After Court Order, 3D-Printed Gun Pioneer Now Sells Pay-What-You-Want CAD Files (arstechnica.com)

CaptainDork writes: In a surprising announcement, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson announced Tuesday that while he would continue to comply with a federal court order forbidding him from internationally publishing CAD files of firearms, he would also begin selling copies of his 3D-printed gun files for a "suggested price" of $10 each. The files, crucially, will be transmitted to customers "on a DD-branded flash drive" in the United States and won't be available as downloads.

Comments

I have no issue with this

[oldgraybeard]

Trying to hide knowledge never protected anyone from anything.

Just my 2 cents ;)

Re:I have no issue with this

[PPH]

It's prevented terrorists from building and detonating a nuclear bomb.

Not really. Plans for nukes are all over the place. It's the cost of acquiring the rather exotic raw materials needed that has stopped anyone other than nations from building these.

Yep - he is

[Okian Warrior]

What a Patriot. I'll bet he going to be protecting our freedoms real soon now.

Actually, he pretty-much is.

You don't see that because you're on the other side of the issue, on the side of speech you don't like.

We often say that freedom of speech means freedom for others to say things we don't like.

You don't like it, I get that.

Do you believe in free speech or do you believe in suppression of speech?

Re: Yep - he is

[DRJlaw]

Just about all of them, I can't list every single way nor am I 'rooting' either way. There's no explicit right to manufacture your own firearms, never was. Read it again Sam. And they meant muskets, militias, as initially written.

It's simply not the case that there are no restrictions on firearms manufacturing because of the 2nd amendment, though some would like to espouse that for their existing ideology. That's new law that doesn't exist yet.

Well then it's a good thing that this is only information about how to manufacture firearms, and it's governed by old law that says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Wrong amendment, Buckaroo.

Re:Yep - he is

[blindseer]

What about my right to bear nuclear weapons? Isn't the government suppressing my rights by not selling me nukes?

This is a First Amendment issue. This is about the right to "keep and bear" documents and information. If you want the schematics on building a nuclear weapon then you can certainly find them on the internet, at your local library, and in book stores. If you want schematics on building a machine gun then I know where you can get them, the United States Patent Office. They also have schematics on building a handgun far more durable than what Defense Distributed is offering. This whole case is quite silly and it appears Cody Wilson is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame from it.

There's laws on building nuclear weapons, and on building handguns. This case is not about building either of those, these laws were not being challenged.

Re:Yep - he is

[penandpaper]

The last example I can think of is the Battle of Athens.

1946 wasn't that long ago. It took an attempt to steal the election and shooting a black man in the back for voting before veterans raided an armory and seiged a prison to steal back the ballot boxes.

I don't know when the next example of tyranny will present itself and hopefully I never do see it. But it's not a question of if but when. Unless you can find a way to change human nature or remove humans from the governance process then I don't expect that question to change.

It must say something about the nation we live in that the very idea of tyranny and freedom (freeze peach) is a joke these days. I don't whether that is a good or bad thing.

Re:Yep - he is

[ronaldbeal]

You cannot control an entire country and its people with tanks, jets, battleships and drones or any of these things. A fighter jet, tank, drone, battleship or whatever cannot stand on street corners. And enforce “no assembly” edicts. A fighter jet cannot kick down your door at 3AM and search your house for contraband. None of these things can maintain the needed police state to completely subjugate and enslave the people of a nation. Those weapons are for decimating, flattening and glassing large areas and many people at once and fighting other state militaries. The government does not want to kill all of its people and blow up its own infrastructure. These are the very things they need to be tyrannical assholes in the first place. If they decided to turn everything outside of Washington D.C. into glowing green glass they would be the absolute rulers of a big, worthless, radioactive pile of shit. Police are needed to maintain a police state, boots on the ground. And no matter how many police you have on the ground they will always be vastly outnumbered by civilians which is why in a police state it is vital that your police have automatic weapons while the people have nothing but their limp dicks. BUT when every random pedestrian could have a Glock in their waistband and every random homeowner an AR-15 all of that goes out the fucking window because now the police are out numbered and face the reality of bullets coming back at them. If you want living examples of this look at every insurgency that the U.S. military has tried to destroy. They’re all still kicking with nothing but AK-47s, pick up trucks and improvised explosives because these big scary military monsters you keep alluding to are all but fucking useless for dealing with them. --The above quoted from an anonymous source on the internet--

Re: Yep - he is

[DRJlaw]

Not discussing the 2nd. Deal with that.

