Defense Distributed starts selling gun CAD files amid court drama A day after a US federal judge extended an injunction barring Cody Wilson and his company Defense Distributed from giving away 3D CAD files of gun designs on the internet, Wilson held a press conference in Austin, Texas, to declare that he has begun selling the files through his company's website. "Early this morning we began …
Is he or is he just trying to get around the ban on assault rifles - or just make money from the people who think that Obama will make them marry a gay unless they own 12 assault rifles?
Personally I think the USA should stand behind the 2nd amendment and allow citizens the same weapons as the government, nukes for all (although possibly not the ability to take them out of the country).
It's the only way to reduce the surplus population.
Yes it is well known that the best way to make money is to release something for free.
Also, there is no "assault weapons" ban in place anymore and hasn't been for nearly 20 years.
As for nukes, the right to publish plans for nukes was established back in the 1970's. Good luck sourcing your own enhanced uranium though.
"Is he or is he just trying to get around the ban on assault rifles "
If you want that to be effective, then simply impose limits on the barrel length and make civilian carbines (short barrel rifles) illegal along with short/pistol/folding stocks (which are banned in most places anyway).
Carbines trade accuracy for portability and usuability in a fracas. That's why militaries favour them.
It's hard to hide a tennessee long rifle under your jacket, which is why criminals like carbines.
A lot of countries have these kinds of restrictions (usually something like a 27-32 inch minimum overall length depending on the bore), with shorter versions either being outright banned or subject to heavy licensing conditions. Under those conditions the receiver is a secondary consideration.
This dispute seems quite a lot like the attempt to prosecute Phillip Zimmerman over PGP in that, first, the cat is well out of the bag (and in this case has been for years), and second, as is much clearer now than in the early 1990s, government attempts to suppress publication on the Internet violate the first amendment just as they would if publication is in a book or magazine.
Moreover, the defendants' claim that the states lack standing seems right, in that the law in question, and their substantive arguments, relate to conduct of foreign affairs, which belongs to the federal government. The probability that the states could have gotten an injunction, whether permanent, temporary, or preliminary, to suppress US distribution of the code in book form is vanishingly small and likely would remain so even if sold with a CD containing the code.
In any case, these 3D printed guns appear to be expensive but inferior substitutes for old fashioned zip guns, for which google returns "about 22,800,000 results (0.50 seconds)" when queried for plans. That, and the fact that making a gun with one's own equipment is both legal and widely possible in the US reveals the controversy to be a combination of political theater and harassment. A sensible judge might reasonably have held back from puffing it up.
Nor do I but I do understand this is not about the guns. Owning guns is legal, making guns is legal, sharing knowledge is legal, sharing knowledge about making guns is legal. So why is sharing knowledge about making guns when in a format downloadable to a machine illegal? It's about what knowledge the government is going to decide it is illegal to share next.
(I'm not arguing for or against anything)
It's not all Americans though. Only about one third of people in the US own a gun, but most of those people own multiple guns. They're a very vocal minority (and I mean vocal in the US sense of "giving lots of money to a lobbying organisation").
And personally I can see some of the attraction. As precisely made (or not, a lot of guns seem to be terribly manufactured) mechanical devices, with interesting engineering decisions, they have a geeky appeal to me, in much the same way old cars, or teletype machines, or mainframes, or aircraft do.
A Spitfire is as much a machine designed for killing as an AR-15 is, and there's no shortage of people wanting to see a Spit.
"A Spitfire is as much a machine designed for killing as an AR-15 is, and there's no shortage of people wanting to see a Spit."
I must have gone to different flying demos than you, since while various planes have done simulated strafing or bombing runs on the crowds, I'm fairly certain they didn't have active weapon systems. So no machines guns (in the case of the spit) means no design for killing per sec.
It's the same way that taking guns apart and seeing how they work is quite fascinating, firing them is quite a different kind of fun.
I really like my AR15. It is a great rifle. Easy to maintain, accurate and useful for going after goats, deer, pigs and any other medium sized game.
It is not without reason that it is described as the best rifle of the past 60 years (with the AK being a close second).
I also like my PS90. It's a great rifle. Easy to maintain, incredibly accurate and useful for going after possums, rabbits, geese and other such pest species.
Am I fetishizing, or commenting on two very useful tools for hunting?
All legitimate firearms are proofed to ensure their user safety and that they will do the job when required. How many will want to proof their 3D weapon when their lives may depend on it?
This is one of the few cases where malware could do some good. How many idiots losing their hands will it take before this nonsense stops?
Worthless argument, thrown out of court:
"Wilson suggested the harm being done is to the First Amendment. "The only thing that's being stopped is your right to speak," he said."
Neither does this have anything to do with the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.
It's this simple: If anyone wants to provide a potentially lethal ANYTHING to anybody in the USA by ANY means, then that thing is subject to the law, be they local, state or federal. That is all. This issue will be sorted out at those levels, not at the level of the US Constitution.
IOW: Get serious. Lethal disqualifies game playing with the law, children.
The laws in place, however, restrict transfers. They do not prohibit manufacture of firearms. Anyone who wishes may argue that the restriction on transfer of weapons implicitly includes transfer of information useful in building them. I consider it extremely unlikely that such arguments will be successful despite the fact that the recent injunctions hint that a judge might be willing to buy them.
As for the Constitution: it is worth remembering in this context that the US Constitution limits all laws, whether federal, state, or local ordinances. And that the cities of Washington, DC (a couple of times) and Chicago, IL have been slapped down over second amendment issues, and a considerable body of jurisprudence limits quite severely what may be published, including plans for such things as nuclear weapons.
Unfortunate, misleading wording in the final sentence, which should have ended: "a considerable body of jurisprudence limits quite severely *government control over* what may be published, including plans for such things as nuclear weapons.
It's this simple: If anyone wants to provide a potentially lethal ANYTHING to anybody in the USA by ANY means, then that thing is subject to the law, be they local, state or federal. That is all. This issue will be sorted out at those levels, not at the level of the US Constitution.
...So does this mean that we have to fill out a crap-load of paperwork for such things as:
A shovel (https://abc13.com/man-beaten-with-shovel-while-he-slept-has-died/3432807/ , auto-playing video)
A kitchen knife (oh wait, that's also illegal in the UK.)
A screwdriver (Not the alcoholic kind, either)
A crowbar (Paging Gordon Freeman to the white telephone), especially beefy ones)
Just saying.
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