U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik,in Washington state, issued a temporary injunction against Texas-based DefDist barring them from releasing hobbyist computer code files. Somehow, the ruling by one district judge is allegedly binding on the entire country.
The Internet, thanks to Code Is Free Speech, struck back.
Firearm-Related Speech, Machining Instructions, Codes Published by Civil Rights Organizations, Activists at New CodeIsFreeSpeech.com Website
SACRAMENTO, CA (July 31, 2018) — Tonight, the organizations and individuals behind CodeIsFreeSpeech.com, a new Web site for the publication and sharing of firearm-related speech, including machine code, have issued the following statement:Our Constitution’s First Amendment secures the right of all people to engage in truthful speech, including by sharing information contained in books, paintings, and files. Indeed, freedom of speech is a bedrock principle of our United States and a cornerstone of our democratic Republic. Through CodeIsFreeSpeech.com, we intend to encourage people to consider new and different aspects of our nation’s marketplace of ideas – even if some government officials disagree with our views or dislike our content – because information is code, code is free speech, and free speech is freedom.
Should any tyrants wish to chill or infringe the rights of the People, we would welcome the opportunity to defend freedom whenever, wherever, and however necessary. Hand-waving and hyperbole are not compelling government interests and censorship is not proper tailoring under the law.
The plaintively-whining pisswit plaintiffs allege no standing. They can present no case of a crime committed with a 3D-printed hobbyist experiment. They don’t explain why lawfully printing a gun is worse than lawfully assembling a zipgun from Lowes-supplied pipe. They do — falsely — claim that such a home-built firearm is “undetectable;” the law has been clear on that for decades: firearms must incorporate a minimum mass of metal to render them detectable by by X-ray and metal detectors. It doesn’t matter if the firearm is machined by a big corporation, screwed together from pipes by a gangbanger, or printed by a law-abiding home hobbyist.
People have been hand-making firearms for nearly a millennium (commercial mass-production of firearms is a relatively new phenomenon), from materials far more appropriate to the pressures and stresses of a firearm than plastic.
Automated additive and subtractive manufacturing has been around for decades.
Plastic has been a structural element of firearms for decades.
Only now, has it become a “problem.” Because now individual have access to the technology. Not just the licensed, regulated, tracked, inspected, harassed commercial builders.
Very few — apparently none — street thugs are going to spend hundreds of dollars on a 3D printer, more on filament, download CAD files, download more software to convert .SLDPRT files to .STL, run the conversion, and spend hours or days printing a large, bulky, poorly concealable .380 with which to rob his drug dealer. Stealing a gun or buying a gun on the black market is faster, cheaper, and gets them more effective tools of crime. That’s not what has the authoritarian goons worried.
They are afraid of the law-abiding people, who are getting a little tired of laws with no discernible relation to the constitution; honest folks who want protection the cops can’t or won’t provide; good people who might bypass the State’s attempt to render them helpless crime targets (as the criminals already do).
The goons fear arms in the hands of citizens who are tired of their shit. They are so afraid of the people that they are trying to preemptively shut down a new technology before it’s even ready to produce effective arms.
That’s OK. I still have pipe, nails, and wood in the garage.
And the country still has the Firearms Policy Coalition, Firearms Policy Foundation, The Calguns Foundation, California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees, Cody Wilson, and hundreds or thousands of people generating and sharing printer files.
Take the 3D AR Challenge!
3D-print a fully-functional, plastic AR-15, and successfully demonstrate it. The first person to do so will win 10 rounds of equally functional, 100% plastic 3D-printed .223 Remington ammunition.
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via The Zelman Partisans
Judicial Overreach: The Internet Strikes Back