covid, to affect each and every member of our human race in one way or another, it seems proper, in this old guy’s thinking, to set some priorities and FOCUS and FOLLOW THEM instead of sitting back, in our own “little worlds” of cheap disposable junk we call our “belongings”, and leave the worry to “somebody else” to deal with later. It is MY feeling that we need to start NOW because it may be too LATE to do it LATER!
Shanon Watts= Cant Understand Normal Thinker!
Hilarious! I had nerf guns as kid and now as a grown man I’ve carried a GLOCK with me at every second I stepped outside my house including mowing my lawn and get I’ve never shot anyone or even pulled my conceal carried legal GLOCK! So who exactly loses out, KIDS?! It’s a TOY and if the parents don’t TEACH them that or the kid like me doesn’t already know that then they are MORONS who wouldn’t be able to get a pistol at the LEGAL age of TWENTY ONE! I’m glad I went to this page thinking some off brand of GLOCK had been screwed over and this time finally good news as I was glad to see a kids TOY that surely almost nobody bought and I never heard of was the thing on the chopping block! Funny like a kid can’t take his normal bucket of Legos and build a really good replica which I think is almost as hilarious as the acronym you used above! FUNNIEST part is this MORON clearly black lady by the last name “Watts” THINKS she actually did something!!!!! I miss the eighties when I was born with no cameras in every morons hands who has nothing to say except negative shit that only takes pics of them at their best which that alone prices they are FAKE AS CAN BE since NOBODY has PERFECT hair days everyday, never gets sick where their puking into a bucket while sitting on the toilet at the same time like THEY REALLY DO BUT I NEVER SEE ANY OF THOSE DAYS!
“Created by boutique firearms dealer Culper Precision, the Block19 is a Lego-inspired design, chambered in 9mm, that really functions.”
you would be right if it was a toy. but its a real 9mm that shoots. covering it in Legos is a stupid idea. god forbid any kid gets his/her hands on it and shoots someone
Uh, Slim, ya might wanna go to the top of the page an’ read the article again, ya missed this one,
“Created by boutique firearms dealer Culper Precision, the Block19 is a Lego-inspired design, chambered in 9mm, that really functions.”,
or maybe ya just don’t understand the English phrase,
“— chambered in 9 mm —“, or the part about, “***** really functions*****”?
Oh and by the way, Jim, that “MORON clearly black lady by the last name “Watts” THINKS she actually did something!”, well she is one of Bloomberg’s minion Dem-tards and she can be dangerous if poked with a stick. She is also blonde, of white flesh, and has her own anti-gun blog and other boring things which I don’t care about but, Snookie, I am here to tell you that your reading comprehension really sucks! Ya might want to put down that nerf gun for a few minutes and read the article again, only sloooooower. And, if ya find a big word which you don’t understand, post it here and we will find someone to ‘splain it to ya.
bravo , foxtrot, delta !
Too many Damn Democrats and Rino’s are destroying our country…but God is watching!!!
So a company can’t make a gun to look like a toy, huh?
Well, toy manufacturers make toys to look like guns. That’s OK?
You f#ckin people need to get your sh!t straight!
If you haven’t realized that you give an inch you lose everything eventually you are hopeless and probably are in need of your 3rd covud booster shot.
One other comment, it is the adult firearm owners responsibility to keep Firearms safe and secure.
What about the pink, purple, and all of the other colors of the rainbow guns are colored now? They look like toy colors to me. Ban them? Air soft & pellet/bb guns look like real guns, ban them? Think about what you are saying and who is listening.
The definition of “Firearm” is about to be changed by the ATF and I will promise you it will lead down (1) road…….
It’s not that the gun looks like a toy; it’s that the gun looks like a patented toy. Kudos to Culper for a great publicity stunt, but if they ever really thought they’d get away with using someone’s intellectual property like this, they don’t have very good legal counsel. Make this to look like anything anybody’s got a patent on and watch the cease and desist letters coming in. Heck, start selling plastic blocks in various primary colors that are sized and shaped in a particular way — and stand away from your mailbox, because Lego’ll be there in force with cease and desists too. Patents have value, but only if you protect that property, and it doesn’t matter if the infringement is frontal or from a flank, or even from the rear; protection is all if you want to keep your patent. Like I said, great publicity ploy, but not much more than that, and not much to get upset about here. I hope Culper has other good products that people can evaluate and buy.
