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posted by martyb on Thursday July 12 2018, @11:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the Maybe-Don't-Try-this-at-home dept.

For those in the US with a combined interest in 3D-Printers, intersections of the 1st and 2nd Amendments, and legal precedents; Cody Wilson has been fighting the US Government for half a decade.

Short version: after Wilson uploaded his 3D pistol plans to his site, over 100,000 people downloaded it - this drew the attention of the US authorities, who tried to use the International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to force a take-down.

The authorities argued that by posting the 3D printer plans for a firearm, Mr. Wilson was effectively exporting firearms, and subject to federal regulation. Eventually the Department of Justice dropped the case, paving the way for DIY'ers to publish such things freely.

The article cites 'promises' made by DoJ to move the regulations to another department.

Wired's article: A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora's Box for DIY Guns (archive)

Related: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home
Japanese Gun Printer Goes to Jail
Suspected 3D-Printed Gun Parts and Plastic Knuckles Seized in Australia
FedEx Refuses to Ship Defense Distributed's Ghost Gunner CNC Mill
Man Who Used CNC Mill to Manufacture AR-15 "Lowers" Sentenced to 41 Months
Ghost Gunner Software Update Allows the Milling of an M1911 Handgun


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @02:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @02:28AM (#706887)

    You can gain a measure of privacy by getting some other guy to order the 80% receiver and parts kit online, and sell it to you for cash; it's not a firearm, so there's no legal "straw purchase" concerns.
    But of course that's not really anonymous, because most people approached by a total stranger with such an offer would suspect it for some sort of ATF trap; only someone who knows you would be willing to participate.

    get ready for the crackdown of all crackdowns?

    That crackdown is never happening. There's too much risk of a literal cold-dead-hands martyr inspiring widespread rebellion against those knocking on doors and taking guns. Whether that revolt is successful (whatever that means), embroils the nation in endless civil war, or just gets squashed like so many bugs, the one constant is it that it ends badly for whoever gave the confiscation order.
    So guns may be outlawed, and people may be told to turn them in, but there will be no immediate effort to round up those who don't comply. If people keep them in defiance of the law, they must keep them hidden, and not tell others about them. From there, the problem takes care of itself. Within a generation or two, and depending how careful their owners were about the hiding and shutting up, the guns are either already siezed after the owner blabbed to the wrong person, being discovered in the attic by kids who dutifully turn them over to the police, or lost in a buried cache that nobody knows about.

    The more rational concern is not a massive crackdown, but that you as an individual become interesting (for whatever reason) to someone in some law enforcement agency, and in searching for dirt on you, they turn up 80% receiver and/or parts kit purchases.