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DOJ Reaches Settlement On Publication of Files About 3D Printed Firearms (joshblackman.com)
He Who Has No Name writes: Those who remember Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed -- the self-described cryptoanarchist and his organization that published plans for 3D printable firearm parts, respectively -- also remember that not long after the plans for the printable Liberator single-shot pistol hit the web, the Department of State seized the Defense Distributed website and prohibited Wilson from publishing 3D printable firearm plans, claiming violations of ITAR -- the International Traffic in Arms Regulation, a U.S. law taxing and restricting the distribution of a wide variety of physical goods listed as having military value. Slashdot covered the website seizure here (the Department of Defense was initially misreported in sources to have been the agency responsible).
In both a First and Second Amendment win, the Second Amendment Foundation has settled with the Department of State after suing on behalf of Defense Distributed. Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an excerpt from the report: "Under terms of the settlement, the government has agreed to waive its prior restraint against the plaintiffs, allowing them to freely publish the 3-D files and other information at issue. The government has also agreed to pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs' attorney's fees, and to return $10,000 in State Department registration dues paid by Defense Distributed as a result of the prior restraint. Significantly, the government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber -- including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms -- are not inherently military."
In both a First and Second Amendment win, the Second Amendment Foundation has settled with the Department of State after suing on behalf of Defense Distributed. Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an excerpt from the report: "Under terms of the settlement, the government has agreed to waive its prior restraint against the plaintiffs, allowing them to freely publish the 3-D files and other information at issue. The government has also agreed to pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs' attorney's fees, and to return $10,000 in State Department registration dues paid by Defense Distributed as a result of the prior restraint. Significantly, the government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber -- including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms -- are not inherently military."
This is great news for the school-shooting industry. I expect that the NRA and Second Amendment activists are thrilled at having these new tools to murder children.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Finally, a good reason to get that 3D printer!
The Government re-categorized common small arms to no longer fall under ITAR, but instead be regulated by standard Dept. of Commerce international trade regulations.
Since ITAR no longer applies to Defense Distributed, the case is over.
But it's just an administrative policy change. The next administration could swap it back at any time. It needs Congress to pass a law protecting blueprints and plans, or for the Supreme Court to decide a case in favor of the First Amendment to prevent future victims.
There is an expanding Open Source Space community. You can meet them at the upcoming Open Source Cubesat Workshop. This is actually an interesting precedent for us, because satellites and various space technologies are also "munitions" under ITAR or EAR, both laws have a carve-out for Open Source, and here it has been tested.
Second-amendment issues are out-of-scope for most space research organizations, so nothing said about that.
Bruce Perens.
>"Of course guns are military. What a stupid thing to say. Thanks, Trump!"
? The article said:
"The government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber -- including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms -- are not inherently military."
And that is 100% true. It didn't say "guns are military" or "guns are not military", they said that non-automatic firearms UP TO .50 caliber are not INHERENTLY military (IE, exclusively for military use).
Chill out, this has nothing to do with Trump. There is a difference between a military rifle and a sporting rifle sold to civilians. Just because something looks like a military weapon, doesn't make it so.
That was a really interesting concession, because otherwise the government would've run afoul of U.S. v. Miller, which found that gun control was not a violation of rights if the weapon in question was not militarily useful.
I can see it now, pissed off guy wants to go on a shooting spree.
Order 3d printer on amazon after hours of research, forgot to order filament, order filament, open cad, sketch rifle, does a horrible job, searches internet for a pattern, downloads pattern, load pattern into 3d printer, hit print, hours later, realizes he has wrong filament, re-order filament, printer pauses ruining print, try printing again, platter not cold enough and ruins print, platter to hot and melts print, after 2 dozen tries, gets a good print. Realizes he needs bullets, drives to sporting store buys bullets. Takes gun into woods, gun shoots 1 bullet at a time due to stress, gun jams, gun breaks after 4 bullets.
Queue up another print job to print replacement gun, repeat, while waiting for his 3rd print, subscribes to 3d printer forums.
Over a month late, finally gets a good prototype gun printed, forgets why he was mad, and starts printing 3d printed boats.
That was a curious ruling in itself, given that at the founding of the United States, the expectation was that most warships would be in private hands rather than government. That's why the Constitution includes a provision for issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal to charter private citizens to conduct warfare on its behalf.
