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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: 2) by jmorris on Friday May 08 2015, @09:03PM
When these arguments come up I always say I'm quite reasonable and willing to compromise. Let us examine the 2nd in the spirit it was written in and the actual practice of the men who wrote and ratified it.
The stated intent of the 2nd is not about hunting or sport shooting, it is explicitly about military uses of arms. First in the service of the Militia, the only armed force imagined for the U.S. as standing armies were considered a clear and present danger. So they imagine We The People being mustered into arms bearing arms serviceable for war and being knowledgeable in their use. The other purpose imagined was the revolutionary one, the 2nd Amendment was after all written by revolutionaries.
Given that private militia companies and ships of the day did in fact own cannon and the fact that weapons of today are really dangerous, here is my reasonable compromise. Individuals should be permitted to own any personal arm issued by the U.S. Army or other armed forces or variations similar in offensive power. People should be able to own any crew served weapon as well but 'common sense arms controls' mandating safe storage in a militia depot would be acceptable. Weapons forbidden to our armed forces and/or 'weapons of mass destruction' regulated by Treaty could be forbidden to the general public.
Somehow I doubt any of the gun banners will find this proposal reasonable or a compromise.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday May 09 2015, @01:47AM
in the military, nobody uses any weapons system without the proper training. nobody*. given this, how about we compromise at something close to "Any individual can own any weapons system for which they have training", which would also properly cover the "well-regulated militia" portion of the second.
* the lone exception being, hypothetically, in the middle of combat, if the weapon systems' operator gets killed and for some ridiculous reason nobody left alive has been trained on it, but thats why nearly everyone gets trained on every man-portable weapons system, and even some non-man portable, ie, most everyone gets training on the .50cal and MK19 grenade launcher, which are too heavy to be carried into combat and are vehicle-mounted if they're portable.
(Score: 2) by naubol on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:42AM
'personal' -- if we can make an ergonomic nuclear sidearm, ... ? AMRAM rockets? How many people does it take to drive a tank?
Is a "nuclear football" a personal sidearm of the president?
4th amendment "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Is it infringing to say that some types of arms are not allowed? I don't think so from any method of constitutional interpretation.
However, things become interesting if you examine motive. And, the founding fathers were helpful enough to write some motive into the amendment. In this sense, the security of a free state would definitely seem to be threatened by giving everyone a nuclear bomb. It also now seems to me that domestic terrorism is far more likely than martial law and therefore the security of the free state is more threatened by allowing people to maintain assault rifles.
Did the framers anticipate just how large the disparity would grow between federal military power and individual military power? If anyone was paying attention to Shock and Awe, that is roughly what I imagine it would be like if it became a martial state vs the citizens. Equally amusing is that we have also learned how to be properly annoying with insurgency from Iraq.
Now, I'm sure someone will say, we will want it in the case of martial law enough to deal with the very real threat of citizen-on-citizen gun violence. Okay, I doubt it, because of Shock and Awe. The US military would dramatically crush us in a conventional war. What would likely happen in that scenario, IMO, is that we'd breed a ton of insurgents and home made pipe bombs and things of that ilk will become quite common. The idea that the Brady bill somehow threatens the population's ability to revolt feels silly for these reasons. If we could afford drones, night vision, AEGIS radar, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers.... but we don't so we're screwed in conventional warfare.
Even if you don't agree with this argument, my point is that it is up for debate and it non-trivially impacts the conclusion one can obtain after examining the motive as written in the fourth amendment in the reality of our modern military.
In other words, for very very little gain, slight relational power against a modern military, we lose so much, namely that there's a lot more destructive power in citizen-on-citizen violence, which I interpret as undermining the stated intent.
I've always wanted to deal with the other side's best argument, but I only know of the common sense arguments, like the one you wrote, which very clearly lacks for persuasiveness. Human principles are not a sound basis for observations of reality.