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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @12:50AM
Now there's a rare combination if I ever saw one. Most pro-gun people are vehemently anti-free speech. Free speech means the right for people to say things you don't agree with, something the overwhelming majority of the pro-gun camp absolutely cannot stand.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Saturday May 09 2015, @02:40AM
Now there's a rare combination if I ever saw one. Most pro-gun people are vehemently anti-free speech. Free speech means the right for people to say things you don't agree with, something the overwhelming majority of the pro-gun camp absolutely cannot stand.
Most PEOPLE are vehemently anti-free speech, you just have to find the right issue. I'm pleasantly surprised when I meet someone who never says anything like "I'm all for free speech, but...".
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(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 10 2015, @01:05PM
You seem to think being for free speech means that you never think someone else shouldn't ever say something specific. That's wrong. Free speech just means nobody should be forbidden to say something. A big difference.
Note that if you complain that someone complains about someone saying something, you are doing exactly what you argue against: Claiming that some things should not be said.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Sunday May 10 2015, @02:40PM
You seem to think being for free speech means that you never think someone else shouldn't ever say something specific. That's wrong. Free speech just means nobody should be forbidden to say something. A big difference.
Note that if you complain that someone complains about someone saying something, you are doing exactly what you argue against: Claiming that some things should not be said.
I never said that. There are certainly things that I believe shouldn't be said (anti-vaccine misinformation as an example) but I wouldn't support any censorship of that "information". The answer to "bad" speech is more speech.
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