Imagine that 10 years from now there are 3D printers that print really strong metal parts which can be assembled into a machine gun or similar. Then what? Just because today's printers can only build crappy one-shot plastic guns doesn't mean that tomorrow's printers won't be able to print far more dangerous DIY weapons.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Only in USA is an AR-15 "not inherently military"
The government has also agreed to pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs' attorney's fees
What about the rest of it? A significant portion leaves this chap out-of-pocket for doing something that has now been declared to be perfectly legal; at the very least he should be made whole for any costs incurred.
Plus compensation for inconvenience and so forth, but that's a separate issue.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Exactly. The AR-15 was in fact made in collaboration with the military. Honestly, don't these people think our actual military is slightly better qualified than the secretary of state to determine what is and is not a military firearm?
For those who aren't aware, there was a major revision to the list of military weapons by Secretary Clinton which triggered ITAR authority. There was also a coinciding adjustment to ATF regulations regarding gun manufacturing, hopefully this has or will be revised as well. The combination created a situation where a seller so much as adding a scope to a purchased AR-15 was considered to be engaging in gun manufacture and required to submit to regulation under ITAR as an international arms manufacturer, the fee was something like $10,000 AND ITAR was ordered to disregard the applications.
A settlement means one side agrees to avoid having a trial that results in an on the record verdict that can be used in future cases. Short of a conclusive trial, a settlement is never a win, just a temporary truce until a future complaint is filed.
and you fed him. The left want stronger regulations. In particular the left wants a process to take guns away from the mentally ill and from spousal abusers (several a year kill their spouses after failed attempts to get an injunction against having firearms). The left also want Assault Rifle bans (yes, assault rifles are a real thing. It's got to do with the speed of the bullet and how it tears through flesh leaving a wide hole).
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Also a curious ruling when reminded of the following bit from the wikipedia article on the ruling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
from the guy down the street selling them for $100 bucks a pop. Use it for a one time kill/assassination.
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is the velocity of the round is slightly slower leading to a large exit wound that is often fatal (and debilitating if it's not).
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If you don't mind it exploding in your hand when you target practice. I can think of a million better/more useful things to make with a 3D printer than an unreliable, dangerous, inaccurate, single-shot, plastic "gun".
Also, just because you can make it yourself doesn't mean it is legal to do so, or possess it, or carry it, or use it.
One pleasant surprise from the last election is that gun rights are now safe for decades to come - by some estimates, 25 to 40 years.
Also, it was pointed out that gun rights lobbies have not pressed gun ownership issues to the supreme court in recent decades because it would have resulted in a tossup decision (making precedent that would be very hard to overturn). Now that we have seated actual constitutionalists, the expectation is that after Ruth Bader Ginsburg(*) retires and Trump appoints the next justice, we will see some push back on gun control that gets settled by the supremes, making precedent that will be hard to overturn in the future.
And lest there be wailing and gnashing-of-teeth from the Left and/or Democrats about this, note that supreme court picks were floated as the most important issue in the last election, said issue going largely unheard amid the torrent of character assassination.
And also, in the first months of 2016, the Democratic Party moved $60 million from down-ballot races to the Clinton campaign to combat Bernie Sanders in the primary, Bernie having raised $40 million to Clinton's $20 million(**). That action did three things:
1) It gave the election to Republicans, because Bernie would have won against Trump
2) It alienated the Bernie supporters, many of whom stayed home or voted against the party candidate
3) It impoverished all the down-ballot races, which allowed Republicans to take those races/seats as well
So we're back to "you are responsible for your own distress", and "if you don't like it, field and vote for effective leaders that a majority of Americans can get behind", and "otherwise shut the fuck up because we're tired of all your shit!".
It's not like you didn't have a fair and equal chance of getting your way the first time.
(*) Who I personally admire, and respect her views on human rights
(**) How this is not a violation of FEC rules I don't know. At the time everyone was saying "It's a private organization, they can do whatever they want".
You crazy Muricans !
We're not that far from full fab units tnat can replicate themselves.
You'll still need to buy the electronics, but metal and plastic and feeds for preexisting parts are all there.
Aka download plans, visit Radio Shack with a shopping list, and push a button. Drone.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
...Murica, and let the English speaking world know just how batshit crazy y'all are! P.s. Y'all know waaay too much about guns.
Oh good, if America is so well protected we should be able to redirect the billions in defense spending to more productive use.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Flint was fucked long ago.
they're being pretty specific. It's a class of rifle with larger (20+ round) magazines and low velocity rounds designed to leave a large (usually fatal) wound. That's what makes them "Assault" rifles. Words really do have meaning here. Your hunting rifle might have the wounding power but it doesn't have enough rounds to rack up kills. The lower weight of an Assault rifle is a nice touch too.
