SAN DIEGO (CN) — An Austin, Texas-based manufacturer of milling machines that allow people to build their own untraceable guns will have to face a lawsuit brought by the state of California in state court in San Diego after a judge on Friday denied its motion to transfer the case to a federal court in Texas.
In May, California — through the County of San Diego’s Office of County Counsel — sued Texas-based companies Defense Distributed, Coast Runner Industries and Ghost Gunner for making computer numerical control milling machines that allow customers to manufacture their own firearms without serial numbers, commonly known as ghost guns, which are untraceable and harder for law enforcement to track.
The state accuses the companies of specifically marketing the machines to Californians wanting to bypass the state’s strict gun laws.
U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Battaglia, a Barack Obama appointee, determined in his Friday order “California is a real party in interest, there is no diversity of citizenship and remand is required,” and additionally granting California’s request to move the case back down to San Diego Superior Court where it was originally filed.
After the companies successfully removed the case to a California federal court in June, they attempted to move the case to a federal court in West Texas where, they argued, the suit should have been filed because witnesses and the machines themselves are in Texas and the Texas courts were already familiar with the company because of other suits they’ve been involved in. They also argued that because the companies are located in Texas, they don’t share a common state citizenship with the plaintiffs, the state of California.
When plaintiffs don’t live or reside in the same state as the defendants in a suit, the case, if filled in a state court, can be moved to a federal court — a concept called “diversity of citizenship.”
The companies added that the state of California is not the real plaintiff of interest in the case. Instead, they argued that the Giffords Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control legislation, is the real plaintiff of interest.
The companies argued that the Giffords Law Center’s attorney “partnered” with a member of San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors on the lawsuit, making the San Diego court an improper venue for the case.
The Giffords Law Center is also engaged in a long-term litigation campaign against Defense Distributed founder, Cody Wilson, they added.
Battaglia didn’t buy that line of reasoning.
Not only did the defendants not argue how exactly the Giffords Law Center would benefit from the suit or how the previous litigation affects the plaintiff in the current case, he wrote, the center and an attorney for the County of San Diego’s Office of County Counsel are also obviously not the lead plaintiffs in the case.
“Defendants do not allege any facts to suggest that the partnership between the Giffords Law Center and San Diego County Counsel extends beyond the co-counsel relationship in any way to imply that the Giffords Law Center, rather than the State of California, is the real plaintiff in interest,” Battaglia wrote.
Attorneys for both California and Coast Runner Industries declined to comment.
In their complaint, California names Coast Runner Industries and Ghost Gunner as defendants, which it says are merely alter egos for Defense Distributed.
“Defendants flout California law with too-cute-by-half sales and marketing tactics. The Coast Runner is not a joke — it is an illegal device designed, marketed, and sold to enable its users to make firearms and to violate California’s gun violence prevention laws,” the state says in their complaint.
In 2022, Defense Distributed sued the state in federal court to stop the enforcement of restrictions on ghost gun machinery as well as a provision in one of the new California laws that was modeled on Texas’s controversial abortion law and that makes a plaintiff liable for the state’s legal costs in defending an unsuccessful challenge to its gun laws.
The company dropped the suit the same year, but the state claims that soon after a new company called Coast Runner Industries started to market the “Coast Runner,” a very similar milling machine to a product sold by Defense Distributed called the “Ghost Gunner.”
That’s not a coincidence, the state claims, because Coast Runner Industries is an alter ego of Ghost Gunner, and their milling machines are exactly the same.
Tools to manufacture ghost guns are specifically of interest to criminal groups, because the unregistered guns are harder to track by law enforcement, making them grave and urgent dangers to Californians, the state claims.
California recovered 12,894 ghost guns that were involved in crimes in 2022.
The state is asking a judge to order the company to stop violating gun laws, and to award the state damages and civil penalties for each violation of state gun regulations.