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Title: Court victory legalizes 3D-printable gun blueprints
Source:
TechCrunch
URL Source: https://techcrunch.com/
Published: Jul 10, 2018
Author: Devin Coldewey
Post Date: 2018-07-11 11:23:07 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 5474
Comments: 30
A multi-year legal battle over the ability to distribute computer models of gun parts and replicate them in 3D printers has ended in defeat for government authorities who sought to prevent the practice. Cody Wilson, the gunmaker and free speech advocate behind the lawsuit, now intends to expand his operations, providing printable gun blueprints to all who desire them.
The longer story of the lawsuit is well told by Andy Greenberg over at Wired, but the decision is eloquent on its own. The fundamental question is whether making 3D models of gun components available online is covered by the free speech rights granted by the First Amendment.
This is a timely but complex conflict because it touches on two themes that happen to be, for many, ethically contradictory. Arguments for tighter restrictions on firearms are, in this case, directly opposed to arguments for the unfettered exchange of information on the internet. It’s hard to advocate for both here: restricting firearms and restricting free speech are one and the same.
That at least seems to be conclusion of the government lawyers, who settled Wilson’s lawsuit after years of court battles. In a copy of the settlement provided to me by Wilson, the U.S. government agrees to exempt “the technical data that is the subject of the Action” from legal restriction. The modified rules should appear in the Federal Register soon.
What does this mean? It means that a 3D model that can be used to print the components of a working firearm is legal to own and legal to distribute. You can likely even print it and use the product — you just can’t sell it. There are technicalities to the law here (certain parts are restricted, but can be sold in an incomplete state, etc.), but the implications as regards the files themselves seems clear.
Wilson’s original vision, which he is now pursuing free of legal obstacles, is a repository of gun models, called DEFCAD, much like any other collection of data on the web, though naturally considerably more dangerous and controversial.
“I currently have no national legal barriers to continue or expand DEFCAD,” he wrote in an email to TechCrunch. “This legal victory is the formal beginning to the era of downloadable guns. Guns are as downloadable as music. There will be streaming services for semi-automatics.”
The concepts don’t map perfectly, no doubt, but it’s hard to deny that with the success of this lawsuit, there are few legal restrictions to speak of on the digital distribution of firearms. Before it even, there were few technical restrictions: certainly just as you could download MP3s on Napster in 2002, you can download a gun file today.
Gun control advocates will no doubt argue that greater availability of lethal weaponry is the opposite of what is needed in this country. But others will point out that in a way this is a powerful example of how liberally free speech can be defined. It’s important to note that both of these things can be true.
This court victory settles one case, but marks the beginnings of many another. “I have promoted my values for years with great care and diligence,” Wilson wrote. It’s hard to disagree with that. Those whose values differ are free to pursue them in their own way; perhaps they too will be awarded victories of this scale. (1 image)
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#1. To: Deckard, Gatlin, Liberator, sneakypete (#0) (Edited)
I'm afraid your article does scarce justice to this major story. Cody Wilson is the most awesome Second Amendment activist in the country. He's a crypto-anarchist, what Gatlin would confusedly describe as a libertarian.
DailyWire: DOJ Settles In Landmark Gun Suit, Safeguarding The Second Amendment
 In 2013, hot-shot crypto-anarchist Cody Wilson warned the world that downloadable guns were imminent and gun control as we know it, a mere fantasy. Some five years later, fresh off a huge effective win against the State Department — which allows for Wilson to post his 3D-printable gun files online, "communist style," as he calls it — Wilson says gun control is officially dead. And he killed her. "I barely put a million bucks into this and I got you the Second Amendment forever," he boasted to The Daily Wire in a phone interview. "What has the NRA done for you lately?" Due to the terms of the surprising settlement of the United States government, Wilson can begin posting his open-source technical data, including files for every gun up to .50 caliber available through commerce, on July 27. An irrevocable content dump, according to Wilson, which renders gun control efforts increasingly futile. Moreover, in the settlement, "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," notes a press release from the Second Amendment Foundation. In other words, the handful of liberal states that currently ban "assault weapons" like the AR-15, such as New York state via the SAFE Act, could potentially face legal challenges.
