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

[sycodon]

Gun deaths - Down
Gun violence - Down
Violent crime - Down

Gun ownership UP.

Get the picture?

Re:Bureaucrats

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing intentional homicides to firearm ownership by nation seems to show that America has deeper societal issues leading to violence that has very little to do with whether or not we have firearms. I can only conclude that until we fix the other causes of violence, removing guns not only doesn't fix the problem it will make law abiding people more susceptible, particularly those people who are in socially protected classes.

Re:Bureaucrats

[PRMan]

Mental health treatment is beyond atrocious in the US. Most gun homicides involve people that are largely in a state of non-treatment of various mental illnesses.

Re:Bureaucrats

[lgw]

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

Every mass shooting in my lifetime, except one, happened in a gun-free zone (the exception was a political shooting). Making guns illegal, by the evidence, just makes the shooter feel safe that there won't be any return fire.

Re:Bureaucrats

[Anonymous Coward]

"First they came for the Russians' memes, and I did not speak out--

because I was not a Russian.

Then they came for the 3-D printable guns, and I did not speak out--

because I did not own a 3-D printer.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

-Abraham Lincoln

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

[DaHat]

Most gun homicides involve people that are largely in a state of non-treatment of various mental illnesses.

Citation please.

Are you claiming that suicide == homicide?

I ask because something on the order of ~70% of gun deaths in this country are suicides... a good number of which I would expect have some untreated mental issues... I've not seen a stat that claims that of those committing a homicide via a firearm, that at least 51% of them have untreated mental issues which played some part in it.

Or are you claiming that the victim may also have untreated mental issues?

Re:Bureaucrats

[DaHat]

Maybe you should have considered the possibility that guns are purchased legally in Plano, TX and sold illegally in Detroit or Chicago.

I'm fully aware, not just of that possibility but that reality, black markets often crop up to meet demand... but then how does that change things?

Is it more or less favorable to have more legally purchased guns?

Is it more or less favorable to have more illegally purchased guns?

We could get into a 'criminals prefer unarmed victims' and 'criminals don't follow laws anyway' style argument, however I'll just point go back to my point that if it were as simple as 'more guns == more deaths' as the OP seemed to be implying, then the fact that hard to get a legal gun cities having such high murder rates seems to contradict that and that there are likely other more contributive factors.

Re:Bureaucrats

[DaHat]

I know people like to point to the lack of mass shootings following the gun law changes since the Port Arthur massacre, but rarely do they look at how many there were prior to it.

You should try it sometime, you might discover less of a trend of mass violence only ending afterwards and more of an anomaly.

Re:Bureaucrats

[DaHat]

You fail to mention that ~70% are due to suicide.

Let's imagine that back on New Years day all guns magically disappeared from the United States and no new ones could be constructed or imported, of the 21,000 people who would have statistically killed themselves with a gun... how many of those would find other successful ways vs would never attempt (or be successful at) killing themselves?

Now, how many lives do you think would be lost because they were not able to defend themselves against a home invader, carjacker or mugger on the street still armed with knives, clubs & broken bottles?

It's not as simple of math as you think, no matter how unfortunate.

Re:Bureaucrats

[Crashmarik]

You are arguing religion with people that don't even understand they are religious.

Not trying to dissuade you just observing

Re:Bureaucrats

[pla]

Are you claiming that suicide == homicide?

Hoplophobes like to include suicide stats in that number because it makes their argument look somewhat better - As though someone deciding to end their own life via a fairly effective method somehow magically also endangers random children and strangers in a 10-mile radius around them.

Some even go further and claim that guns make you more likely to try to kill yourself (as opposed to merely more likely to succeed, two radically different concepts that they don't quite "get") - Because my sweet, sweet lord Satan tempts me with lullabies from the barrel, no doubt.

The whole argument, however, counts as inherently unwinnable by either side. Oh, no, wait - The pro-2nd-amendment side wins by default. Go team! XD

Re:Bureaucrats

[dywolf]

Red herring.

The answer is very few, on the order of ~5-10%, because most non-gun suicide attempts are not successful.
In fact most suicide attempts in general are not successful.
But the majority of successful suicides are carried out with a gun.