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also several articles about the design of the AR-15 and similar rifles.
Fact is the rest of the world doesn't have mass shootings all the time. Or any kind of shootings for that matter. You can blame culture, but we're not going to change that. You can blame medical care, but nobody wants to pay for that. So what's left? Gun regulations. I can't drive a car over a certain tonnage w/o a commercial license but I can buy just about anything up to and including a grenade launcher (I cant' get the ammo, but really it's not hard to make).
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Please name one significant military that uses the AR-15.
No branch of the US military has ever used the AR-15 and I'm pretty sure non of its major allies have ever used the weapon.
"AR" does NOT mean "Assault Rifle" and the AR-15 is no more "automatic" than any other semi-auto firearm.
While an AR-15 looks scary to the wobbly-kneed among us, and I would rather not be shot at with any firearm, the simple fact is that I'd much rather be shot at by a moron criminal with an AR-15 than by a competent shooter using a standard deer rifle. The deer rifle, particularly given how likely it is to be equipped with a scope and to be in the hands of an experienced hunter, is probably more likely to kill me but the politicians who fund raise off of "assault weapons" bans know they would get destroyed by the political backlash of attempting to ban deer rifles.
The "invaders" will be those brainwashed by Russian PR. They are already here and coincidentally, they are gun owners. Putin knows there will never be a Red Dawn, to many guns. So in true KGB style he is using our own strength against us by turning it to his desires. #MAGA
we know "waaay too much" about personal freedom and liberty and self-reliance than the sheep where you apparently live. If your government won't allow you to defend yourself and your family - and you're just fine with that idea, then there's just no explaining to you what it means to be an adult human being. I hope you are happy and well-cared-for in your stall in the zoo.
If you live in Europe, you and your ancestors have probably never experienced actual freedom, so it's not surprising that you do not get it. You live in lands that were once controlled by monarchs who claimed various forms of divine authority gave them absolute control over all the people. As those forms of government faded, you transitioned to various quasi-democratic forms where big government substituted for the monarchs and continued the tradition of arrogance and maximum control over the unwashed masses. Consider the EU and Brexit: When members of the public made no choice to enter the EU, their leaders forced them into it. Many years later, and even when the public votes to pull the UK out of the EU, the leaders decide they know better than the ignorant serfs and work to keep the UK in. The governments of the other EU members are no more respectful of their citizens, and they all get away with this in part because they keep their populations mostly unarmed. The arrogant ruling class does not fear the public, and thus is free to act as it wills, unchecked, and the "democracy" is only an illusion in all the big important matters; they obey the voters on the small stuff that does not really interfere with their agendas thus fooling the masses.
Firearms in the hands of the citizens are not single-purpose things. The very act of owning firearms establishes a number of things vital to true freedom:
1. It illustrates the relationship between the governed and the government - a government that trusts its citizens with arms MAY not be trustworthy, but one that does not certainly is not. The US government was created by the states which were themselves created by the people - the people and not the feds are the source of the power and the authorities on who is armed.
2. It establishes the right of the citizens to provide for themselves by hunting - this is in contrast to various historical monarchies where the royals laid claim to the wildlife and expected the common person to be at the mercy of the royals for their very food. It's thus illustrative of freedom and independence.
3. It adds a fear factor to any government minion who might otherwise feel free to abuse the helpless citizens - a helpless citizen when pushed into a corner and armed with a gun might shoot back, and the full might of the government cannot be physically present at all times protecting every minion. This puts a natural limit on just how evil a typical government employee is willing to be for a paycheck. No shots are necessary - it's an attitude adjustment factor.
4. It removes one justification for a large standing army operating within its home country (something that concerned America's founders rather greatly). When the population is armed, the government loses the argument that it must be prepared to resist a foreign invader with troops quartered among the population - any such foreign invader would be nuts to even try invading a place where all the civilians are armed. This is a lesson the British Army learned the hard way in 1812.
5. It establishes the right of the citizens to defend themselves, their families, their friends and neighbors from criminals - which helps suppress the counter tendency toward a police state. When the people can protect themselves, there is a lessened argument for police to be everywhere and involved in everything with the justification of "protecting" the public.