Re: Yep - he is

[DRJlaw]

And the first amendment makes express the right to blather, and Cody the right to distribute information on how to manufacture firearms, regardless of whether we have the right to make weapons without restriction.

One day you'll figure out the difference between publishing speech and manufacturing weapons. Until then you're just wrong.

Re: Yep - he is

[ArchieBunker]

Right here asshole https://www.quora.com/Is-it-le...

Re: Yep - he is

[DRJlaw]

You have a right to blather, but it's a limited right. I'm correct on this, you can pretend to be a lawyer but you can't refute this fact.

Censorious trope three with the twist of unspecified limits. The blather is not obscenity, fraud, incitement, or speech integral to criminal conduct, and neither are the 3d printing files. Care to cite an applicable limit, or have you simply retreated to a "I'm right about an irrelevant fact so I must be right about everything else" fallacy?

Re:Yep - he is

[Dare nMc]

I am in a strong military family, I know if a drive by happens to my family, I will choose them as they are worth the risk of desertion.

If military force is illegally used inside the states to suppress civilian dissent, I predict every soldier with a family will be at home protecting them and their possessions from mobs within days.

Their is a reason military overthrows always happen in countries with a strong class structure. Putin can kill because he doesn't have family or friends outside of his class so he only has to protect/worry about those in that class. It is a well drawn line that everyone knows, and the oppressed classes don't have weapons or free association with other classes. US you cannot divide that as long as we prevent that class structure from taking hold, which cannot be easily drawn, because when you get a large class and suppress them, they will break that with force, and guns are the force multiplier that helps prevent that from forming. A group of 300 armed is as strong as a group of 30,000 unarmed. So a armed populace is 100* less likely to become a oppressed population than a unarmed population.

Re: Yep - he is

[DRJlaw]

It's not really a First Amendment issue though.

Why can't you shout "fire" in a theatre?

Censorious trope two. Who says that you can't shout "fire" in a theater, especially when it's true?

The Pentagon Papers case did not allow for suppression of true information where the consequences of that speech were "dire." The Federal government agreed that this information was not within the scope of ITAR and that it could not prohibit publication. The judge in issuing this very injunction admitted that "Regulation under the AECA means that the files cannot be uploaded to the internet, but they can be emailed, mailed, securely transmitted, or otherwise published within the United States."

Note: personally I support DD here, I'm just refuting the argument that it's a simple 1st Amendment issue.

Then why are you attempting to justify the outrage here using exception-to-the-first-amendment arguments?

Re:Yep - he is

[DRJlaw]

Can I get a recipe complete with required equipment list for the manufacture of LSD or methamphetamine off the internet too since all information is just so legal now?

Yes, you can. Or would you prefer detailed instructions direct from the U.S. government?

The preferred method is:

An alkali metal, preferably sodium, is oxidized with ferric nitrate in liquid ammonia to form the alkali metal amide, e.g. sodium amide. The dry acid H is added and after a few minutes the resulting alkali metal salt is mixed with the desired organic halogen compound R Hal. 2 to 10, preferably 3 to 5 atoms of alkali metal and 2 to mols, preferably 4 to 6 mols of the organic halogen compound are used per mol of acid.

The ammonia may be evaporated a few minutes after addition of the organic halogen compound. To isolate the compound I the reaction mixture is shaken between Water and ether and the aqueous phase filtered through a tale layer. The procedure which is then followed depends on the acid and the organic halogen compound used. The isolation of l-methyl-D-lysergic acid in pure, crystalline form is particularly simple, it being sufficient for the aqueous solution to be brought to a pH value of 4.5 to 5 with acetic acid. Otherwise, the aqueous solution may be evaporated to dryness and methanol poured over the dry residue, the inorganic salts and the small quantity of l-methyl-isolysergic acid present going into solution and the l-methyl-D-lysergic acid remaining undissolved.

HowStuffWorks provides another helpful description. Quick, call the police, because I've posted a mass of not-illegal information right here...

Re: Yep - he is

[Anonymous Coward]

And it was about muskets and militias then, before the army or police.

You seem to have forgotten about the private possession of cannons and warships. Muzzle-loading cannons are not even restricted by US law, although shells have to be registered with the BATF. They certainly existed prior to the Constitution, as did the private ownership of warships, which complemented the development of US naval power. Privately owned and crewed warships served in the revolution, the wars against the Barbary pirates, and the war of 1812. The Constitution even explicitly grants Congress the authority to grant the private owners of warships letters of marque and reprisal. So, if you want ti talk about the kinds of arms that the Founding Fathers envisioned civilians owning, you need to think in terms of the 110-foot, 18 cannon Prince de Neufchatel.

