Are Blueprints For 3D-Printed Guns Protected Speech?

[TampaAnimusVortex]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2015/05/12/are-blueprints-for-3d-printed-guns-protected-speech/

It was about two years ago (on May 5, 2013 to be precise) when the world’s first 3D-printed, plastic gun was test fired. It wasn’t quite a shot heard ‘round the world, but it was a shot that echoed around many media outlets. At the time, many noted that 3D-printing technology could put government regulators at a disadvantage, but the media mostly concentrated on the fear that undetectable plastic guns might be printed off in secret by criminals or even terrorists.

Cody Wilson, a then law student in Texas and a self-proclaimed libertarian, designed the “the Liberator.” Wilson also made the blueprints for the gun available for anyone to download on the Internet for free. The plans went viral, though it is hard to say how many of the 100,000-plus people who downloaded the blueprints actually have access to a 3D printer.

Are you free to tell someone how to make a weapon? How about drawing blueprints? How about uploading those blueprints to the web where it will be impossible to remove anyways?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. Have you tried a web search for weapons blueprints?

They're out there and not just for 3D printers, either. They've been around forever; from drawings to CAD renderings. That djinni is looooong out of the bottle.

[Go Vols]

2. Yep

this has been around since '71.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchist_Cookbook

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. Is that the one with the recipe for those delightful little lemon squares to serve at rallies?

I love those!

[Codeine]

3. Of course they are.

How on earth could it be anything but?

[Runningdawg]

4. I don't know the official answer

but I am going with yes, you can tell someone how to make a weapon. Back in the late 70's there was a kid who wrote a paper on how to make a nuclear weapon. There was a huge flap at the time and I think it was determined, not sure by whom, possibly congress, that he had the right to print the instructions.

[Agschmid]

5. Yes.

What an interesting century...