For some context, Wilson first exploded onto the scene with his invention of the Liberator, the world’s first functioning 3D-printed gun named after the iconic WWII weapon intended to arm the disarmed masses. Wilson, then just 25, dropped his open-source gun files online and quickly earned himself the uncomfortable position of being in the crosshairs of the federal government, a position he seemingly intentionally provoked. The crypto-anarchist was warned by the feds that he needed "permission" to post his gun files — speech that was treated as an export — and told that the files were likely in violation of the ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations). Thus, Wilson was effectively forced to shut down his lucrative site defcad.com, where the files were hosted and being quickly downloaded. With the looming pressure from State, Wilson’s then-lawyer told him to shut his mouth, tuck tail, and forget his naïve gun adventures. "My conversations were, literally, ‘Hey, how long until I have to go to jail,'" Wilson told The Daily Wire. But Wilson, reading the tea leaves from a slow-moving and non-committal federal government, thought he might have a First Amendment argument and a shot at winning a suit against State. Wilson found new heavyweight legal representation and took that very expensive shot by filing suit in May of 2015. Some three years later, Wilson’s stamina and "stupid, stubborn will" won out; the Department of Justice reached a settlement agreement in April, which was formalized in June. State abandoned their position and served up a huge First and Second Amendment win. "Not only is this a First Amendment victory for free speech, it also is a devastating blow to the gun prohibition lobby," said Alan M. Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. To Wilson, this is the "hardest backstop" yet to the Second Amendment, and the final nail in the gun control coffin. Never one to shy away from the dramatic, Wilson quite literally buried "American Gun Control" with his team at Ghost Gunner, a company run by the 30-year-old that leads the industry in DIY gun-making CNC milling machines — a project initially started to fund his suit. Wilson arguably has a penchant for over-selling (at least at the launch of his many projects), but he’s not wrong about gun control as we know it. "This doesn’t put the rifle in everyone’s hand, but it does that in essence. The DNA of our culture is preserved," he explained. "This is the first pillar in the internet gun culture of tomorrow, and it is permanent." Wilson emphasized that this can’t be regulated in any meaningful way. "Anything that makes it through my organization now, becomes public domain material, irrevocably so," he said. "I’m the Shepard ... and I’m going to put any and everything up." And Defense Distributed, a nonprofit organization founded by Wilson that maintains defcad.com, will only help to accelerate gun culture online via their open-source content, standing as a reference resource and model for customization. "It’s kinda like GitHub for guns," he said. "People aren’t reinventing the wheel every day," explained Wilson. "Now we help to accelerate our culture, beyond just an encyclopedic interest. People now have a beginning point; they can begin to develop models based off our models, or new models that integrate with the models." Wilson expects political resistance, though he says it will be sluggish. "Could Trump be bothered to care? I don’t know. And this is all signed off by DOJ. They can’t just, on a dime, stop it." Of course, this has a global impact, too. Once these files are online, and now formally so, all with an uncensored Internet have access. Depending on how you view guns generally and choose to frame Wilson’s win, this could mean more global access to self-defense, or further aid to criminals and foreign enemies. Other countries have taken notice of Wilson. For example, the liberal pinnacle of gun control, Australia, began preemptively cracking down on gun files in 2015. An Australian in possession of such a file could face up to 14 years behind bars. Asked if he has any moral reservations about the approved technology, specifically as these downloadable and untraceable guns become more efficiently produced and thus more common, Wilson simply stated, "No, I don't." "Ghost Gunner taught me a lot," he elaborated. "It continues to be very difficult to accurately reproduce a lot of this stuff," he added, acknowledging that what he's helped to build will fall short of this most intense "fevered vision" of a dystopian society flooded with digital and untraceable guns. Whatever your views on Wilson, you can’t knock his dedication to his ideals. In an interview with Wired published on Tuesday, Wilson revealed that he’s willing to be a literal "sacrifice" for his cause. Actually, he was planning to be if (or as he thought at the time, when) Hillary Clinton had taken the White House in 2016 and enacted the crackdown on the Second Amendment she promised. If Hillary had won, Wilson told Wired that "he was ready to launch his Defcad repository, regardless of the outcome of his lawsuit, and then defend it in an armed standoff." "I’d call a militia out to defend the server, Bundy-style," said Wilson, referencing the Bundy family cattle ranches who took on the feds in 2014. "Our only option was to build an infrastructure where we had one final suicidal mission, where we dumped everything into the internet." One thing is clear, the Second Amendment and the global right to self-defense is more enshrined today than it was mere months ago because of Wilson’s radical, and perhaps irrational, dedication. |
#2. To: Tooconservative (#1) (Edited)
Bundy-style,
Squatting his Mormon tribal cows on land that doesn't belong to him... that kind of "style"?
Super geniuses with a gun fetish should redirect a few of their limited number of firing dendrites toward pondering why the 2nd amendment protects the 1st - so that state-establishments like Mormonism don't grift folks into tyrannical servitude.
#3. To: VxH (#2)
Cody Wilson is far more radical than the Bundys.
Replies to Comment # 3.
"He has indicated that although his primary goal is the subversion of state-structures, he also hopes that his contributions may help to dismantle the existing system of capitalist property relations"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi ki/Cody_Wilson
"So anyways, at about the 6:22 mark Cody is shown assembling a rifle with some of his open source 3D-printed parts. I noticed a red and black book with a bearded old guy on the front, on the same counter top. Seemed like interesting coffee table reads, so after clicking the button to go full HD, I actually made out the title (thanks 1080p!). Introduction to Marxist Political Economy."
http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/jamal/10036/curious- political-philosophy-cody-wilson
Big surprise. Not.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 3.
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