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

Asinine.

[RightSaidFred99]

They act as if these are nuclear or biological weapons. There is no compelling interest in keeping plans for primitive 3D printed guns away from anyway, and there is no possible argument that there is.

Re:Asinine.

[BitterOak]

They act as if these are nuclear or biological weapons. There is no compelling interest in keeping plans for primitive 3D printed guns away from anyway, and there is no possible argument that there is.

Exactly. One can't help think there is a hidden agenda here of allowing the government better control of DOMESTIC gun possession. I certainly hope the Supreme Court reviews this case. This represents a huge blow for First Amendment rights, and seems at odds with previous rulings pertaining to source code of encryption software being ruled free speech despite ITAR regulations controlling the export of cryptography.

Re:Asinine.

[DaHat]

Predicted response: "Won't someone think of the children! Guns kill people, encryption doesn't!"

Alas when it comes to proponents of gun control, you don't often encounter honest or thoughtful people. They have a single goal in mind and ignore all of the existing regulation on the books today.

Re:Asinine.

[SumDog]

I am against current US gun policy and think the 2nd amendment is insane.

That being said, I'm against this ruling. Source code and schematics are free speech. This ruling makes no sense from a legal perspective.

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.

Guns aren't speech. If you like guns, fine. That's great. Go buy a gun, and register the ballistics and keep them locked up and take them out for sport. It's worked in Australia for two decades. Their gun laws post-Hobart shootings have greatly reduced the number of suicides.

Re: Asinine.

[Anonymous Coward]

So right about source code and so wrong about everything else. The only thing a gun database accomplishes is a ready made list of who to go after if things get bad. Make it searchable and you have a ready made list of who owns expensive firearms to rob, and of course who DOESN'T own firearms because they're even better to rob.

As to Australia, that's a tragedy and loss of freedom of epic proportions and I'm saddened to even think about what happened there with mass gun confiscation and destruction, though at least it was recorded and can be used as a real life bad example of what we should never allow to happen here.

Since the suicide rates and other violence rates go nowhwere in other places where guns are banned, but simply take other forms, there might be other reasons for your statistic. Do they have good medical and mental health programs the US lacks? Do they hand out SSRI drugs like candy like we do here? Little under reported thing: US mass shooters who are not foreign terrorists have something in common. They are almost always on or were recently on anti depressants. But nobody talks about that because that would mean fixing the actual problem.

Interesting thing to consider: one reason we don't have national healthcare and lack meaningful social programs is because gun owners like me are often forced to vote for conservative crazies to stop the likes of you, even when we otherwise disagree with them. The country might be much better off if you hadn't made political enemies like that.

I never understand my fellow liberals' opposition to guns since guns are used against them more often than against conservatives. You'd think they'd follow the example of some of the survivors of the Pulse shooting and learn to shoot. Of course that story doesn't get out much as it doesn't fit the official narrative. I learned of this because I saw one news report on that topic once on a regional station and then silence. I was shocked I even saw the one report, but then again the media tried to make it about guns and anything except international terrorism.

The Second Amendment is a brilliant idea. Some of the founders opposed having a Bill of Rights. They thought it demeaning, or that listing some rights would mean others they hadn't listed would be easily infringed. They were right about that, but wrong headed people like you would have disarmed and weakened our society long ago were it not for that. Go read the Bill of Rights. It's really a list of prohibitions against the things the British did to oppress the Colonists. Take note of what the first two are because that's how you run an oppressive society. So are your ideas.

Re:Asinine.

[srmalloy]

I say, make guns like driving, but on a "shall issue" permit requiring a reasonable proficiency test.

And you can purchase any car that you can afford, transport it anywhere in public without needing a license unless you use another car to transport it (realistically, pulling an F1 race car on a trailer by hand is ludicrous, but the law doesn't restrict it), and you can drive that car on private property without needing a license, insurance, registration of the vehicle, or any of the safety requirements for a car operated on public streets. Apply the same 'restrictions' to firearms, and watch the gun-control lobby fill the cardio wards of the nation's hospitals, because that gives up 90% of what they've stolen away from gun owners over the years.

Re:Asinine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you need to be able to hit a target? Some people just need to be able to carry a derringer to kill a rapist that is directly on top of them.

Re:Asinine.

[blindseer]

I clicked on a bunch of your links (the youtube has suffered a takedown, btw) and almost all of those are re: assault weapons and high capacity weapons/magazines. I'm not surprised people get more upset about those when they really are overkill for any hunter worth their salt (and yes, I've hunted with bows and arrows as well as rifles... never saw the need for semi-automatics).