The difference is that other methods aren't as final and decisive as a gun, and still have a chance of being treated with medical attention, whether because of regret on the part of the person attempting suicide, or someone else calling for help.

Firearm suicides on the other hand aren't as forgiving.

Re:Bureaucrats

[harrkev]

You should not determine public policy by "mass violence." True mass shootings are relatively rare -- they just seem common because of the publicity. It is much better to compare the number of mass shooting victims to the number of people who are struck by lightning. There is a thing called "unintended consequences." Maybe you have heard of it.

Now, if you actually DID remove all guns, that means that they have also been removed for the hands of honest citizens, and prevented them from preventing crimes! Guns are used around 800,000 times to per year to deter crime (from Wikipedia on defensive gun use).

Did you know that for every gun used to murder somebody, there are over 30,000 guns that were NOT used in crime? The rates look far worse if you compare the number of penises compared to the number of forcible rapes, and yet you do not claim that we need to reduce the number of male members in society. Why not?

Re:Bureaucrats

[harrkev]

The whole point of the Mother Jones article can be summarized as follows:

1) Person X got mad for some reason at a particular place
2) Person X shot the place up and did not choose it based on it's gun policy.

Fair enough. All I am saying is that this may have happened:

1) Person X got mad for some reason at a particular place
2) Person X realized that people there carry guns and gave up.

Or perhaps this.

1) Person X got mad for some reason at a particular place
2) Person X started to shoot the place up but was shot himself, and thus never made it to the national news.

Are you saying that the last two scenarios never happened? Really?

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:Bureaucrats

[dcollins]

"Some even go further and claim that guns make you more likely to try to kill yourself (as opposed to merely more likely to succeed, two radically different concepts that they don't quite 'get')"

There is in fact pretty consistent support that even a brief barrier from effective means of suicide will result in someone not ever attempting it. Example paper: Yip, et. al., "Means restriction for suicide prevention", Lancet, 2012.

"Abstract: Limitation of access to lethal methods used for suicide--so-called means restriction--is an important population strategy for suicide prevention. Many empirical studies have shown that such means restriction is effective. Although some individuals might seek other methods, many do not; when they do, the means chosen are less lethal and are associated with fewer deaths than when more dangerous ones are available."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22726520

Re:Bureaucrats

[blindseer]

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.

The number of states that do not require permits to carry a sidearm, concealed or openly, has increased to six recently. Kansas the most recent to do so.

Additionally there are 24 states that do not require a permit to carry a sidearm. This becomes 25 if Texas passes their open carry bill into law. The number goes to 25 also if you include the Texas open carry of long guns without a permit, and there are likely more states that do not restrict open carry of long guns but I am not aware of them.

More than half of the US states do not restrict the carry of firearms and other deadly weapons excepting that it must be done so visibly. Compare this to the other half that place severe restrictions on the carry of deadly weapons and I feel it is quite fair to compare the homicide rates of a US state with that of a European nation.

People forget that the USA is not, technically, a nation. The USA is a federation of nations. The USA has more in common with other federations, like the European Union, than with a unitary nation like France. This means that a wide variation in laws on things like weapons can occur. It does not follow to blame the murder rate in the USA on the gun laws in Texas when it's people in Illinois and Louisiana that are getting killed. If one wanted to make a logical argument then compare the murder rate of Texas to that of France and then compare the laws on guns.

What also steams me is that people will claim that the USA is at the top of murder rates compared to other "developed" nations. What of the murder rate in Mexico? Well that is not a "developed" nation, or so the claim goes. As the term "developed" nation has no real definition it is easy to claim that any nation with a higher murder rate is not "developed" like the USA. Did it occur to anyone that these nations are not "developed" like the USA because the people have been disarmed by their government? I mean it's real hard to keep people from stealing your stuff if they have no fear of getting shot as they trespass on your land.

I'll also point out how useless it is to require a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Concealed means concealed, no one knows who is carrying a firearm or other deadly weapon until that person chooses to reveal the weapon. People drive without a license and people carry weapons without a permit. In both cases it does not make sense to me to require law abiding people to get a permission slip from the government. If these people choose to follow the law then why should I care if they have government permission to do so.

