Producing a gun a national security issue?

[BGutzman]

Our current administration has decided that posting gun plans for 3d printers to the internet is a issue of national security.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/08/08/as-3d-printed-rifles-get-real-are-changes-to-gun-laws-coming/?intcmp=features

In this specific case the gun is printed off a 3D printer but to my mind this is a first amendment issue. If this can be claimed to be a national security issue than what else can the government claim is a issue of national security? To my mind this is a free speech issue and once again the government is encroaching on rights.

So will "national security" be the new gun control method and where is this all going?

 

[speedrrracer]

Sure, why not? "commerce", "terrorism", "national security" -- catch-all terms which allow a broken system to do whatever it pleases.

 

[JimDandy]

To my mind this is a free speech issue and once again the government is encroaching on rights.

I would imagine nearly every National Security Issue is additionally a first amendment issue. Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, Wikileaks. They all dealt with printing on paper, not building a secret express lane from China to DC. What makes the government's decision right or wrong is a judicial challenge decided one way or the other.

Some, but very few, will claim an embedded reporter giving out his (and his embedded unit's) location right before a major offensive is freedom of the press, not National Security. On here, few would find censoring those 3D plans National Security. The trick is convincing 3 to 9 people in black robes with wooden hammers.

 

[TXAZ]

More likely a National Paranoia issue.
Why let the average Joe have something that enmasse, could change the power dynamics of a country, particularly if those in power have little recourse or ability to stop such a trend? While you can mill your own weapon legally, few have the skill or tools to do so. But having access to a Stratsys 3D printer and the Internet could be a major and uncontrollable power shift.

At least we haven't started outlawing Chess boards yet, whose objective is to capture / kill the king. There is at least 1 country so paranoid.

 

[fragtagninja]

They are going to find any flimsy and supposedly "legal" reason to take what we have. The good thing is that if they keep going at the rate they are everyone is gonna be mad at them. Then we will see how far they get.

 

[Sierra280]

Probably just because the downloads are free and no one can make their money off it.

During afghanistan's fight against Russia, afghans were making guns (capable of firing ak rounds) with tools less sophisticated than we can buy from sears. Thanks to the Internet and basic chemistry classes offered at community colleges nationwide, people will make improvised munitions if they feel the need, or guns are outlawed.

I personally feel much safer seeing someone with a 3d printed gun than having to wonder if there is an anti-personnel charge in their scooby-doo lunch box.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

The Canadian is working on a US compliant version(space for metal block). My understanding is that if it is a Canadian design it does not fall under ITAR even for people in the US posting the design. If they claim it does they definitely can't block it being hosted internationally and downloaded from the US. At least not without a HUGE stretch of laws or a new law. Both of which will likely fall in court.

Like so many other things, development is just going to happen outside the US.

 

[BGutzman]

Overall the scary part is this stretch of National Defense... It seems to me the theory put forth in this case is that a international treaty in some way is determining what is important to our national defense... Maybe Im misreading it or missing some part of the equation but on the face of it these seems like a avenue the anti's may well try to use now and in the future in who knows how many ways. So if the plans to build a gun are a danger to our national defense, one would think the actual gun must be even worse in this line of thinking. Its all hogwash, but here it is in black and white..

 

[Tom Servo]

Why let the average Joe have something that enmasse, could change the power dynamics of a country

Exactly. Voting booths and freedom of the press could be very dangerous to the status quo indeed.

Right now, the big tool is the National Security Letter, and extra-judicial measure that comes with its very own gag rule. It won't surprise me at all to see these issued to confiscate existing plans for 3D guns and create a chilling effect on others inclined to draft them.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

Has the US government ever tried to remove a print for a gun from the internet? I have AR-15, 10/22, and some other prints around here somewhere. All downloaded off of the internet. I think from mostly US hosted sites posted by US based users.
If they haven't I would think that would serve as a strong precedent in a court case. Any foreign organization is far more likely to set up a small machine shop than a 3D printer.

 

[csmsss]

The current administration sees its predominant national security threats as emerging within our national boundaries, and coming from American citizens. It's small wonder that they would like to suppress any capability for citizens to build/acquire weapons without the knowledge/oversight of any federal regulatory body.

 

[speedrrracer]

Has the US government ever tried to remove a print for a gun from the internet?

Yes, they silenced the best-known such site that had ever existed: http://defdist.org/

Used to be dedicated to hosting files for printing firearms parts and complete firearms, now it has been totally neutered, and doesn't even have the "we've been pwned by the government" apology it used to feature.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

Sorry, but I meant Blue Print. As in what a machinist would run off of. If the code to print a gun on a 3d printer falls under ITAR then I imagine the AR blue prints would also. If they have never blocked blue prints it seems like that precedent wouldn't stand in their favor here.