Re: Yep - he is

[LynnwoodRooster]

Does the law say you can eat a bowl of Cheerios in the morning? Better put that spoon down! Unless there is a law on the books prohibiting an action, ANY action is essentially legal. There is NO LAW saying you cannot distribute information about building a firearm (in fact, Amazon has a full list of books on how to turn basic materials into firearms), thus the information is completely legal.

What scares me about you and people with your opinion is that you have turned over ALL your freedoms and rights to the Government. You don't get it - they are YOUR RIGHTS, from the Creator and inherent. You choose to surrender ALL to the Government, and let IT dictate what you can do. One of the central tenets of the Constitution was the duties of Government were limited, and - as the Constitution itself says - it lists what the Federal Government can do. If it's not in that list - it cannot do it.

Our system of law is prohibitive, not permissive; it says what you cannot do - not what you can do. If there is no law restricting the distribution of this 3D file, then it is implicitly legal, and a judge has ZERO basis for banning such distribution. There is no legal grounds for Government to "ban" something without a law behind it.

People with your viewpoint on Government and governance are the true threat to freedom. You wish to turn this concept on its head, effectively allowing Government to tell you what you can do. To lose all freedoms and rights and become a mere serf. It is because Government has defined limits to its powers, and that we have the freedom to do as we will if no law restricts, that keeps society moving. Your approach leads to the USSR, to feudalism, to slavery. You willingly clamp a chain around your neck and hand it to your master - because they get to say what you can do. Sad.

Re:Yep - he is

[nwaack]

I just read a history book. I didn't read anything about you guys protecting us (yet). Perhaps you aren't well regulated enough? I'm sure the militia will arrive any day now. Once they get back from Walmart, and as long as they don't miss football season.

You're a real special kind of douchebag - the dangerous kind. The douchebag that is not only ignorant, but wants to take away other people's rights based on that ignorance. What a real Grade A Arsehole you are.

Re:Yep - he is

[Alypius]

...founding fathers of a number of allies, such as South Africa.

Who, coincidentally enough, is going through a simultaneous gun confiscation and land grab.

DD Branded Drive

[that this is not und]

I want the Barbara Streisand Edition Drive.

Re:DD Branded Drive

[blindseer]

I want the Barbara Streisand Edition Drive.

Those were all sold out in seconds.

Re:I have no understanding of this, FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone should have access to chemical/biological/nuclear weapons tech

We already do. Check out your local college library.

In this case, the 2nd Amendment is being stretched well beyond its original intent

Quite the opposite. The intent was to allow citizens to own military hardware. Remember the first US Navy ships were privately owned, cannons and all.

the supporters ... we still have law and order to maintain ... Nobody is being realistically oppressed ... ridiculous an argument

Leave tribalism to baboons. Humans have moved on and the wise among us have decided certain rights are necessary to retain every other right.

Re:Clever kid ...

[blindseer]

The next step, if any, will be for the Feds and/or states to address the legality of shipping firearms without a license.

A firearm schematic is no more a firearm than the photo on my driving license is a person.

I know that doesn't make any sense, but neither did, "Cody is violating firearm export ..."

The government used a law on the export of militarily valuable information to prevent these files from being posted on the internet. While there are bits of data with significant value for national security this is not one of those bits. They didn't call the schematics a "firearm" but they certainly tried to create some kind of equivalence between a representation of the thing and the thing itself.

Re: Government does NOT give us the right

[fish_in_the_c]

Agreed but that argument only makes sense if those rights are endowed by a creator and unfortunately many people no longer believe the premise so cannot sustain the conclusion.

Re:Sorry Jlaw, Jennie Lawrence or whoever...

[DRJlaw]

Sorry blatheroo, there are things related to speech that our system of laws puts restrictions on. You seem to think the 1st amendment is unlimited, lol. How silly of you. Back to civics class kiddo. No right is unlimited.

Censorious trope three.

I don't need to go back to civics class, I studied constitutional law, passed the bar, and everything. You, on the other hand... not so much.

Re:Good old Cody

[Lord Kano]

Plastic 3d-printed guns that you can only get maybe 1-2 shots off before they're destroyed. You only need one bullet to kill one person, so 3d-printed sniper firearms is likely what people who have the means to print weapons will aim for. Not plastic handguns.

Highly unlikely. High powered rifle rounds produce substantially more pressure than handgun rounds. We don't have commercial technology that can safely handle those pressures with plastic, a homebrew solution that can isn't likely in our lifetime.