Let that sink in a bit. We require a permit for what? So that people can show that they can follow the law? How about we do away with these stupid little pieces of paper and let people follow the law without first asking the government if they can follow the law? Requiring a permit to keep the insane from doing insane things is insane. A piece of paper is not going to stop the insanity. Getting rid of these pieces of paper would increase the level of sanity in this federation.

Standard Law

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding of the law, when it comes to gun manufacturing, is that an individual can make a gun themselves, but once they try to sell it (or in this case give it away, selling their "idea" if you will), then it is illegal without going ahead with all the legal paper work and such that other more traditional manufacturers have to deal with.

From what I can tell, they either want to criminalize the plans for the guns (which I think is not feasible) or they want to make 3D printers regulated (and costly) as high end printers that could potentially forge money. I can't see any "win" for them aside from publicity and very likely getting a lot of hate if they win.

Re:Standard Law

[0123456]

For good or bad, 3D printing is the end of government controls over physical items, unless they require some exotic material, like plutonium.

They'll obviously try to control them, as the Soviets tried to control typewriters, but that will only be a temporary speed-bump. Widespread availability of the technology is essential if we're ever going to get off this planet.

Re:Standard Law

[0123456]

All that is needed is to pass a law requiring 3D printers to only allow signed documents to be printed, with multiple private places acting as clearinghouses that vet items (they are not infringing, not a gun part, etc.) Existing 3D printers can be easily banned with ownership of one becoming a felony, just like how magazines over x amount of rounds are illegal to possess now in NJ, California, and other states.

Like I said, they'll try to control them like the Soviets tried to control typewriters. And that will just result in an economic collapse, as the free countries where anyone can make whatever they want become far more wealthy than the totalitarian Luddites.

Re:Standard Law

[KiloByte]

They'll obviously try to control them, as the Soviets tried to control typewriters, but that will only be a temporary speed-bump.

Not only Soviets. Currently, every single laser printer fingerprints its output.

Re:Standard Law

[aaron4801]

The Anarchist's Cookbook is all over the internet, and home-made bombs have killed many, many times more people than a plastic gun ever will. Despite decades of attempted censorship, it's still available. This is just one more exercise in futility, "for the children."

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.

No real choice but to accept it

[Ambassador Kosh]

It doesn't matter if you think this is a good idea or a bad idea since as a society we have no choice but to accept it and figure out how to best integrate it into our society. 3D printers exist now and they will continue to get better. They can print things like weapons just as they can engines, food or any number of other things. What can be printed is going to continue to advance fairly rapidly. In the end how to 3D print something is just a file and there is no way to control files.

The music industry has tried to stop music sharing and the movie industry has tried to stop moving sharing and we all now how effective that way.

We can choose to bury our heads in the sand and not see that our technology has advanced to the point where it has destabilized certain aspects of our society or we can try to figure out a new stability point.

I can get plans to build a still

[OrangeTide]

But I can't distill alcohol without a license. I can't even own a still without such a license (California, but other states are the same). I can brew 200 gallons of beer and wine a year, but I can't make a pint of vodka.

But I can freely purchase plans to make my own still, I can order plumbing supplies to put it together. But the moment I have one that is ready to use, I've broken the law. And it will be confiscated and I will be subject to serious fines. (and incarceration in some jurisdictions, although usually not for a first offense)

Hopefully this parallel helps inform people that government regulation can take many forms. And that if one aspect is too difficult or is illegal to regulate, there are other ways to control a problem and enforce the law.

Encryption was defined as a weapon as well

[putaro]

Encryption was defined as a weapon until '97. There were a number of interesting end runs around that, including a book with all of the PGP source code in it. Since you could print the definition for a 3D gun, banning 3D files for guns should run into the same legal restrictions that banning the publishing of encryption software did.

Re:Encryption was defined as a weapon as well

[0123456]

It's worth noting that many lawyers believed the export restrictions would be tossed out as unconstitutional for digital files as well as printed books (since not doing so would clearly be insane, though that's obviously no guarantee the Supreme Court would do it), but no-one really wanted to be the test case when they could just print the source code and OCR it abroad.

Re:Intent matters.

[CrashPoint]

Information that could make civilians more dangerous to police or military should not be available to civilians at all, obviously.

You really haven't thought that through.

I'm all for DD

[morgauxo]

I'm all for DD supporting second amendment rights but come on... I still can barely believe that people are actually printing guns.

