Slashdot Mirror
Judge Blocks Release of Blueprints For 3D-Printed Guns (nbcnews.com)
U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday to stop the release of blueprints to make untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed plastic guns, saying they could end up in the wrong hands. Defense Distributed reached a settlement with the federal government in late June allowing them to freely publish the 3D files. NBC News reports: "There is a possibility of irreparable harm because of the way these guns can be made," he said. Congressional Democrats have urged President Donald Trump to reverse the decision to let Defense Distributed publish the plans. Trump said Tuesday that he's "looking into" the idea, saying making 3D plastic guns available to the public "doesn't seem to make much sense!" Eight Democratic attorneys general had filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block the federal government's settlement with Defense Distributed. They also sought the restraining order, arguing the 3D guns would be a safety risk. Earlier today, Senate Democrats introduced two bills addressing 3D-printed guns. The first bill would make it illegal to publish 3D-printed gun blueprints. The second bill would require weapons to include at least one metal component with a serial number to make them traceable. Downloads of the 3D-printed gun blueprints have been suspended until Cody Wilson [the owner of Defense Distributed] reviews Lasnik's order. It is unclear how many times the blueprints were downloaded, but some news outlets say the online manuals have been downloaded thousands of times and posted elsewhere online.
Hasn't this stuff been on Bittorrent for years? That's like trying to put a genie back in a bottle. If you don't want to see it, don't search for it on a Bittorrent search engine named after a harbor for rogue sailors. Also, it's not as if diagrams of firearms aren't in every encyclopedia and "How Things Work" book. Might need to ban libraries and machine tools too. I don't personally care for guns, but this order is a bit of a silly joke.
Can machine-age law be applied fairly to rapidly developing technology? Is [printing a gun] the same as [manufacturing] it? Is he being strung out in a Kafkaesque nightmare as a warning to others? Some [government] officials concede that it's too late to keep [it] from spreading and say that intimidating distributors is the only way they can hope to deter code makers.
Those words were written in US News and World Report more than 23 years ago about the investigation into Phil Zimmerman for having given away PGP. Here is the real text (with the original words I changed in bold):
Can machine-age law be applied fairly to rapidly developing technology? Is putting software on a computer the same as exporting it? Is he being strung out in a Kafkaesque nightmare as a warning to others? Some intelligence officials concede that it's too late to keep cryptography from spreading and say that intimidating distributors is the only way they can hope to deter code makers.
I only had to change 8 words to make it a nearly perfect fit for the situation today.
I know it is fashionable to hate guns here, but the reality is that lots of bad people have guns and have a complete disregard for the law. So, ridiculous laws (we have plenty, just look at Washington DC and California) only serve to ensure that law abiding citizens cannot get guns. It is the same as it was for cryptography. Criminals were getting it and using anyway, only people who respect the law were actually harmed by the law.
As far as guns go, there are plenty of people who legitimately fear for their lives because of abusive relationships, living in bad neighborhoods, and countless other reasons. They need to be able to protect themselves because the police so often cannot or will not. There are lots of problems to fix, but more laws will not do the job when we so often fail to enforce the laws that we have now.
A federal court has issued a prior restraint on speech (it’s attempting to block the spread of information; it is not blocking the lawful home manufacture of firearms) that is already thoroughly and completely moot. The files are out. They’re all over the internet. They’ve been copied and reproduced. The judge’s order can’t change that fact.
Moreover, Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation are hardly the only sources for online files or blueprints that enable a home manufacturer with a 3D printer to make a gun. I’m honestly unclear what the court is trying to accomplish here, aside from targeting the Trump administration and/or targeting a disfavored private company.
https://www.nationalreview.com...
NB: Any gun that would be undetectable by a metal detector would be illegal under the aptly named Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988.
If the blueprints are already easy to create and readily available why doesn't everyone 3D print guns yet, this order protects that from happening.
And what, exactly, is being protected here?
There is really no justification for this court order, on several levels.
It's a violation of the 1st and 2nd amendments on its face. It's also unenforceable, and it ignores the abundant precedent of gun-making instructions and kits that have been on sale since forever. It also ignores the results of the previous attempts to ban information: the export laws against cryptography.
It also goes against existing federal law that says it's legal to make firearms for personal use.
Even if you think it's a new type of situation not covered by the 1st and 2nd amendments, it's a violation of the 10th amendment which says that rights not covered are held by the states and/or the people.
It's clear that as soon as people accept that the government can ban information in this one "very important" issue, they'll be ratcheting it up for the next "only slightly less" important issue, and the whole thing will lead to a labyrinthine set of rules and laws banning various selected topics using different metrics.
The only reason this is happening in the first place is because the anti-2nd amendment crowd see it as a new and unexplored way to try to curtail our rights.
This is really a stupid move, and the only result will be that someone has to burn money, time, and effort proving what is plainly obvious.