With 3D Printer Gun Files, National Security Interest Trumps Free Speech, Court Rules (arstechnica.com)

A federal appeals court ruled this week against Defense Distributed, the Texas organization that promotes 3D-printed guns, in a lawsuit that it brought last year against the State Department. In a 2-1 decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals was not persuaded that Defense Distributed's right to free speech under the First Amendment outweighs national security concerns. From an ArsTechnica report: The majority concluded: 'Ordinarily, of course, the protection of constitutional rights would be the highest public interest at issue in a case. That is not necessarily true here, however, because the State Department has asserted a very strong public interest in national defense and national security. Indeed, the State Department's stated interest in preventing foreign nationals -- including all manner of enemies of this country -- from obtaining technical data on how to produce weapons and weapon parts is not merely tangentially related to national defense and national security; it lies squarely within that interest.'

Comments

Re:"Activist" judges?

[jcr]

TWO constitutional rights. The first and second amendments are both violated by this ruling.

-jcr

Re:Asinine.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do think America should register guns, permits should be issued and databases should be searchable and indexable. Currently the only thing the absence of gun registration in the US does is make it more difficult to track crime.

Yes, let's just ignore that Australia used their registration database to confiscate their firearms.

Fuck your mother.