Defense Distributed Sues State Department Over 3-D Gun Censorship

SonicSpike writes with word that Cody Wilson, whose projects to create (and disseminate the plans for) printable guns have fascinated some and horrified others, is not going to quietly comply with the U.S. State Deparment's demand that he remove such plans from the internet. Wilson, says Wired, is picking a fight that could pit proponents of gun control and defenders of free speech against each other in an age when the line between a lethal weapon and a collection of bits is blurrier than ever before. Wilson's gun manufacturing advocacy group Defense Distributed, along with the gun rights group the Second Amendment Foundation, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the State Department and several of its officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry. In their complaint, they claim that a State Department agency called the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) violated their first amendment right to free speech by telling Defense Distributed that it couldn't publish a 3-D printable file for its one-shot plastic pistol known as the Liberator, along with a collection of other printable gun parts, on its website.

Comments

Bureaucrats

[rfengr]

Still amazes me that bureaucrats think things can be "removed from the internet". Good for DD.

Re:Bureaucrats

[DaHat]

It still amazes me that Americans think guns are OK.

Yeah, damn that evil second amendment that no one can seem to do away with

Bottom line is, More guns = more dead Americans

Oh what a simplistic view of the world you have, if it was just about guns... why then does a hard to get gun place like Detroit or Chicago have such high shooting and murder rates... while a easy to get a gun place like Plano, TX has such a low murder rate? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

WHEN the US starts thinking their people and their children lives have value, then perhaps they will finally take the steps to protect them by removing guns

Yes, we don't think lives have value... which is precisely why we do not use guns to protect people, nor have certain people (lets call them police, military and body guards) carrying guns to protect others.

Re:Bureaucrats

[DaHat]

Nice straw men

On the contrary, I was responding to what was said... and unlike you providing additional information and the suggestion that maybe things weren't as clear cut as was being said.

Try comparing murder rates between Europe where guns are hard to get and the U.S. where guns are easy to get. Comparing U.S. cities is just silly.

First... why is it silly? Why is it silly to recognize that gun violence is not uniformly distributed across the country and instead often seen in largest #'s in certain locations? If we follow your logic to other areas, it would seem that you'd claim that economies of all of Europe be balanced out on paper to judge their collective status without noting the relative differences between say... Germany and Greece?

It's plenty easy to say X==Y or even X=>Y, and often such assertions will be accepted. Often though it's good to examine the underlying environment to see if X=>Y, or if X+(A+B+C)=>Y while X-(A+B+C) !=> Y.

We let well-trained (in most cases) police and body guards carry weapons, unless you live in Texas where just about any yokel can arm up.

'We'? Who is 'we'? Where is 'we'? Here in the US, it's relatively straight forward to get a gun in most of the states, though some states (New Jersey being the biggest) and municipalities (Chicago, DC, etc) have additional restrictions on simply purchasing/owning something.

It's funny you mention carrying... while 3 states allow largely unrestricted concealed carrying of a pistol (ie no permit required), another 39 are 'shall issue' states, which means so long as you meet the requirements and are not otherwise prohibited, you get your permit. I know hating on Texas (a state I have never been to/in) is a favorite pastime on /., it's kind of funny you mentioning them as that while a shall issue state, they are one of only six that prohibits open carrying if a pistol.

Now that should make you feel real safe, eh?

Nope, I'm still waiting to hear about 'we'.

Now, let's make sure only the non-crazy people get those permits to carry a gun. How do you tell which are the crazy ones? You just have to ask them.

Now we see you straying into straw man territory, where in my original post did I discuss carrying a gun? *hint* I didn't, I only brought it up now in reply to you.

To my point above, in most states a permit is not required to carry a gun... provided it is visible. And what magic does a permit bestow on a person when carrying concealed? More often than not, you as a private individual cannot tell the difference between a person carrying and not... let alone if the person carrying has a permit to carry or not. This was part of why stop and frisk was so useful, the police were better at spotting such people and removing illegally carried guns from the streets of New York City.

More so, what on earth does 'asking them' have to do with telling 'which are the crazy ones'? I've known a few disturbed people who are pretty good actors and would not show up on your radar if you asked... but that is why we have other mechanisms to check ones background... if they opt to carry concealed legally.

Re:Bureaucrats

[blindseer]

We need to realize our "children lives have value"?

OK, I'll go down that path. When walking through the mall the other day I saw a man servicing an ATM. That man was armed with a pistol on his belt. Why was he armed? Was it because the money has value?

When I go to school I see no one armed. All over the college campus no one is allowed to be armed with a gun, knife, pepper spray, taser, or club. Why is that? Does my life not have value? Or the lives of my fellow students? We will allow a man to be armed to protect money, it's just paper. That paper only has value so long as we deem it so, we can print another piece of paper just like it and now it has value but the other does not. A person is not so easily replaced.

You may claim that we disarm people around schools because we value our children. I say we disarm people because we do not. If we valued our children like we did our money then we'd have the people watching over both be armed to the teeth.

You also claim that more guns equals more dead Americans. Prove it. Show me your evidence. I can claim otherwise because while gun ownership rates have gone up the murder rates have gone down. However I will not claim that more guns means less death because I don't have to to make my argument. I merely claim that there is little to no correlation between gun ownership and murder or suicide rates.

If gun control will not save lives then why would I advocate against gun control? Because I find government interference in my life insulting. Unless there is proof of gun control being effective, by a wide margin, then I cannot advocate for the intrusion in my life, the lives of others, the government expense, or general reduction in liberty.

I don't have to advocate against gun control because the law of the land says my right to defend myself is not to be violated. The bar to restrict it should be very high, but it is not. Thankfully, after at least a century of restrictions on our right of self defense we are seeing liberty return. We've seen a half dozen states enact rules that allow for the carry of a deadly weapon without first requesting permission of the government to do so. The result has been uninteresting. I remember the old Chinese curse about living in interesting times. We could use less "interesting" around here.

Re:Hmmm ...

[Marful]

A person has rights to privacy, disclosing said person's personal information, particularly with regard to a controversial topic is at the very least negligent and at worst directly contributing to any potential harm that may befall them.

There is quite a bit difference from public access to 3D printer files and public access to personal information of a specific person.

Re:Hmmm ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a principled stand that the government shouldn't censor speech (a la 1984). You can have this opinion completely orthogonally to whether or not you believe in full disclosure of everything. You can even hold this opinion and believe in boycotting those whose speech you disagree with.

In this case, the Supreme Court has upheld (see Heller ) the rights of citizens to own and keep small firearms (which, other than the material used to manufacture them are materially similar to Liberator) under the second amendment. We also have the right to speak without government censorship (barring certain exceptions, none of which seem particularly pertinent here). These two rights together seem to imply the right to speak freely about firearms, such as how to use, store, maintain, and manufacture them.

However, such information about firearms is caught under a broad interpretation of ITAR (specifically 22 CFR 121.1). The last time we really discussed this was the crypto wars in the '90s (see Bernstein ), where free speech won. On the other hand, I would expect the Supreme Court to prohibit publishing an easy how-to guide for making effective nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. I think we're closer to the former than the latter in this particular case.