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posted by janrinok on Wednesday February 25 2015, @04:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-could-be-used-to-make,-well,-anything! dept.

FedEx is refusing to ship Texas nonprofit Defense Distributed's computer controlled mill, the Ghost Gunner. The $1,500 tool can carve aluminum objects from digital designs, including AR-15 lower receivers from scratch or more quickly from legally obtainable "80 percent lowers".

When the machine was revealed last October, Defense Distributed's pre-orders sold out in 36 hours. But now FedEx tells WIRED it's too wary of the legal issues around homemade gunsmithing to ship the machine to customers. "This device is capable of manufacturing firearms, and potentially by private individuals," FedEx spokesperson Scott Fiedler wrote in a statement. "We are uncertain at this time whether this device is a regulated commodity by local, state or federal governments. As such, to ensure we comply with the applicable law and regulations, FedEx declined to ship this device until we know more about how it will be regulated."

But buying, selling, or using the Ghost Gunner isn't illegal, nor is owning an AR-15 without a serial number, says Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA and the author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. "This is not that problematic," he says. "Federal law does not prohibit individuals from making their own firearms at home, and that includes AR-15s."

Defense Distributed's founder Cody Wilson argues that rather than a legal ambiguity, FedEx is instead facing up to the political gray area of enabling the sale of new, easily accessible tools that can make anything-including deadly weapons. "They're acting like this is legal when in fact it's the expression of a political preference," says Wilson. "The artifact that they're shipping is a CNC mill. There's nothing about it that is specifically related to firearms except the hocus pocus of the marketing." Wilson, whose radically libertarian group has pursued projects ranging from 3-D printed guns to untraceable cryptocurrency, says he chose to ship his Ghost Gunner machines with FedEx specifically because the company has a special NRA firearm industry membership. But when he told a local FedEx representative what he'd be shipping, he says the sales rep responded that he'd need to check with a superior. "This is no big deal, right? It's just a mill," Wilson says he told his FedEx contact. "You guys ship guns. You've shipped 3-D printers and mills, right? You'll ship a drill press, right? Same difference."

 
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:45PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:45PM (#151153) Journal

    OK -- you explain how to fix the bear in concrete terms.

    Well, we're seeing here the Cody way. Go over the top with more and more elaborate schemes for circumventing bad intentions and regulations. It's potentially quite effective asymmetric warfare. Cody comes up with a cheap way to bypass bad regulation. The government attempts to respond with heavy handed regulation that hurts a lot of people. People like you.Sure, you would normally be perfectly willing to slink along with the status quo,but now have to make a decision just because Cody made a CNC milling machine with effective marketing. Either curb government power or lose something important to you. Eventually, if the government doesn't curb its excesses, it'll alienate enough people that its excesses will get curbed for it.