A Washington District Judge has issued a Nationwide Temporary Restraining Order (TRO, also known as universal injunctions) to prevent DEFDIST from distributing the DEFCAD files. Given that at least one SCOTUS justice has commented on such injunctions in a fairly derogatory fashion (see Justice Thomas' concurrence, starting on pg 47 of the PDF), it seems likely that such injunctions are on thin ice... But since the TRO only mentions DEFDIST, and pretty much all the other interested parties are happily distributing the files (See codeisfreespeech.com and fosscad.org, among other places, and note that some of these places only provide links to Magnet URIs for torrents or links to an external download mirror), it's not likely going to have much effect, even if SCOTUS doesn't decide to slap it down ASAP. Especially since at least a few are going to respond to any such TRO with "Make me" at which point the judge either finds out just how little power he has, or the case gets fast tracked to SCOTUS. The Streisand effect is in full force.
Links to the magnet URIs for the original DEFDIST mega pack (the one that predates the State Department cease and desist, the settling of which set off the current to do), and the current FOSSCAD mega pack can be found on the Gun Related Downloads tab. As Mr. Universe said, "You can't stop the signal."
Saturday, August 4, 2018
3D Printed Guns Aren't the Boogieman
The
response to the settlement between Cody Wilson’s DEFDIST and the State
Department has been nothing short of excessive, for a variety of
reasons. If you listen to the right broadcasts, and read the right
articles, no one could blame you for thinking that there will be blood
in the streets. A district judge in Washington state has issued a
temporary restraining order to keep DEFDIST from distributing their
files through the DEFCAD portal. Leaving aside the obvious technical
problems in his reasoning (the cat is well out of the bag, and trying to
stuff it back in just invokes the Streisand Effect), and potential
legal issues (at least one SCOTUS justices is less than equitably
inclined towards universal injunctions issued by lower courts, not to
mention that this WILL get challenged on first amendment grounds), there
is absolutely no reason for preventing the distribution of the DEFCAD
files.
There
are two ways to make a gun with a 3D printer. The first is to 3D print
the entire gun. The type example of this is Cody Wilson’s Liberator
pistol (named after the WWII era gun). As with it’s namesake, it is a
single shot pistol with limited uses, albeit in a smaller (and not
terribly adequate) caliber. It is useful mostly for causing freakouts by
people who don’t realize how useless it is. Most of the freaking out
seems to be due to the the fact that it’s plastic, and the chunk of
metal included in the design isn’t structural and can be removed
(illegally) without adversely affecting the gun, making a weapon that
could theoretically slip past a metal detector. Just what someone is
going to do with only one or two rounds of ammunition and a single shot
handgun I’m not sure, but it isn’t going go well for them. I’d be more
concerned by all the Swiss Army knives , actual useful guns and high explosives the
TSA keeps missing. There’s no point in getting all worked up over a
single shot, single (assuming you want to keep your fingers) use pistol
when it seems like pretty much everything else already gets past the
TSA.
The
second method of making a gun involves making a receiver (or lower
receiver, depending on the gun), which, in a factory produced gun would
be the serialized (with exceptions, home made firearms aren’t required
to be serialized) and controlled part. AR-15s are quite popular for
this, due to the ease of assembly and a multitude of interchangeable
options. Of course, most of those parts are metal, so your homebuilt AR
isn’t going through any metal detectors. It is, however a useful gun…
but people have been building them in their garages for decades, using
everything from plastic, to wood, to the traditional aluminum, and even
steel, using various tools and techniques, some of which wouldn’t be out
of place in the late 19th century.
In
fact, 3D printed firearms should be very far down anyone’s list of
priorities, and that includes people who want to get rid of guns.
Slamfire pipe shotguns are significantly easier, have a lower entry
point, have a very minimal cost per build, and require no specialized
knowledge to produce. Open bolt submachine guns have been produced using
common tools and materials purchased from a hardware store, and there
are a multitude of how to manuals that make it so you need only minimal
knowledge for production. There are even a couple that are aimed at mass
production, as opposed to small and individual scale production. This
particular brouhaha is about sixty years out of date.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
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