There are plenty of additional arguments, but if your view of America and Americans is the comic book version peddled in the leftist media, and you've swallowed it all to the point that you use that trashy slur "Murica" and think all gun owners in the US are redneck hicks with a southern drawl, then you may never be capable of understanding. Please stay where you are and enjoy being a child to your government parent.
All this discussion proves many are talking out their rear ends!
Guns don't kill people - PEOPLE kill people.
If guns kill people....
- Pencils miss spel words.
- cars make people drive drunk.
- spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat.
An armed man/women is a citizen. An unarmed man/women is a victim.
A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface.
Gun control is not about guns; itâ(TM)s about control.
If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
Free men/women do not ask permission to bear arms.
If you donâ(TM)t know your rights you donâ(TM)t have any.
There is no such thing as an "assault rifle" Assault is a VERB not a noun!
Then we should be banning: ......
ASSAULT Automobiles
ASSAULT Knives
ASSAULT Clubs
ASSAULT Beer Bottles
ASSAULT Chain Saws
ASSAULT Pencils
ASSAULT Gasoline
ASSAULT Rocks and Stones
ASSAULT
ASSAULT Liberal/Progressive Fists
ASSAULT Liberal/Progressive Mouths
"...to disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave themâ¦"
â" George Mason
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Are you the kind of dumbass who prefers a completely unarmed citizenry like in Venezuela, China, and pretty much every violent oppressive dictatorship? You know.. where the people are essentially born into captivity and slaves of the state?
Yes. Yes, you are that kind of dumbass.
ya know? If, for example, you've been shown to be too aggressive when driving or drive while drinking you lose your right to drive. Based on what I've seen on youtube involving Americans of a Southern persuasion, their guns and alcohol no such equivalent rules apply...
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so do cars. We heavily regulate cars. Also, it's kinda hard to get a car into a school hall way. I mean, I've seen some enterprising young lads pull it off, but it's a lot of effort.
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Its keeping away from the USML and ITAR rules that's a big deal. If it winds up on the USML, then putting "technical data" (i.e. plans) online is a quick trip to prison.
Please tell us where that carveout is in ITAR or the USML?
I work on spacecraft for a living, and actually just had one classified as ECCN 9A515 . (commerce EAR, not state ITAR).
I've not seen a special exemption for open source.
There *is* a general thing of "common knowledge" - described as "things you can look up in a textbook", but people have tried the "publish in a book" strategy to try and beat ITAR, and failed.
http://progressive.org/magazine/november-1979-issue/
now give us a real challenge
Visit what now? Where is Radio Shacks? Is that by Toys R Us?
What then is inherently military? Nuclear bombs? They can be used to redirect an asteroid aiming for earth, scientific research, and space travel. Artillery? Talk about fun! Plus I can do seriously quick mining with one of those. A tank? Useful for getting up the hill behind my house. Plus I gotta protect myself from home invaders. The term is inherently meaningless.
What percentage of those 300 million american own at least a firearm ? What percentage own at least a car ? What percentage intentionally murder another with a firearm ? What is the percentage which intentionally murder with a car ? You got your response right there. To add the cerise on top of the pie, you can also ask yourself what are the valid use of a firearm, and what are the valid use of a car, and which one of both was *engineered* to efficiently kill. Most country long recognized that yes you can hunt, do sport shooting, with limited firearm, but an AR 15 like weapon, is more a semi military weapon than something civilian should have. But whatever , keep your stupid car/pool idiotic comparison.
If somebody was going to invade the US, the people having an AR15 are going to do jack shit against it. If only because of the number of tank, jet fighter/bomber, drone and other military material, then a similarly composed army would need to take over the US. You think you could with the AR15 fight agaisnt that ? nope. Best you could do is the partisan fighting, IED, and ambush or lightly armored/lightly protected target. And hope the other guy don't have high caliber or precise weapon. And hope there is no swift retribution with a drone run on the local house from which the attack started , because by that point any civilian attacking an enemy with weapon would immediately qualify as armed force, and their house armed force headquarter with potentially "collateral damage" like the US army name them. Your fantasy of resisting a modern army with AR15 is just that. Look how well the latest conflict the locals resisted with their IED and AK47.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The US has the distinct disadvantage it is very very wide. Sure , on the surface, one could believe it means a lot more army would be needed to invade, but the reality is that it means only a few soft target would be needed to cripple the US : if you target refinery, fuel depot, and energy infrastructure you cripple the US because of the distance it needs to travel. So your AR15 guys would face the problem they may have as many ar15 as they want, but they would be quickly isolated unable to travel far as an invading army would lock down fuel supply/energy supply. After a week or two the civilian would be unable to travel far , by fact that the US all places are far from each other. So basically you would be screwed.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Why are you trying to silence the school shooters? They are only trying to stand up for themselves to fight against the abuse they are suffering.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
The JEWS who run your government want you disarmed, so you can't expel them from your country for enslaving you all. Do you know where money comes from? Do you know who has the right to print money out of thin air (or create it on a computer screen out of thin air), lend it to the public, whether to private individuals or businesses, and then make them pay it back with REAL money earnt from REAL labour, or from the sale of REAL goods? Why, it's the eternal JEW, that's who. Why doesn't the government issue all the money that is needed, with no interest payable on it? Because the JEW runs your country, that's why. And they want you disarmed before you all wake up and start fighting back.
