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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 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).