On Monday, nine attorneys general, including Maryland’s Brian Frosh, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to prevent a Texas-based company from publishing blueprints for 3D-printed guns online. This would allow the downloadable guns for unlimited public distribution in any form.

The suit filed in Seattle asks a judge to block Defense Distributed from releasing the plans for the hard to trace guns, which officials say has already been downloaded by 1,000 people. A recent settlement between Defense Distributed and the U.S. State Department will allow people to avoid background checks by using 3D printers to make their own guns at home.

“This proposal for someone to put plans up on the internet for guns to be printed on a 3D printer is extremely dangerous,” Frosh said. “The guns are untraceable because they don’t have serial numbers, and they’re undetectable in metal detectors, and it makes protecting people in Maryland more difficult.”

Last month, the Texas-based company gained authorization from the State Department to post instructions for plastic firearms—which fire conventional bullets—including a single-shot pistol called “The Liberator,” an AR-15 lower receiver, and a complete Beretta M9 handgun.

Cody Wilson, the founder of Defense Distributed who has been fighting for his right to post blueprints since 2013, says he’s not concerned about the lawsuit against his company. In fact, last week a federal judge in Texas denied a motion for a temporary restraining order filed by gun control advocacy groups against the company to halt the distribution of the plans online—the same restraining order that is being requested through this new lawsuit.

“If you want your second amendment online, this is the fight,” Wilson said on Twitter. “Join Me.”

The most recent lawsuit was filed by the attorney general of Washington State, Bob Ferguson, who said, “If the Trump administration won’t keep us safe, we will.” Along with Washington and Maryland, other states joining the suit include California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.

The document states: “Anyone with access to the [Computer Aided Design] files and a commercially available 3D printer could readily manufacture, possess, or sell such a weapon—even those persons statutorily ineligible to possess firearms, including violent felons, the mentally ill, and persons subject to protection and no-contact orders.”

In Maryland, there are laws in place for those who wish to purchase a gun—including fingerprinting, extensive background checks, and a waiting period—but Frosh says that the ability to download and create a firearm completely destabilizes those laws. In light of this, he has signed a letter from 20 other attorneys general to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressing concerns over the federal government’s recent settlement with Defense Distributed and urging them to withdraw from the settlement.

“It’s shocking that the federal government would just allow this,” Frosh says. “It’s not just dangerous for the people, it’s dangerous for the government. Every criminal that wants to stick up a 7-Eleven or commit a murder can download the file and create their own gun. It completely undermines the law enforcement system we have in place.”

President Trump said on Monday in a tweet that the guns themselves didn’t “seem to make much sense” and that he was speaking with the National Rifle Association (NRA) about the matter.

Frosh anticipates a hearing to take place today for a temporary restraining order to stop Defense Distributed from posting those instructions online.

“We’re going to do everything we possibly can to stop this from happening,” Frosh said.

Whether we admit it or not, we’ve always secretly wanted our own action figures. Now, thanks to a Maryland-based company and 3D technology, these lifelike figurines aren’t just for action movie stars anymore.

GoFigure 3D Photography allows families to capture their memories in 3D by using a full body scanner equipped with 89 cameras that capture a 360-degree image. The finished product is a miniature, lifelike figurine of your family members—furry ones included. 

“I really feel like it’s the new picture,” said Lara Thornton, owner of GoFigure, which launched in Calvert County in October. “It is a keepsake. Some people take to it right away and love it. I think others will eventually come around to it because I see it being the new norm—having statues of yourself.”

Thornton came up with the idea after a family vacation in Key West, Florida. They wanted to take a family portrait to commemorate the trip and stumbled across a 3D print shop. Her 14-year-old, who is the company’s go-to IT guy, thought the 3D portrait would be better than the standard vacation picture. Once she was back in Maryland, Thornton says she couldn’t get the 3D print shop out of her head.

“It was a novelty that no one had really seen, and we loved it,” she said. “I immediately started researching the technology and thinking of different ways I could put it to use.” 

Since the company’s launch, Thornton has been marketing the business to various nonprofits and charities that she’s worked with through her children’s school and has also been attending events to build up her clientele.

“I spent a lot of my time explaining what it is, really,” she said. “It’s hard. You need to see a picture or a video of it to really understand what it is. I have a mobile scanner, so I take it to conventions so curious customers can see it in action.”

