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THIS WEEK MARKS the two-year anniversary since Cody Wilson, the inventor of the world’s first 3-D printable gun, received a letter from the State Department demanding that he remove the blueprints for his plastic-printed firearm from the internet. The alternative: face possible prosecution for violating regulations that forbid the international export of unapproved arms.
Now Wilson is challenging that letter. And in doing so, he’s picking a fight that could pit proponents of gun control and defenders of free speech against each other in an age when the line between a lethal weapon and a collection of bits is blurrier than ever before.
Wilson’s gun manufacturing advocacy group Defense Distributed, along with the gun rights group the Second Amendment Foundation, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the State Department and several of its officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry. In their complaint, they claim that a State Department agency called the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) violated their first amendment right to free speech by telling Defense Distributed that it couldn’t publish a 3-D printable file for its one-shot plastic pistol known as the Liberator, along with a collection of other printable gun parts, on its website.
In its 2013 letter to Defense Distributed, the DDTC cited a long-controversial set of regulations known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which controls whether and how Americans can sell weapons beyond U.S. borders. By merely posting a 3-D-printable file to a website, in other words, the DDTC claimed Defense Distributed had potentially violated arms export controls—just as if it had shipped a crate of AR-15s to, say, Mexico. But the group’s lawsuit now argues that whether or not the Liberator is a weapon, its blueprints are “speech,” and that Americans’ freedom of speech is protected online—even when that speech can be used to make a gun with just a few clicks.
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/3-d-printed-gun-lawsuit-starts-war-arms-control-free-speech/
Here’s the full complaint from Defense Distributed: https://www.scribd.com/doc/264435890/Defense-Distributed-et-al-v-U-S-Dept-of-State
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Friday May 08 2015, @04:08PM
People haven't changed, and the U.S. is still sufficiently wild enough that a black bear was trapped by the game commission a couple of hundred yards from my (suburban) home. Coyotes have been making their way back, and wolves have been reintroduced. My father's home was 20 minutes from the county seat where the Sheriff's Department was located (though I was glad of the Sheriff passing his home when going to-fro work).
And of course, there are always dogs: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-27679092 [bbc.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 08 2015, @04:26PM
OMG bears! I need a turret-mounted cal .45 on my car.
While it does take a decent caliber to take down an angry bear (a .22 is enough to scare any animal that's just patrolling around), the wildlife excuse is a bit of a stretch for most weapons on the market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2015, @07:10PM
Have you actually been do a gun store? The vast majority of guns sold are for hunting. Presumably wildlife I'm sure.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday May 08 2015, @09:15PM
Shoot a bear or a wild boar with a .22 and you'll be lucky to live.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 08 2015, @10:15PM
I'll take that bet if I get to choose the tree I'm shooting from.
But my point was that unless you've already pissed off the bear, a warning shot is typically enough noise to convince him to go wander elsewhere. Living alongside dangerous animals doesn't require that you carry enough power to blow them to smithereens with each of the 36 rounds in your oversize clip.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday May 09 2015, @04:11AM
Good luck with your .22:
http://www.bob-owens.com/2013/07/alaska-hiker-fired-13-rounds-from-ak-74-into-charging-brown-bear-to-survive-attack/ [bob-owens.com]
BTW, bears climb trees.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Monday May 11 2015, @01:09PM
Actually, the largest bear taken in North America was a Kodiak, taken w/ a single shot by a .22 Long (_not_ Long Rifle) --- a woman's sled dog team was threatened by it, she got out her rifle and dropped the bear w/ a single shot to the heart.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday May 12 2015, @02:05AM
Interesting, but one case of someone pulling it off doesn't make it a recommended practice.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday May 11 2015, @04:00PM
> BTW, bears climb trees.
You win the predictable answer award.
Do bears climb trees when you're above them shooting them in the face/arms? Most animals are a lot less stupid than humans.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday May 12 2015, @02:01AM
Yes. I actually did some research before posting my response. Did you, or is this all conjecture?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday May 09 2015, @07:42AM
True story. Once upon a time, I was auto-camping in the Crazy Mountains. Someone had spotted a black bear in the vicinity. A very patriotic burly man in a dually 4X4 kept driving around the campground loop asking, "Has any one seen the bear?" No one had, so Mr. NRA macho packed up and fled for a safer campground closer to civilization. Now the morale of the story: having the 3-D printer file of a possibly single use firearm on your laptop in actual, or suspected, bear country is no consolation. And this was well out of Griz territory.
(You know how to tell bear shit from the droppings of other animals? It's the buttons! )
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:03PM
And exactly how did you know Mr. NRA macho was, in fact, armed or unarmed? Or was a member of the NRA?
First, it's moral, not morale. Two totally different words and meanings. Second, this is probably more a comment on your own insecurities than his. You chose to ridicule his imagined political affiliations, again, with not reasonable basis only using his "burly" characteristics and vehicle selection to confirm your own biases. And lastly, you chose to ridicule his choice to leave without any understanding of why he chose to leave. You assume it was bear related with no proof other than your own smug imagination.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday May 09 2015, @08:52PM
So why do you think it is that Stephen Colbert's main phobia on the "Threatdown!" was "BEARS!"? Yes, it was parody, but it just goes to prove that conservatives are afraid of bears. NRA is entirely made up of conservatives that are afraid of bears. Russia is a bear. We have ammosexuals even here on Soylent News pointing out the inadequacy of .22 Winchester Rimfire as a defense against Bears. Anxiety about adequacy is a standard characteristic (Bob Dole!) of conservatives. And now I hear that there are ISIS Bears in Texas! Sometimes, not all the time, but some times, a smug imagination has the strong smell of truthiness. (And, I wrote "morale" on purpose, nice of you to catch it. To bad you missed the point of intentionally using the wrong word).