Posted on 07/31/2018 6:49:20 PM PDT by richardb72
Gun control advocates don’t just have a problem with the Second Amendment – they also have real problems with the First Amendment. In an era when people can use 3D metal printers to make guns, does the First Amendment protect a book detailing a gun manufacturing process – but not computer file that does the same thing?
The question has become particularly urgent. The computer programs that tell 3D printers how to produce these guns are scheduled to be legally downloadable Wednesday.
Late Monday, Democratic attorneys general in eight states and the District of Columbia filed for an emergency injunction to stop the legal downloads. They argue these programs will have a “great detriment of the public and public safety.”
Even President Trump weighed in with a tweet Tuesday saying: “I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!”
The courts have previously weighed in on a similar First Amendment question. In 2010, the Supreme Court found that the First Amendment protects violent video games in the same way that newspapers and books are protected.
A 2001 decision, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, said: “Communication does not lose constitutional protection as ‘speech’ simply because it is expressed in the language of computer code.”
If you believe gun control advocates, 3D printers will undermine all our gun control laws, letting criminals avoid background checks and making it impossible to ban types of guns. But gun control advocates don’t understand the technology has already outpaced the ability of government to regulate it.
If they want, criminals can already use print guns. The change Wednesday will have no noticeable impact on criminals avoiding background checks and obtaining guns illegally, because the existing laws aren’t stopping......
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Too much melodrama from morons who do not know the law, nor anything about firearms or ballistics in general.
If they make 3-D printed guns illegal, the Left will next define “words” as “weapons,” and use the same laws that prohibited 3-D printed guns to outlaw conservative opinions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_pressure
They dont realize they are just erecting the framework for the govt to ban anything anyone claims is harmful.
Christian beliefs.
Prolife speech.
Anyone saying anything bad about the govt.
Any physical item deemed dangerous to the state. Perhaps a private bulletin board service the government cannot control. Perhaps your encrypted phone from switzerland.
You say it will never happen. Its alreqdy happened in europe and canada, right now. No signs of stopping and intead geting worse.
These CAD files have been available for years.
I have difficulty understanding how such printers figure in, as they mold objects that are made out of material that isn’t structurally robust. One might make a gun stock that way, but not the firing chamber, at least not one that is going to last very long. A complete gun would be out of the question.
As I pointed out to a fellow over at Hannity when he asked why would anyone want a 3D printed plastic gun if 3D printing isn’t good for mass production: it’s the same sort of people who will want a printed planetary gear or a printed model of an engine with moving parts (note: model of an engine, not model engine, there’s an important distinction I’m trying to maintain).
Consumer grade 3D printing has all sorts of issues, such as a tendency for the z-axis to be much less precise than the x or y ... but they are wonderful for non-mass production uses such as prototyping or various types of getting artsy.
What boggles the mind is all these people losing it because “now” people will be able to make cheap plastic guns at home and they’re completely unaware that the cheap plastic guns suck.
Which brings up another point I made in that same thread: if the woke progressives start anything I really hope they use plastic 3D printed guns.
Please, please, please let them be using 3D printed plastic guns.
... of course what I didn’t go on to say is all of us sloped beetle browed knuckle dragging Red State neanderthals will continue to use our lathes and mills and -— along with exploiting the Left’s inability to know which restroom to use by the strategic placement of binary signed port-a-potties to distract them before we send in the Redneck Pickup Truck cavalry into an unprotected flank of their “troops” -— we’ll do just fine.
You couldn’t pay me enough to pull the trigger on a 3D printed firearm. They are just too flimsy. They got rid of the Saturday night specials years ago, because too many people were getting injured shooting them. I don’t think these 3D printed guns are even as good as the Saturday Bight Specials that got banned years ago.
Sounds like a Road Runneresque kind of prank. Print a gun from your Acme printer. Wile E. Coyote tries to fire it. Result is a blackened face.
Mind you, a 3D printed Nerf gun would make perfect sense and actually be about as usable as a purchased one.
I’d make mine look like Nicholas Wolfwood’s weapon from the Anime Trigun.
Which idiot would buy a $500 3-D printer+Material to make a unreliable and non-durable plastic gun? It is known to explode in the hand of the shooter.
Last year I bought a nice 9mm hand gun with which I can shoot 50 rounds in 10 minutes within a 6” circle at 30 feet. It was on sale at Cabella’s for way less than $500.
I have had opportunities to buy a milling machine cheaper than some 3D printers. I took colledge machine shop.
Give me some calipers, marking die, various milling bits and some chunks of T6 aluminum and see what i can make.
First the original idea was a single shot throw away gun based on the WWII Liberator. However you can also make an AR upper from plastic that will shoot hundreds of rounds. All the other parts are not regulated, so basically it’s an untraceable gun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9kmPQCH98
Finally, you don’t have to print in plastic. Here’s a video of a fully functional 3D metal handgun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EXsAeJ7RsU
Even with a few non-electric hand tools someone could do quite well.
Code is protected speech, and the TRO amounts to a request for a prior restraint on it.
The Supreme Court should take this case to rule on the general question of nationally applied restraining orders by inferior courts. Clarence Thomas has already indicated he doesn't believe District or Circuit Courts have the authority to issue nationwide orders.
He should urge the other justices to understand that if the Court cannot defend its own case law against nationwide nullification by inferior courts, the word "Supreme" has no meaning.
To one and all, I bring to your attention a TV program /show that is/was called Pawn Stars. Owner Rick Harrison, who openly admitted that he did not have a Federal Arms License, nor did he ever plan on getting one. But yet, what happened many a time on the show???? He would purchase a firearm from a customer. And then sometimes immediately sell said firearm. HINT he (Rick Harrison) would only deal in firearms that were made before a certain date. Most of the Firearms that he would sell / buy were black power, and did not use a metallic cartridge, i.e. cap & ball if you will. I did see him purchase a Gatling gun,{those use a metallic cartridge} but those were made in the 1860’s. So, if your an ex-felon, not afraid of black power, cap & ball, your good to go. Just don’t get caught with a pistol that can use both cap & ball or a metallic cartridge. I don’t know if such a pistol exists, other than maybe a revolver that you can change out the cylinder from a cap & ball to one that accepts a metallic cartridge.
Its actually the AR15 lower that can be printed. I would be cheaper and more durable to get an %80 lower and do the final machining yourself.
Time to get Justice Brett onto the Supremes.
That is why I look forward to the words “Justice Brett Kavanaugh”.
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