The process is simple, and it only takes a few seconds. A person or group of up to four people stand in the scanner in whatever poses they choose. The machine flashes twice—once to capture the image, another to display a grid, which identifies everything from clothing details to facial expressions. After a few poses, the customer can preview the scan before ordering the 3D printout.

“We can cover up tattoos, scars, or bandages,” she said. “We can even add things that aren’t there if they so choose. The customer has the freedom to make sure they figurine is exactly what they want.” 

Once the scans are completed and approved, they are sent to a third party to be printed on sandstone. The 3D prints vary in size from 3-inch busts to 14-inch figurines with prices ranging from $48-165, respectively. Her most products are called milestones where they measure a child and make it proportionate to the size of the figurine with the hope that the family will come back in subsequent years to capture the child’s growth at different ages.

“Wouldn’t you love to capture your child at every age in more than just a photo?” she asks. “This technology is amazing. This keepsake is a way to see the growth of your children from the age of five to adulthood.”

Some people jiggle their leg—others click their pens or doodle in their notepads. Fidgeting and finding outlets to control these ticks aren’t new, but there is a trendy toy that has spun its way into the hands of consumers everywhere to help channel these urges. 

A fidget spinner is a palm-sized toy that has a central core and usually 2-3 propeller-like blades that users can spin with two fingers. The kid’s toy is said to relieve nervous energy, even calming ADHD and psychological stress.

“They really came fast out of nowhere,” said Flora Stelzer, co-owner of Shananigans Toy Shop in Roland Park, whose original supply of fidget spinners didn’t last long before they had to order more. “We would get 10 phone calls a day from people asking us to look for them. We had kids line up after school waiting for them.”

Stelzer says the popularity started for her store in April, when kids ages 6-14 would ask for the toy in high demand.

But, in reality, the origin for the fidget spinner dates back further. While there is no clear inventor of the product, Catherine Hettinger is cited as being the creator of the toy by The New York Times and The Guardian because of a “spinning toy” she got a patent for in 1997. But Hettinger acknowledges that there is no concrete connection between her own invention and the fidget spinner.

The little gadget has taken over the Internet and is sold by everywhere from Amazon to street vendors. Videos of fidget spinner tricks have gone viral, with one YouTube video garnering more than 42 million views.

Unlike most toys that have had their five minutes of fame (think slime or hoverboards), these spinners claim to actually be helpful to users rather than solely existing for entertainment. 

Dr. Pilar Trelles, a psychiatrist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, acknowledges the benefits in an interview with health.com and encourages using gadgets like this along with actual treatments. Trelles admits that the effectiveness of these spinners depend on each individuals place on anxiety/autism/ADHD spectrums, so it won’t work for everyone. 

One post on Amazon furthers this and claims that they can be “helpful for anxiety, focusing, ADHD, autism, quitting bad habits, staying awake. Definitely a blessing for someone with a nervous disorder where keeping the hands busy is a symptom.”

While fidget spinners have primarily been used as entertainment or an anxiety reducer, they can also be a source of scientific inspiration. Such is the case for artist C. Harvey, the mobile maker manager at Open Works in Greenmount West.

Coming from an engineering background, Harvey noticed that there weren’t enough high quality and relevant STEM programs for black youth so she wanted to introduce 3D printing technology, in a way that was non-intimidating and relatable to their lives.

“These kids don’t relate to making sailboats or robots, so I asked them what they would want to invent if they had 5 million dollars and they said fidget spinners,” Harvey said.

So with 3D printing pens in hand, Harvey went over to a local recreation center to meet with kids K-8 and that’s exactly what they did. The kids were excited to make their own spinners, and learned a lot about how to use advanced technology the entire time.

With that said, not everyone has such a positive attitude towards these toys. Though many find the spinning to be calming, others find the spinning to be incredibly distracting. So much so that schools and some individual teachers from multiple states including Florida, Connecticut, and New York have already banned these toys from classrooms.

According to a report on WMAR, spokesmen for the Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County Public School systems say they haven’t experienced any problems to impose a similar district-wide ban.

Though this gadget seems to be taking the world by storm, Stelzer at Shananigans is sure that this is only a fad. She laughs and says, “they’ll be on to something else soon, maybe even by the time you print this.”