Right, that makes it much less relevant.
>"What then is inherently military?"
Remember their statement:
"The government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber -- including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms -- are not inherently military."
They just defined it, in reverse. It would be all automatic firearms, and firearms over .50 caliber. ANY firearm can or may be used by the military, but the previous sentence define those that are inherently military.
Your followup statements are out of bounds, since their definition only regards firearms. Nuclear bombs, tanks, etc, are not "firearms".
The Second Amendment Lives Again. And guess what More Is on the way as we make America Great Again.
So many comments that have nothing to do with the case. This was mainly a 1st. amendment decision and only a little of a 2nd. amendment case, even though it the plans were for a firearm. This will decision will have a affect on much more than just firearms.
Passionately Indifferent
Imagine that 10 years from now there are 3D printers that print really strong metal parts which can be assembled into a machine gun or similar. Then what?
Then people do exact what they do today, and assemble the strong metal parts into a working gun.
Or did you forget metalworking shops are common and it's dead easy to produce things like rifle barrels?
3D printing use will expand for sure but it's not like every home will have a 3D printer that can produce high quality metal and composite plastic parts. Instead it will just be really easy to order prints from more sophisticated printing facilities (just like you can order 3D stone prints today). But that's not very much different than today where you can also easily order gun parts online.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have a perfect solution to the gun control debate - everyone gets to own a gun. But past a certain point of mental stability, you are *required* to 3D print in plastic) whatever guns you own.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You meant Australia, England, Canada, Japan, hell most if not all Europe, basically all industrialized nations EXCEPT 'merkuh? Dumbass.
Because the security queue is at the mall right? So its a mall shooting, which makes it ok so long as its not at a school. /s
Hooray for the Bill of Rights.
It's inherently dangerous because such a gun cannot be detected via metal detectors so we need a specific law to prohibit publishing or distributing these plans.
I hear ya. I read a series a while ago that had the best nickname I've seen for M-16 and its NATO friendly ilk. Barbie Guns.
AR15s are available for civilian sale in Canada, straight pull version or MARS pattern CZ rifles in the UK.
That was a really interesting concession, because otherwise the government would've run afoul of U.S. v. Miller, which found that gun control was not a violation of rights if the weapon in question was not militarily useful.
That is a complete misreading of U.S. vs. Miller.
As you can see above, the Supreme Court hadn't been told that sawed off shotguns were regularly used in warfare. (See "trench guns" during WWI). If they had, they would have ruled it was a protected weapon because it would have had a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia"
That's OK though, even people who should know better get that wrong.
This is an ex-parrot!
Automatic and over .50 cal *MAY BE* inherently military.
It is legal for individuals in the USA to manufacture their own firearms, according. To Federal Government laws and regulation. It is also legal to possess a firearm you make yourself, to carry a firearm you make yourself, to use a firearm you make yourself. To imply otherwise is quite a negative trait (please supply your own derogative).
>"It is also legal to possess a firearm you make yourself, to carry a firearm you make yourself, to use a firearm you make yourself. "
Not if you are a felon or fall under other laws that prevent you from possessing or carrying a firearm. That was my point. It is not the act of MAKING it that might be illegal, but HAVING it might be, depending on who and where you are.
Here is just Federal: https://www.justice.gov/sites/... (section 1)
It's about lynch-mob NGOs that come in the night, with the tacit support of sheriffs and courts who look the other way.
It's about dying with dignity rather than dying like victims, thinking here of Warsaw and Auschwitz.
It's about standing against collectivist fanatics who do not value the individual, thinking here of Cambodia's killing fields.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.