San Diego judge blocks gear sales of a ghost pistol in California.

A judge of the Superior Court of San Diego rendered a decision which prohibits a company based in Texas of sales and marketing in California a computer to control by computer designed to make “ghost canons” not found, with the decision to mark the third important victory for the County of San Diego in the first stadiums of his trial against the company.

The county trial, lodged last May in the state of the state residents, of the accused defense distributed and of several bound entities a new name and painting on the striker of “Ghost Gunner”, which is prohibited from selling in California, and rather marketing and illegally selling the aircraft in California under the name of “Coast Runner”.

The county said that “ghost weapons such as those that can be manufactured using the coast runner feed an epidemic of armed violence across the country.”

On Thursday, judge Loren Freestone confirmed a provisional decision he rendered last week by granting the county’s request for preliminary injunction. The defense of distributed injunction bans of the sale or marketing of the hill strike “and from any other mill to a substantial control mill (computer controlled) in California”, pending the result of the trial.

“The people have shown that the defendants probably tried to escape the law by essentially reversing the Ghost Gunner as a runner,” wrote Freestone in their decision. “The Ghost Gunner and the Coast Runner share not only a similar name, but also a similar design, similar parts and similar features. The operator’s manual for the two products is also considerably similar, and the manual of The Coast Runner even refers to the Ghost Gunner using the initials” GG. “”

County supervisor, Terra Lawson-Remer, which defended the regulations of firearms safety, described the preliminary injunction of “a big step forward in our fight to hold the manufacturers of ghost guns responsible for the choice of profit rather than public security.”

Distributed defense lawyers and other defendants, Ghost Gunner Inc. and Coast Runner Industries Inc., did not respond to a request for comments on the judge’s decision.

The preliminary decision of the injunction – which occurred only a few days after the United States Supreme Court has confirmed a federal regulation on ghost fire arms – is the third notable legal victory of the county during the 11 months which followed the trial in partnership with the Giffords Law Center, the legal branch of the Fire Army Defense Group appointed after the former Revision of the United States, Gabrielle Giffords. was shot down and made a mass journey attempt. Lawy lawyers Law Center and Sullivan & Cromwell represent the Comté Pro Bono.

Last October, after the accused sought to move the case before a federal court in Texas, a federal judge of San Diego judged that not only would the case not be transferred to Texas, but that it would be sent back to the San Diego Superior Court where the County was deposited for the first time.

The defendants then sought to reject the prosecution under California’s anti-Slapp laws, arguing that the continuation of the county was illegal reprisals against the distributed defense for having filed a previous federal dispute against the State and for having exercised its right from the first amendment to freedom of expression by political advocacy. But Freestone rejected this request in February, judging that the county trial had not resulted from the political advocacy of the defendants or previous disputes.

All this led to the preliminary decision of the injunction, in which the judge concluded that the county “demonstrated a probability of success on the substance” of his assertions.

The county said in his trial that Coast Runner Industries “is only an alter ego of Ghost Gunner Inc. and the distributed defense” which was created shortly after the Defense Distributed lost a federal trial in October 2022. This trial challenged the Californian law which mainly prohibits the sale to make firearms.

The judge agreed with the county’s complaint, noting that the founder of Defense Distributed and Ghost Gunner also incorporated Coast Runner and that shortly after the Defense distributed his federal trial. “The timing reasonably suggests that Coast Runner … was intended for the end of the law,” wrote Freestone, adding that Coast Runner’s marketing equipment also showed its clear ties with the distributed defense and Ghost Gunner.

“The Ghost Gunner website also said that buyers in California would receive a coastal runner instead of a ghost artilleryman,” wrote Freestone. “This connects them reasonably to the sale and distribution of the product.”

The judge also noted in his order that the defendants argued that the Coast Runner system was not intended mainly for the manufacture of firearms, as it is classified by the American Ministry of Commerce as a machine for general use. “But the Ghost Gunner is also classified in this way, and there is no real dispute that the Ghost Gunner is intended for the manufacture of firearms,” ​​said the judge.

The defendants also argued, according to the judge, that the laws of the states they are accused of violation are not legal under the second amendment. The judge ruled that California’s laws prohibit CNC flip -flops likely do not violate the second amendment, in part because the coast runner is not an “arm” protected by this amendment.

“It is not, itself, a weapon,” wrote Freestone. “It is rather a machine that can be used to make a type of weapon.”

The term ghost pistol can refer to weapons manufactured in various ways, whether from a CNC mill, a 3D printer or assembled by hand from parts in a prepacké kit. The determining factor is that they do not have standard numbers, which makes them difficult to follow for the police and therefore attractive for criminals or people who are otherwise prohibited from having firearms.

The county argued in his trial that the proliferation of ghost cannons in California was dramatic. Citing a report in 2023 of the California Office of Gun Violence Prevention, he said that in 2015, the authorities in California recovered 26 ghost cannons in connection with crimes, but in 2022, this number had skyrocketed at 12,894.

Esther Sanchez-Gomez, Director of Disputes of Giffords Law Center, praised the injunction decision as a “major firearm security” and Californian citizens.

“We … we are impatient to do the injunction published today permanent,” said Sanchez-Gomez in a press release.

The trial brought by last year’s county was the first civil dispute of this type undertaken by the county since the Council of Supervisors agreed in 2022 to pursue shooters.

Originally published: April 5, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.