Fifth Circuit Declines to Enjoin Regulation of Online Publication of 3D-Printing File

Yeah Baby! I think this means it is now legal to distribute 3D Printer Design Files to print a handgun.
Consult with your attorney before doing it however!!!


The full story is at: https://harvardlawreview.org/2017/04...ment-of-state/


Defense Distributed v. United States Department of State


Fifth Circuit Declines to Enjoin Regulation of Online Publication of 3D-Printing Files.
The First Amendment protects most speech from prior restraint by the government. But technology has begun to test the boundaries of traditional First Amendment doctrine. The development of three-dimensional (3D) printing throws this issue into sharp relief ? with a 3D printer, one can ?print? a physical object from computer code.


1. Much like desktop printers, 3D printers generate their outputs through an additive process: they layer cross sections of material to build solid objects. The designs for these objects are controlled by computer-aided design files, which are data sets that use source code to define the geometric representation of an object. A computer program compiles the files? source code into object code, and this object code is transmitted to the 3D printer to execute the printing process. 3D printers are now available at stores like Home Depot, and the files for a variety of items are freely available online. Def. Distributed v. U.S. Dep?t of State, 838 F.3d 451, 454?55 (5th Cir. 2016).


If sharing this code is speech, the government might be hampered in regulating the physical objects that are printed. This question is particularly important when the object at issue is an untraceable weapon. Recently, in Defense Distributed v. United States Department of State,

2. 838 F.3d 451.
the Fifth Circuit refused to suspend a regulation restricting publication of computer-aided design (CAD) files that enable the public to print guns or gun parts using just a 3D printer. In denying an injunction, however, the court implicitly endorsed a sweeping interpretation of the First Amendment.


3. Id. at 458.
Because CAD files do not constitute speech under the First Amendment, their publication need not be measured against its standards.


Defense Distributed is a nonprofit organization committed to promoting Second Amendment rights by ?facilitating global access to . . . information . . . related to the 3D printing of arms? and publishing this information online for free.
4. Id. at 454.


In furtherance of this mission, the organization published a number of gun-related CAD files on its website. One published file enables users to print an AR-15?s lower receiver, which is the indispensable, regulated part of the weapon that bears a traceable serial number when conventionally manufactured.


5. Id.
Defense Distributed also published a file for the world?s first entirely 3D-printable handgun, ?The Liberator.?


6. Id. at 455.
In just two days, the Liberator file was downloaded approximately 100,000 times.


7. Katie Fleschner McMullen, Comment, Worlds Collide When 3D Printers Reach the Public: Modeling a Digital Gun Control Law After the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 2014 Mich. St. L. Rev. 187, 211.
But this success was short-lived. On May 8, 2013, Defense Distributed received a letter from the State Department alleging that, under the Arms Export Control Act


8. 22 U.S.C. ?? 2751?2799aa-2 (2012).
(AECA), the CAD files posted by the organization could not be ?exported? abroad ? in the form of online publication ? without government preapproval.


9. Def. Distributed, 838 F.3d at 455. The government warned that the files may have included International Traffic in Arms Regulations?controlled data related to items on the U.S. Munitions List. Id.Defense Distributed removed these files, but they remain freely accessible through third-party sites such as The Pirate Bay.


10. Id. at 456.
After lengthy waits for approval to post further files, Defense Distributed, together with the Second Amendment Foundation, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.


11. Def. Distributed v. U.S. Dep?t of State, 121 F. Supp. 3d 680, 687?88 (W.D. Tex. 2015).
The plaintiffs alleged that the State Department?s interpretation of the AECA created an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech, and sought a preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of any prepublication approval requirements.

still illegal most places outside the us - just saying :-)

And back to the 3D-Printing topic... There is more discussion on that court case at Wired Magazine: https://www.wired.com/story/a-landma...-for-diy-guns/

It says he is going to be putting up a lot of designs, including user submitted designs for download.

Quote:

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Now Wilson is making up for lost time. Later this month, he and the nonprofit he founded, Defense Distributed, are relaunching their website Defcad.com as a repository of firearm blueprints they've been privately creating and collecting, from the original one-shot 3-D-printable pistol he fired in 2013 to AR-15 frames and more exotic DIY semi-automatic weapons. The relaunched site will be open to user contributions, too; Wilson hopes it will soon serve as a searchable, user-generated database of practically any firearm imaginable.


All of that will be available to anyone anywhere in the world with an uncensored internet connection, to download, alter, remix, and fabricate into lethal weapons with tools like 3-D printers and computer-controlled milling machines. “We’re doing the encyclopedic work of collecting this data and putting it into the commons,” Wilson says. “What’s about to happen is a Cambrian explosion of the digital content related to firearms.” He intends that database, and the inexorable evolution of homemade weapons it helps make possible, to serve as a kind of bulwark against all future gun control, demonstrating its futility by making access to weapons as ubiquitous as the internet.

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In countries that are NOT the us. Gun control works.
Given that in the uk you would have to illegally obtain ammunition for your home made guns anyway.
If you know where to buy illegal ammo - you probably already own an illegal gun.

Everybody else couldn't get the ammo.

well apparently since this passed there has been a large increase in the download of plans for printed guns in the us.

It'll be interesting if a corresponding series of injuries from said guns also follows.
From a design point of view - if it doesn't involve a metal barrel - no way would I test it.

People you are missing important information about the Liberator it isn't any more a gun than any short piece of plastic pipe is a "gun".

When the Cartridge is fired the bullet starts it's travel down the plastic barrel. The bullet traveling down this plastic barrel risks the chance of splitting the barrel, or the cartridge breaking through the back and into the shooters face. With all luck the bullet travels forward.
Now the compressed gasses forcing the bullet forward have the same ability too blow the barrel apart or cause the bullet to tumble ripping the barrel apart traveling out in a undetermined direction. Without a solid metal barrel the gasses leak from the loose weak plastic barrel causing the bullet to leave very slowly tumbling due the not having a solid barrel twist where the bullet will go almost anywhere and not very far at that. The Liberator's bullet will emerge going very slowly and wobbling or tumbling due to lack of spin. It might go almost anywhere, and is unlikely to do much damage to anything it manages to hit.

This 3D Printed thing does not even compare with a "Zip Gun"
Which by the way is legal in the USA

All news about the 3D Printed guns are highly exaggerated on both sides.

have a look around - there are a lot of different design 3d printed guns around now. The liberator was just one of the first, but it is by no means alone.

Some that use a metal barrel are pretty good. Even seen a semi auto printed gun.

have a look at the 'shuty' this thing is no joke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn9V1enlBxY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIeDvHrrMn0

As long as you incorporate some cheap metal parts, 3d printed guns are a viable option.

Wonder when the first high school shooting with one will happen.

what does that have to do with anything ?

It wasn't a sarcastic comment. school shootings in the us are really common, so eventualy someone is going to do it with a printed gun.
The shuty would actually be a great candidate.
At some point, possibly, maybe, people might try and limit childrens access to guns in the states (i'm not holding my breath). At which point your 3d printed option will definitely come into play.

use a carbon fibre barrel if you want to get through a scanner. Of course you'll also need to make your own non-metallic ammunition.
Getting a firearm through a metal detector is definitely not what anyone should be worried about.
There is always a way round that.

Single use, illegal weapons that can be disposed of in a trashcan fire and are completely untraceable, would be my issue if I were a leo.

All news about the 3D Printed guns are highly exaggerated on both sides.