Sure.. with some super-expensive, totally out of reach equipment you can print a nice metal gun at many many times the price of making it the old fashioned way. But plastic guns? Really... let me type that again... PLASTIC F'ING GUNS!!

Law abiding citizen or criminal... I think a person shooting a plastic gun is mostly a threat to themself. One of these things is going to blow up in somebody's face!

Those who support individual rights can call 3d printed guns a great thing. Those who fear inanimate objects and bogeymen can call it a disaster. I'll just call it a boatload of Darwin Awards waiting to happen!

Re:Hmmm ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Difference being that disclosing PII in that way is a violation of numerous federal laws, the penalties for which can land a person in jail and bankrupt the company they're working for. No such laws are being used to quash DD's speech -- there's just a lot of hand waving and vague talk about "the public good."

Re:Hmmm ...

[wonkey_monkey]

So, just as a hypothetical ... would Defense Distributed support someone publishing the names, addresses, SSNs, names of children and the schools they attend for the members of Defense Distributed?

How is that in any way equivalent to DD trying publish its own data?

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.

Re:Hmmm ...

[gstoddart]

Equivalent? No.

But the question (for which I don't pose an answer) is "do we accept there are valid limitations on free speech, and if so what defines that?"

Some entities are awfully quick to cite freedom of speech, and then just as quick to deny it from others.

So that "principled" stance is often self-serving bullshit.

The biggest problem for the courts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the very thing they are afraid of happening (people taking the information & converting it to the real thing) appears to be legal:

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/firearms-technology.html#commercial-parts-assembly

as long as it's for personal, non-commercial use & single shot?

Re:Intent matters.

[Paco103]

Information that could make civilians more dangerous to police or military should not be available to civilians at all, obviously

Obviously! We wouldn't want the ability for the peasants to stand up to a rogue dictatorship. The police and military should not have to fear repercussions from their actions against against the undesirables. Let the ruling class do whatever they want, as history has repeatedly shown, as long as I can still get a Big Mac and watch American Idol!

Government entities and proponents of such love to use the "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about" argument, but shouldn't the same be said of police, military, and others that we grant the authority to "rule" over us? What about information that makes the police or military more dangerous to us?

Re:Hmmm ...

[XxtraLarGe]

So, just as a hypothetical ... would Defense Distributed support someone publishing the names, addresses, SSNs, names of children and the schools they attend for the members of Defense Distributed?

How is that in any way equivalent to DD trying publish its own data?

It's not. The only reason gstoddart is asking is because it's a gun group, and he's anti-gun, and can't imagine that someone who is pro-2nd amendment rights could also be pro-1st amendment. The right to self-defense is as much of a civil liberty as the right to free speech, I don't know why that's so hard to understand.

Re:Hmmm ...

[ShanghaiBill]

So, just as a hypothetical ... would Defense Distributed support someone publishing the names, addresses, SSNs, names of children ...

Just because someone has a right to say something, doesn't mean you have to "support" what they say. Publishing names, addresses, and names of children is legal, as long as it is not done as part of a credible threat. Disclosing someone's SSN may or may not be illegal depending on what jurisdiction you are in, and what the judge had for breakfast.

Personally, I think disclosure of SSNs should not only be legal, but should be encouraged. Then we can get rid of the idiotic notion that "knowing" an SSN is somehow evidence that you are the person it belongs to.

Re:Printing the Program

[mlts]

At the time, it was OK to publish source code in a printed book... but stored online as a computer document and exported, it was an ITAR violation. So, one encryption company (think ViaCrypt) printed out the source code of PGP and made a book out of it, which was freely and legally exported. Then it was scanned in and OCR-ed for the source code.

This is one reason why that law eventually just got pulled, and export limited to the few countries on the blacklist.

Re:Code is not a weapon

[pruss]

You could roll up a blueprint and hit someone with it. Not a very effective weapon, but a weapon nonetheless. And a drawing can be used to inflict papercuts. It's harder to hurt someone with code, though I guess you could drive someone to pull out their hair upon seeing how badly written it is.

