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A Utah company has stopped producing a kit that encases Glock handguns in Lego blocks after it was issued a cease and desist by the global toy company.
Culper Precision, based in Utah County, shared an image of the "Block19" on its Instagram account, calling the gun "a childhood dream come to life" and adding, “We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on, so there was only one logical solution," in a post shared of the prototype on June 24.
The weapon featured red, yellow and blue lego blocks, making it indistinguishable from a child's toy and was listed at a price between $549 and $765, with the company enticing consumers to buy the gun "made out of the Legos you got from Santa."
Lego was urged by gun control activists to intervene and issued a cease and desist letter demanding Culper Precision to stop producing the Block19.
Brandon Scott, president of Culper Precision, told the Washington Post that his lawyer advised him that Lego would likely have a case should he continue producing the Block19.
“They had a similar reaction to you,” Scott told the Washington Post's John Woodrow Cox. “Where it was like: ‘Is it wise to make a gun look like a toy?’”
A report conducted by the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety showed a 31% increase in unintentional shooting deaths by children of themselves or others from March to December 2020 compared to the same span from 2019, with millions of children kept at home and gun ownership reaching record highs during the COVID-19 pandemic.