3D-printed guns: State Department orders firm to remove web blueprints

[baldguy]

Source: The Guardian

Defense Distributed tweeted on Thursday that 'Liberator' project had 'gone dark' at the request of government officials

The US government last night banned a Texas-based company from distributing details online of how to make a plastic gun using a 3-D printer.

The ban, by the state department citing international arms control law, comes just days after the world's first such gun was successfully fired.

Defense Distributed, the company that made the prototype, is run by Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old University of Texas law student who said the idea for freely distributing details about how to produce the guns online was inspired by 19th century anarchist writing. Wilson argues everyone should have access to guns.

A state department spokesman said: "Although we do not comment on whether we have individual ongoing compliance matters, we can confirm that the department has been in communication with the company."

...

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/09/3d-printed-guns-plans-state-department

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One small step in the right direction...

[Mojorabbit]

1. Is it against the law to make guns?

I am asking because I do not know.

[baldguy]

2. Read the story?

Try.

[Mojorabbit]

7. I did. It was vague.

It insinuated it was illegal but did not outright state it. This is unless I missed it which is totally possible as I am having a flare of my MS and am somewhat foggy.

[Posteritatis]

14. It's against the law to export technical info on weapons manufacturing

At least that's the rationale they're using there. It's a bit of a stretch in this case but it'd convince a judge without bending things too much.

[Mr. X]

20. Generally exports are trades

Like I'll export you this box of oranges if you give me such and such amount of money, or a box of whatever.

It's hard to call something free a export.

Still - Not going to accomplish anything. The schematics were downloaded about a 100k times. Not to mention the Streisand Effect.

[Posteritatis]

25. Oh, I pretty much agree, just describing State's rationale. (nt)

[whopis01]

30. Information can be an export too

When you get into some of the regulations regarding arms (ITAR) it is made very clear that even information can be considered an export and trade.

The common example given is attending a conference, in the US, and having a conversation with another attendee who is a foreign national. That conversation can be subject to ITAR regulations and the information exchanged can be considered an export.

[Mr. X]

31. Funny thing...

Given the rather broad definition of this, technically a person seeking to move to another country - More specificically, one who has designed weapons in the past and has memorized the designs - could be subject to these regulations. As in, these regulations will limit his freedom of movement.

This is the issue with regulating knowledge - It gets to a point where you have to regulate the people who know the knowledge, as well as the knowledge itself.

[whopis01]

32. Well all regulations are really about people

It is always about regulating the actions of people. It is the only way it can be done.

[tammywammy]

39. An ITAR violation can have a fine of up to $1M and 20 years in prison per violation.

[Duckhunter935]

3. I do not think if for

personal use, and do not sell.

[Xithras]

6. He potentially broke one law.

It's illegal to export weapons plans outside of the U.S. without State Department approval (which is why the State Department was the agency that ordered the removal). When he created the plans, he uploaded them to the new Mega site which is in New Zealand. That's a legal violation.

The State Department wouldn't have had the authority to order the takedown if not for that. It's perfectly legal to build your own firearms in the U.S., though you can't sell or transfer them to anyone. It's also perfectly legal to distribute plans for those firearms...so long as you're not sending them to other nations. If he had posted the files to an American hosting site, it's likely that the U.S. government couldn't have done a thing about it (legally anyway).

[Mojorabbit]

8. Thank you! nt

[freshwest]

9. IMO, anything on the internet is part of international trade, practically speaking.

If one is motivated, one can buy things from abroad, and people abroad buy items from the USA online, too.

Even if he put it out for free, it's still a global transaction, or exchange, rather.

The problem with technology is once the genie's out of the bottle, you can't put it back.

[Xithras]

13. Practically yes. Legally no. And thank god for that.

You really don't want to have every website and message on the Internet be subject to international trade and export laws. Especially as several trade treaties make it a crime to knowingly export something to certain countries where that "thing" is illegal. I don't think we want to see Americans being arrested for posting things on the Internet that are illegal in other countries simply because someone defined the Internet as "international trade".

Legally, the definition of domestic or international is simply based on the server you host it on. DemocraticUnderground is an American site because it's hosted by servers located in the U.S. Skinner could transfer the site to a hosting provider in Great Britain tomorrow and the site users would see little to no difference, but the laws governing what could (and could not) be posted here would change completely. You COULD post the 3D gun blueprints on this site as it's hosted in the U.S. You CANNOT post it on the site if it moved offshore. The distinction may seem silly on a global network like the Internet, but it's very real and vigorously enforced.

[0rganism]

4. Too late, that ship has sailed

from the article:
The action came too late to prevent widespread distribution of the files: Defense Distributed told Forbes that the files have already been downloaded more than 100,000 times in the two days since they were uploaded. The largest number of downloads initially were to addresses in Spain, followed by the US, Brazil, Germany and the UK.
...
The files have also been uploaded to the Pirate Bay file-sharing site, where they have proved a popular download.

Free guns for everyone, eh?

[Purveyor]

10. Indeed and now that the 'state department' has taken this action...distribution will go mega

viral across the nets.

[Occulus]

17. Yup. The Streisand Effect in action.

That really is honestly what it is called, for those not in the know. Babs apparently didn't want her cushy pad posted online, so she sued one site (it might even have been Wikipedia) for a takedown. The result was massive distribution of the photo in question. Thus, the name.