Re:Code can be a weapon

[Overzeetop]

I should add - it's not illegal to decrypt your own media for personal uses which are allowed under fair use and other laws, but it's not legal for anyone else to help you do so. It's like locking you in a cell and saying that you may leave any time, which is your right, if you choose to unlock the door. But you can't hire anyone to unlock it for you, give you a key, or even teach you locksmithing. It's a fucked up world.

Re:Hmmm ...

[fustakrakich]

Patience... Hopefully time will remedy that situation.

Re:You americans...

[mrchaotica]

Our commitment to gun ownership is WHY we're Americans (and not British subjects, or even Canadians) in the first place.

Re:Hmmm ...

[jythie]

Both deal with limitations on 1st amendment protection. While the two acts are not equivalent, any discussion where proponents of free speech take a hardline view have to be able to defend their beliefs against the other consequences of them. If they drop to 'well, some things should be stopped and some do not' then they have to provide a better argument than 'free speech' alone.

Granted the burden on arguments for exceptions is really on the side pushing the exception, but the other side still needs to address the issue.

Re:Intent matters.

[TwoEyedJack]

Information that could make civilians more dangerous to police or military should not be available to civilians at all, obviously.

Um, no, that is not obvious at all. In fact, it makes you sound like a bootlicker. Are you a bootlicker?

Re:Intent matters.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he did. He clearly came to the conclusion that education and libraries are the cause of most political dissent in the world. Once people are liberated from the concept that a human could have rights, the police and military have a much easier job.

Re:Intent matters.

[Dave Emami]

Information that could make civilians more dangerous to police or military should not be available to civilians at all, obviously.

On the contrary, it's precisely the opposite: civilians must have access to such information, to keep the police and military in check. As far as the US goes, this is discussed extensively in the Federalist Papers, in particular by James Madison #46 and Alexander Hamilton in #29. Both explicitly state the assumption that the citizenry at large will outgun any Federal standing army. To quote the latter, "...if circumstances should at any time oblige the Government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the People, while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights, and those of their fellow-citizens." The rationale for the Constitution, and therefore for the very existence of the Federal government of the United States, is predicated on this imbalance of power in favor of the citizenry.

And mind you, Madison and Hamilton were speaking for the pro-big (relatively speaking) government faction. Their argument, stripped of the flowery language, was: "Don't worry, it's safe to let the central government field an army. If the politicians try to misuse it, the citizens will just shoot them."

Furthermore, the very idea of any power or information being available to government agents but not to the citizenry is contrary to the core philosophy of the US system. Per the Declaration of Independence, governments "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." That is, whatever powers government has are delegated to it by the citizens. The government's powers are a subset of the powers of the citizenry, by definition, because for the government to have the power to do X, the citizens must first have the power to do X in order to be able to delegate it.

Re:Hmmm ...

[Dog-Cow]

How about: if you can't point to a law forbidding it, it's not forbidden?

Publishing certain private information can cause harm to the person, therefore a law was created to limit dissemination. But the point is, it was legal until the law was written and approved.

If the State Department feels disseminating plans for printable gun parts should be illegal, they can ask Congress to pass such a law.

Re:Hmmm ...

[Dog-Cow]

Sincerity is irrelevant to the law. Either there is a specific law forbidding specific (types of) speech, or there isn't. There is a law, HIPPA, which forbids disseminating patient information. Prior to that law, it was legal. Prior to anti-hate speech laws, it was legal. Get the picture?

It is currently legal, based on the first amendment, to disseminate plans for printable gun parts. If there is a law which covers it, it is the State Department's burden to prove that in a court of law.

Re:Hmmm ...

[jythie]

There is an existing law involved, the Arms Export Control Act. That is the one Defense Distributed ran afoul of.

Which also means they can comply via simple IP geolocation restrictions, which will make any 'undue burden' argument more difficult.

Re:Intent matters.

[mrchaotica]

Information that could make civilians more dangerous to police or military should not be available to civilians at all, obviously.

Indeed, that is obvious -- obviously WRONG!

The police and military exist for the benefit of civilians, and for no other reason whatsoever. The second they forget that is the second they should be put down like rabid dogs.

Your statement might be the most dangerously wrongheaded totalitarian bullshit I've read so far this year.

Re:Hmmm ...

[DaHat]

Prior to anti-hate speech laws, it was legal.