If you think the Second Amendment is about hunting ducks and deer then you've missed the whole point.

I tend to favor letting people own them, but I also favor registering them and having robust training and licensing. The NRA seems to want unlimited rights with no regulations, precautions or monitoring, apparently.

We just saw a court rule that a computer file can be banned because it describes how to build a single shot pistol. I'd think that might wake you up that perhaps the NRA isn't just paranoid here. They didn't rule that the files could only be available domestically, or just to people licensed and trained in firearm use, or both. They ruled the files themselves were banned from distribution.

This is quite simply a weapons ban, and the weapon is a computer file. Words are weapons here, according to them. They seem to fear foreign nationals might be able to build these single shot weapons to... do what exactly? Invade the USA? They are already smuggling in machine guns so that makes no sense. Especially when the machine guns that they smuggle into the USA were sold to them by the US government.

The governemnt don't want to disarm these foreign nationals, they are already arming them. They don't want me and you armed is all. If it wasn't about disarming Americans then they'd have said the files need to be sent to people with a US address, proper training, and registration. They didn't say that, they said the files cannot be shared.

Re:Asinine.

[blindseer]

How far you willing to carry that? Some old lady had her double barrel shotgun stolen by a couple thugs, they cut it down to fit under a coat, kill a man, rape his girlfriend, and then burn down the house in the hope to hide the crime. Now you have granny on death row for murder, rape, arson, and an unregistered short barreled shotgun. Good job there, Tex. That will teach the thugs that got away. See granny didn't get their names. Can't prove she didn't sell it to them. So what if she filed a police report of the theft, that's another crime of filing a false report.

Another outcome. No one sells a gun any more. They sell scrap metal pieces, 3D printers, and a small computer loaded with the files to make a gun. The guns won't have serial numbers because someone along the line left out that little piece of code to print the number on the barrel. OOPSIE! Now instead of a couple dozen firearm manufacturers which are watched over like hawks there are now millions of people making their own guns in spare bedrooms, garages, and basements. Perhaps a few of them just "forgot" that they aren't supposed to sell these firearms without a serial number and registering the sale with the local sheriff.

The first scenario is not likely to every happen because that means so many things have gone wrong with our legal system. We've been looking at the gun instead of the criminal. The second scenario is nearly inevitable. People like the idea of do it yourself. It's become a kind of lifestyle of people building their own furniture, growing their own food, making their own clothes. It's a small leap from that to making their own firearms, especially if that same device that prints the firearm can print things like faucets, teacups, and kitchen utensils

Have you learned nothing from the "war on some drugs", or the "war on poverty", or the "war on bootleggers". All of them failed. If you declare a war on the gun trade then it will fail just like the wars on everything else. We didn't get less from these wars, we got more.

Re:Asinine.

[BlueStrat]

Banning books...?

The US government has grown ever more authoritarian and has violated ever more Constitutional limits and civil rights over the last century and has grown ever bolder. Many here have even cheered on government violations of civil rights and limits to government power when it fits their political/ideological agendas. I've warned against this sort of thing for years and was flamed and ignored because for far too many people including many here, the ends justify the means.

With all the support they've received from the public for violating other civil rights and limits to their power for political/ideological goals, are you really shocked or surprised they would violate the 1st Amendment?

If you allow them the power to "reinterpret" one thing, they can and will use the same powers, methods, and tactics to reinterpret anything else they want.

As far as Defense Distributed's 3D printer files, just strip the files of anything tying them to anyone and upload them to torrent sites across the internet. Let them waste time & resources on playing 'whack-a-mole'.

Strat

Re:Asinine.

[cayenne8]

Aside from the 1st amendment rights on this....

I'm curious how this comes into play at all.

It is NOT against the law to manufacture your own guns. There is even a market out there that helps you do this for conventional rifles and pistols, where they sell you the lower (the only part of a gun officially recognized as a gun by the US Feds) that is 80% complete.

They will also sell you a jig, that you can used with a drill press to finish the last 20% of the lower, and then, you have a perfectly legal, lower with NO serial number, no record of sale and you can buy all the parts you want to make it into a working gun.

This is 100% legal...you just cannot resell it.

Why would selling code to "print" a gun be any different than this?

I would think this precedent would be a valuable argument on this situation too.

Have they never heard of Phil Zimmerman?

[Nutria]

Print the code for the lower receiver in a book.

"Activist" judges?

[whoever57]

Those people who are always worrying about "activist" judges should look at this case.

It appears to me that the court has used a completely made-up "national security exception" to override a clear constitutional right.

Re:HFS, what is happening with our country?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, then they fail to explain why crime rates are so much lower in those neighboring states with all the guns...