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Digging Into the Legal Status of 3-D Printed Guns

Posted by timothy on from the point-of-clarification-your-honor dept.

jfruh writes "Defense Distributed, a U.S. nonprofit that aims to make plans for guns available owners of 3-D printers, recently received a federal firearms license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. That license doesn't cover semi-automatic weapons and machine guns, though — and there are questions about whether the legislation that defines that license really apply to the act of giving someone 3-D printing patterns. Experts on all sides of the issue seemed to agree that no clarification of the law would happen until a high-profile crime involving a 3-D printed weapon was committed."

1 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Symptomatic of what's wrong with American polit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    " Experts on all sides of the issue seemd to agree that no clarification of the law would happen until a high-profile crime involving a 3-D printed weapon was committed."

    Considering criminals have no regard for the law anyway, I fail to see how any law or "clarification" of any existing law will make any difference. Gun laws are punitive measures against law abiding citizens, period. Unless you have a plan to vaporize all guns and advanced weaponry in existence these laws will make no difference. I'm not comfortable with all weapons being in the hands of the government or "police". Criminals will still find the weapons they need under such a scenario for whatever crimes they are bent on, and you'll have the perfect recipe for a runaway tyrannical state.

    I disagree that we are a laissez-faire society. In fact we are we are only 'free' because we still think we are, largely do to freedom of speech still being intact.