Last I knew, the patents on Legos ran out decades ago. The name is trademarked, but I believe the patents are long expired. Under US law, IIRC, a patent is good for 7 years and can be granted an extension of an additional 7. Colt and S&W ran into this in the 1800’s.
No, it is that a company can’t infringe on the copyright or trademark of others. It doesn’t appear that Culper Precision bothered to review https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-play/ and make an arrangement with Lego prior to production.
They stopped making candy cigarettes but that doesn’t seem to have kept people from smoking.
We even sued cigarette makers to pay fir those who get sick from taking up a bad habit.
You can’t legislate people from to bad things to themselves or others. People are born broken and this can be proved.
Cuz we all know those block19’s are being used in crimes all over
I love guns. I have taught my son, at 4, about each of my guns. I’ve taught him he doesn’t touch my guns unless I put it in his hand.
This pops up.
This wasn’t about bringing awareness that 2A is for everybody. This was about bringing awareness to his company.
As has been stated, this is stupid. Stood because we continue to trash people that guns are safe but should be treated with respect. This fool has got everybody talking about his company and the image in everyone’s mind is a child playing with a gun like its a toy.
Good work, Culper. 🤦🏾♂️
Found a storage box in the attic, the kids old toys and LO and BEHOLD !!! Their LOGOS !!!
Guess you know what I’m thinking already… NEW HOBBY !!!
Now let’s see… 1927-A … YEP, I got enough !!! WOO-HOO !!!
I heard crime went up in legoland 30% this weekend lol
Former military are one of the groups that Gun control groups are trying to ban from owning guns because of possible PTSD, Even if they were not in a combat situation
Lego has a good case simply because the gun is unmistakably using their components and it misrepresents the company. If this were a non firing toy it would be one thing, but a real gun made to look like a toy is dangerous. I’m glad others agree! Stupid idea.You wouldn’t give a 10 year old a real skilsaw either…
But you WOULD give a 10 year old child a LEGO skilsaw. Make a dangerous TOOL to look like the real thing? You’re an idiot.
Shannon Watts should change her name to Karen; and no, she should not be allowed to speak to the manager.
We expend a lot of time, effort, and money trying to tell people guns are deadly, serious tools requiring strict safety precautions. We emphatically tell everybody who will listen, “Guns aren’t toys.” And now – – this thing. Besides, Legos is an expensively protected brand name, so the company is absolutely right — and showed admirable restraint — in demanding cease and desist rather than launching an immediate and ruinous lawsuit. This “Block 19” should win a trophy for STUPID.
Yeah, this was a stupid idea and of course they got a cease and desist letter.
Guns aren’t toys, making a gun deliberately to look like a toy is a bad idea, and if I was a toy company who saw someone trying to do something like this, I’d send a cease and desist letter too.
They literally have no grounds for a cease and desist letter. The lego patents for how the fit together expired and this doesn’t fit into a pre-existing lego patent design and they are not using any trademarked logos. If megacorporations couldn’t bully the little guy into submission with legal threats that they can’t possibly the world would be a better place. Misusing those should be grounds for criminal charges that send the executives to jail for the rest of the lives in an ultramax prison. Same thing should happen to false DMCA claims. Prison for the executives for 100 years with a butt buddy in the same cell. If executives were ultimately responsible for the corporations actions and the corporations not treated as a “person” there would be a lot more corporate responsibility. Lets throw the government in the same thing. Bureaucrats should get the same treatment.
You still risk lawsuit if you make a doll that looks too much like Barbie or put soda pop in a can that looks too much like a Pepsi. Result is that Chinese slave labor sweatshops can make knock-offs and get away with it, but an American company can’t. Lego can, without breaking any laws, embroil this company in infringement lawsuits just for making something that looks like their product even if there are no trademarked logos on it. They might eventually fail, like H-D failed to stop the Japanese from making motorcycles that mimic Harleys, but this little gun company could never afford to pay lawyers to fight the suit. So I’m afraid they are over a barrel excuse pun.