Nice complete backfire, State Department. It's already been repeatedly downloaded.

Do these guys even know how the internet community works as a group? This was, potentially, a monumentally stupid move on their part.

[Kolesar]

27. "Babs"? You sound like one of the creators of South Park

That is not a compliment.

[Occulus]

33. Maybe I should just kill myself and save the world the misery

Jesus.

And I thought Apple fanbois were touchy....

[DFW]

11. Maybe the State Department can charge him with 100,000 violations of the law

That should end his gun-spreading career for a while.

"Everyone should have access to guns," my ass. Including the guy who ends up shooting him because the website enabled his kid to kill a sibling?

[Turbineguy]

5. Serial killer

by proxy?

[Nye Bevan]

12. Is a plastic gun more lethal than a pressure cooker bomb? (nt)

[Kelvin Mace]

15. Stupid move by the State Department

It will only throw gasoline on the rapid paranoids and it automatically has the effect of creating hundreds, if not thousands, of mirror sites for the plans.

[Ter]

16. This one may go to the courts

n/t

[booley]

18. huh.. though the undetectable weapons act would have been invoked.

but I guess that's either expired or no doesnt' apply here. (I guess the plastic gun in question still has the minimum amount of metal)

[Kablooie]

19. The design has a chunk of metal in the handle specifically for this law.

But it's not functional so anyone making one could leave it out and they certainly will.

[Kablooie]

21. I predict that soon Cody Williams will be neck deep in lawsuits.

Not from people who are shot by his gun but by people who have made one.

William's gun was made from a specific nylon material but there are many different materials available and any one of them could be used to make the gun.
Most of them are fairly weak, the most common is the plastic used in legos, and will probably blow up in your hand and injure or kill the shooter.

I'm sure soon we will start hearing about idiots who have injured themselves with this thing.

[truthisfreedom]

43. I think the State Department saved Cody from himself.

He thinks he's smart. He's one shot short of a missing hand.

[rapturedbyrobots]

22. Technically this is a low caliber zip gun

And unless the barrel and chamber are reinforced with metal it probably won't survive more than a few shots before blowing up in the shooter's face.

I think after people realize that their has to be refabricated after a few shots the novelty effect will wear off and it will be dropped like pretty much every other crappy zip gun design. But probably not before lots of people hurt themselves.

It's going to be a long time before you can produce a real working firearm from 3D printed material.

[Kolesar]

28. "You can make 22 with car antenna"

That was one of the stories going around my high school.

[blackspade]

23. I agree this 3-D gun printing is insanity.

But I would add that, IMO, the only reason the government did this was under pressure from gun manufacturers.
If anyone could 'print' a gun it would impact their profits substantially.
If the rethugs don't make a stink about this I'll know the fix was in.

My cynical view.

[rl6214]

24. I wouldn't dare fire anything out of those printed 3d guns

They can't hold up to the pressures and are just grenades waiting to go off. There are synthetic ar15 lower receivers and I trust them about as far as I can throw them.

[bossy22]

37. "just wait"....

IMO the view that you post is very dangerous and short sighted. This issue needs to be debated NOW. Yes, as of today the 3D printed gun is laughable but do you really think it won't improve from there? We are already starting to see 3D printers which can use metallic material- how much longer before they become affordable to the masses?

[napoleon_in_rags]

26. Ahem, this was the censorship of INFORMATION.

The distribution of information has hithero been protected by the first amendment, that's why posts like this miss the big story: The places where physical reality and information meet are being chiseled away at by technology like 3D printing, to the point where the information of how to make a gun can be translated - even by a fool - into a real gun. This is a HUGE constitution issue, a major milestones in human development, and IMHO deserves some serious analysis.

[bossy22]

36. exactly

sadly, many on the Left will dismiss it because it had to do with a gun. They will quickly cheer it without seeing the greater implications.

[napoleon_in_rags]

42. I just watched Bill Maher talking about it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/11/bill-maher-3d-printers-guns-real-time_n_3259756.html

Yeah, pretty much as you predicted. I wasn't impressed with any of the analysis, including the devils advocate guy disagreeing with him. The options for controlling this are:
1) Keep information free, reduce the people's ability to manufacture their own goods by putting controls on printers.
2) Censor information.
The latter would be bad, the former would be a disaster. What the world needs now is more robustness, more local manufacturing. Its at this scale where ideas like sustainability make sense to people. The money you can save through recyclable 3D printing material for instance. (melt down your warn out car part, print out a new one with the same material) Contrast that with the global view and global governance needed to implement- through policy -sustainability in a world where products end up being trashed tens of thousands of miles from where they are made.

[Posteritatis]

41. There've been exceptions to that for awhile, e.g., encryption export. (nt)

[Sunlei]

29. to have to own an expensive machine will slow people down a bit

But now millions of a new generation are well informed that any kitchen, fire works store, and zip gun junk can build a poor mans arsenal.

[GetTheRightVote]

34. This was censorship from the sounds of it...

We need to watch this lack of freedom closely no matter the subject matter.

[bossy22]

35. it is censorship

How far are we going to go? This is uncharted territory

[quadrature]

38. what does 3-d printing really change?

I could build the lower receiver from
an AR15 from a mail order casting,
a drill press and a file.

[Posteritatis]

40. That's off the media's radar, which means people can't whip up a panic about it.

This is as much a "we need to fear this new thing" reaction as it's a firearms-related one.