Like the old Liberator pistols from WWII, they're intended to relieve an occupying soldier of his commercially manufactures weapon.

LK

3D printed guns are not a real problem

[imidan]

I don't believe that home-printed plastic zip guns are a threat anywhere outside of spy novels or Jack Bauer world. They are just not a thing we really need to worry about: there are so many problems with them, and so many alternatives, that they are not a likely effective attack vector.

1. They are likely to misfire or explode
2. Even when they work, they rarely work more than once
3. Even though they are printed from plastic, they still require metal parts (like the striker spring)
4. They may or may not trip a metal detector, but they will be perfectly visible in our baggage screening equipment today
5. They still require bullets, which are dense, metallic, and may carry residues that are detectable by swabbing
6. Buying a high-enough-quality 3D printer with feedstock to print a plastic zip gun costs more than just buying an inexpensive but reliable semi automatic pistol
7. Buy a gun at a gun store--most of our high-profile gun violence in this country is perpetrated by people who bought their guns legally
8. Buy a gun from a private party--no background check required
9. If terrorists wanted to smuggle guns onto an airplane, they could go to the bother of making a bunch of crappy zip guns, or they could just rely on the 95% failure rate of the TSA to even notice contraband in luggage and send a bunch of guys onto planes with store-bought pistols--at least some are likely to succeed
10. A person with knowledge and equipment for machining could produce a much higher-quality, more effective weapon
11. It's possible today to buy the pieces of a gun and assemble them yourself at home, with one part requiring some finishing on your part--making homemade guns even easier than 3D printed guns
12. Forget about making a homemade one-shot pistol, make bombs out of pressure cookers and dynamite, or pipes and gunpowder, or big trucks and fertilizer (NSA, please do not put me on a list for this, these are just things people have done)
13. I could keep adding to this list almost indefinitely

There are so many actual, real threats that we face in our country. Plastic zip guns are not one of them. We don't need to worry about banning them. People who make them will blow off their own fingers and realize it was a bad idea. Nobody else will care.

Re:3D printed guns are not a real problem

[Gilgaron]

Yeah it is one of those things where you can see why it would worry people, but it is pretty silly when there are places online that'll tell you how to mod a relatively easy to acquire AR15. No one is going to storm a federal armory with 3D printed weapons when perfectly legal and effective WWII era combat rifles are relegated to target shooting and the occasional deer. Now if they start 3D printing Predator drones and cruise missiles en masse then we'll have a stickier wicket.

Re:Just a blathering liar, not a lawyer -close? ha

[DRJlaw]

Spam your single link again, why not. Prove me right once more.

Preliminary injunction page 25: "Regulation under the AECA means that the files cannot be uploaded to the internet, but they can be emailed, mailed, securely transmitted, or otherwise published within the United States."

Oops, a different link that proves you wrong. Oh well, I can live with it.

Re:The tech cannot be stopped

[Karmashock]

You're in the same position as people trying to stop marijuana in the 1950s.

You think you can stop it.

See you when we're both old and gray... and you finally understand what I was talking about.

I'm not saying you can't pass laws. Look at all the laws and funding the DEA got? And they're get absolutely humiliated by a rabble of drug pushers the world over.

You can't stop it. I'm not telling you that you can't pass a law. I'm not telling you it is good or bad. I'm telling you that you're spitting into the wind.

To this you say "but what if I spit really hard"... then it will fly farther into the wind, then spiral back and slap into your face slightly harder.

Re:personality

[The Cynical Critic]

If Islamic terrorism has taught us anything in the last few decades, it's that people with the will to kill innocents will use the most effective means available to them, be it chemical weapons (ISIS for example has used rudimentary chemical weapons), bombs, guns, cars/trucks or knives. If they can't get access to something they want, they'll just move down the ladder until they get to something they do have access to and carry out their acts of violence with it.

In other words, for any particular type of rampage the pool of potential perpetrators is only as big as the overlap between those with the will and those with the ability to go trough with it. Reduce the size of the pool of people with access to the tool/tools needed for a particular type of rampage and that will obviously decrease the overlap of people with both the means and will to go trough with it to an equal or greater extent.

As for how to actually try to control 3D printed guns, my personal hunch is to go trough the 3D printers themselves and the consumables necessary for making guns with them. A total ban will obviously be too drastic, but if I had to look for inspiration somewhere I'd look at how the equipment and precursor chemicals used to make chemical weapons and particularly hard drugs are regulated. Sure, that's never going to be completely perfect, but nothing ever is.