Really? Where exactly is hate speech illegal in the US today? The First Amendment would seem to preclude such a thing from being enforced much, as like it or not plenty of protected hate-speech exists today... just ask anyone who has heard members of the Westboro Baptist Church speak or protest.

And no... I'm not talking about "incitement" or "fighting words", they have their own carve outs and for very explicit reasons.

Re:You americans...

[sycodon]

Without the Second, the First cannot remain for long.

Re:You americans...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the exact same sentiment that caused us to become Americans.

It wasn't taxes or government representation that started the fighting during the American Revolution; it was access to firearms. The British government decided to send soldiers to confiscate the arms and powder at the Lexington powder magazine (the room where the town's citizens and militia stored their excess gunpowder for safety.) and the local militia stood up and said no.

By the end of the war, America's love for modern military rifles and modern sporting rifles had won the day. Our adoption of rifled barrels over the British Army's smoothbore muskets gave us the advantage of being able to fire more accurately and at greater distances.

Some 239 years later "gun control" has become an issue that simply didn't exist during those years. And just last week we saw a great example of why intentionally destroying gun culture is a dangerous thing. Unlike other shootings inspired by cartoons deemed insulting to terrorists, the one in Garland Texas was stopped within seconds by a man who was outnumbered and outgunned. Within 15 seconds of the first shots ringing out, both terrorists were shot dead in spite of wearing body armor, carrying semi-automatic AKM rifles, and facing down one man armed with a handgun. This didn't happen by accident, and that officer didn't get the handgun skills he showed that day at the police academy. He got those skills in competitions and through civilian marksmanship practice. The officers in France and Denmark were similarly outgunned, and didn't slow those terrorists one bit.

So you keep your gun-bans and warm fuzzy feelings about safety and we'll keep our actually being safe.

Everyone has the files already

[Karmashock]

I downloaded them immediately when they went live and I don't even have a 3d printer. They're also all over the torrent networks still.

So... totally pointless.

What the state department really stopped was FURTHER files. DD put out the files to print a lower receiver for an AR15 and the files for that liberator gun. Potentially they could have put more out by now had they not been gagged.

As to going forward, I'd suggest they try this... The lower receiver blanks are sold legally right now. I think they're 80 percent complete and because they're not 100 percent they're technically just pieces of metal. So why not do that with the gun files. Make them 80 percent complete and leave it to the internet to fill in the remaining 20 percent. Really you could just leak the complete file under an anonymous name but keep your organization associated with the 80 percent file. That way you might get by this state department nonsense.

If they were permitted to

Re:Hmmm ...

[ShanghaiBill]

OK, you first. :)

617-34-2135

Re:Hmmm ...

[lgw]

Fraud is different, though. There's no "prior restraint" on fraud, slander, libel, etc - lies in general. Financial products, gossip mags, etc aren't forbidden, instead if you harm someone the justice system will come for you after the fact. As you say: the intent matters.

There's very little in America where a category of speech is simply banned whole cloth. Blasphemy is not illegal (Obama's "The future does not belong to those who mock the Prophet of Islam" nonwithstanding), "hate speech" is not illegal as a category, there's very little that is: pretty much just "speech intended to cause immediate violence", and some lingering obscenity laws.

Re:Intent matters.

[rahvin112]

It really doesn't matter what the federalist papers propose or the founders discussed because the weapons the government allows you to own are no threat whatsoever to them. Modern heavy weaponry is not allowed to be owned and without it no citizenry could stand up against a government willing to use said heavy weaponry against their citizens. The 2nd amendment defense against government aggression died when the federal government was allowed to classify weapons and restrict access to the heaviest of those weapons.

I'm a big supporter of 2nd amendment rights but you are fooling yourself if you think your handgun and semi-automatic rifles are a deterrent to government aggression. The only thing that protects Americans from government aggression in the 21st century is our armed forces being unwilling to take action against the citizenry. That's it, if the military as a whole decided to side with an autocratic regime that seized power in the US there would be no civilian resistance because anyone that tried would be dead. Small arms are not an effective weapon against armored heavy weaponry. This is just a fact.

There should be no need to defend the 2nd amendment using this silly defense against government. The 2nd amendment exists and it's not going to go away no matter how much the anti-gun lobby wants it to.