98Z5V Posted July 21, 2018 Report Share Posted July 21, 2018 This marks the end of gun control (I want to highlight the author:) By John R. Lott | Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/20/this-marks-end-gun-control.html The federal government has finally recognized the obvious – that sharing instructions on how to make guns with 3D printers counts as constitutionally protected speech. Despite little fanfare, this is an important victory for First Amendment rights. It also represents a real blow to the increasingly futile cause of gun control. The U.S. Justice Department announced a legal settlement and its surrender to the First Amendment arguments July 10 made in a case brought by Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed. Wilson, 25, created a ruckus in May 2013 when he announced his successful design of a plastic gun. In just two days, 100,000 copies of the handgun blueprint were downloaded from Wilson’s website. The most downloads came from Spain, followed by the U.S., Brazil and Germany. The heavy downloading in Spain, Brazil and Germany likely reflected attempts to evade extremely restrictive handgun regulations in those countries. People are going to download these files whether they're legal or not. As we've seen with movies, file sharing is unstoppable. The most pirated TV program in 2017 was the seventh season of “Game of Thrones,” with well over 10 million illegal downloads in most weeks. Within days of the gun file being uploaded, the Obama State Department served Wilson with a letter threatening criminal prosecution for violating federal export controls. Wilson immediately complied with the order, but there was no way to stop further downloading. Within a week of the initial uploading, the file could be downloaded on the Internet from over 4,000 different computers around the world. The Justice Department’s recent settlement with Wilson is very favorable to him, allowing Wilson to provide the printing instructions “for public release (meaning unlimited distribution) in any form.” The government also compensated $40,000 of Wilson’s legal costs. Someone has just as much right to release the instructions in a computer file as in a book or newspaper article. The groups that submitted arguments on Wilson's behalf were ideologically diverse, ranging from conservative self-defense advocacy groups to the Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press and Electronic Frontier Foundation. Anyone with access to a metal 3D printer can make guns functionally and aesthetically indistinguishable from any gun that can be bought in a store. Such metal printers are available for less than $2,000. How the government will stop people from obtaining these printers isn’t exactly obvious. Proposals to require background checks, mandatory serial numbers and even a registration process for printers are easily defeated. Even if printers are registered with the government, what is going to stop gangs from stealing them? And the designs for making your own printer have been available on the Internet for years. 3D printers make the already extremely difficult job of controlling access to guns practically impossible. The government is not going to be able to ban guns, and limits on the size of bullet magazines will be even more laughable than before. Many parts of a gun can be made on very inexpensive, plastic 3D printers or even from simple machine tools. It will be even more difficult to impose background checks, which have proven quite useless anyway. The government has been no more effective at stopping criminals from getting guns than at stopping them from obtaining drugs. That isn’t too surprising, as drug gangs are the source of both illegal drugs and guns. The goal of eliminating guns is ultimately a fool’s errand. Every place in the world that we have crime data for that has banned all guns or all handguns has seen a subsequent increase in murder rates. Even island nations such as Ireland and Jamaica – with coastlines that are more easily monitored and defended than land borders would be – have faced five- or six-fold increases in murder rates after guns were banned. It is understandable that governments want to regulate 3D printing, but gutting the First Amendment is too high a cost. This settlement may bring some awareness to the futility of gun control regulations that only disarm the law-abiding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
98Z5V Posted July 21, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2018 And that article above ^^^, is because of this down here... 3D-printed gun blueprints can be downloaded starting next month, ending lengthy legal battle By James Rogers | Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/07/20/3d-printed-gun-blueprints-can-be-downloaded-starting-next-month-ending-lengthy-legal-battle.html Blueprints for 3D-printed guns can be downloaded starting next month, following a landmark Department of Justice settlement with Second Amendment advocates. Defense Distributed, a non-profit defense firm, will offer the blueprints for download starting Aug. 1 following a multiyear legal battle with the federal government. “It’s personally satisfying,” Defense Distributed director Cody Wilson told Fox News, adding America’s gun culture has been “guaranteed safe passage” into the modern era. Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation were co-plaintiffs in a 2015 lawsuit against the government, which had forced Wilson’s firm to take blueprints for the “Liberator” 3D-printed gun off its website. More than 100,000 copies of the controversial blueprint were downloaded before the government’s clampdown. The settlement paves the way for Defense Distributed to again offer the Liberator files, and others for 3D-printed guns, on its website. “Under terms of the settlement, the government has agreed to waive its prior restraint against the plaintiffs, allowing them to freely publish the 3-D files and other information at issue,” explained the Second Amendment Foundation in a statement released July 10. SAF Founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb heralded the settlement as a victory for free speech, and “a devastating blow to the gun prohibition lobby.” The organizations had filed their suit against the State Department under the Obama administration. In May 2013, the government had cited International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) when clamping down on Defense Distributed. In its statement SAF described ITAR is a Cold War-era law designed to control export of military items. The settlement has sparked anger from gun control advocates. “We're extremely concerned about a sudden settlement by the DOJ allowing blueprints for 3-D printed guns to be posted online, and we're looking forward to learning through our FOIA request exactly how this came to be,” tweeted the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence on July 13. The Brady Campaign filed its Freedom of Information Act request on Jul. 12. “During the Obama years, the government thought that 3D printed guns posed a serious threat to national security. I'm not aware of anything that has changed except who sits in the White House,” Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told Fox News in an emailed statement. “Untraceable and undetectable guns that bypass our bipartisan background check system put us all at risk. The country deserves answers from the Trump Administration about why it thinks this is a good idea. Making it easier for dangerous people to get guns is reckless and stupid, and this is going to make Americans less safe." Advocates for gun control have argued that 3D-printed guns could also pose security challenges as they pass through airport X-ray machines. Wilson, who describes current 3D-printed guns as “mostly curiosities,” said that the “big” and “bulky” characteristics of the weapons would help identify them. “I doubt seriously that it’s a real problem,” he added. “If it is a problem, then the [security] norms will have to change.” The State Department has also provided some context on the settlement. “This was a voluntary settlement entered into following negotiations between the Department of State and the plaintiffs,” said a State Department spokesperson, in a statement emailed to Fox News. “The court did not rule in favor of the plaintiffs in this case. In other contexts, courts have upheld ITAR controls on technical data.” “The settlement in this case comes as the U.S. Government is reviewing comments on new proposed regulations to transfer oversight from the U.S. Department of State to the U.S. Department of Commerce of exports of firearms and related items that do not provide the United States with a critical military or intelligence advantage or, in the case of weapons, are not inherently for military end use, including many items that are widely available in retail outlets in the United States and abroad,” the spokesperson added. “These proposed regulations are part of an ongoing effort to create a simpler, more robust export control system that eases industry compliance, enhances enforceability, and better protects truly sensitive technologies.” The State Department says that, in addition to reducing regulatory burden on U.S. industry, the proposed regulations would eliminate the ITAR requirements at issue in the Defense Distributed case. “In the course of formulating these proposed regulations, the U.S. Government conducted a national security analysis in the context of the rulemaking effort,” the spokesperson added. “Based on this analysis, it was determined that certain firearms and related items that are widely available for commercial sale, and technical data related to those items, is of a type that does not offer a critical military or intelligence advantage to the United States.” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
98Z5V Posted July 21, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2018 There will be some liberals shiiting themselves in the MSM come Monday morning - all over this... Wait for it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sketch Posted July 21, 2018 Report Share Posted July 21, 2018 fuckyeah!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
308kiwi Posted July 21, 2018 Report Share Posted July 21, 2018 This has been followed closely over here as it has ramifications with ITAR as far as exporting firearms and parts etc. Good news all around I say Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
98Z5V Posted July 21, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2018 6 minutes ago, 308kiwi said: This has been followed closely over here as it has ramifications with ITAR as far as exporting firearms and parts etc. Good news all around I say The Obutthead Administration was certainly trying to tie ITAR to much, much more - even these message boards. Those fuktards were trying to say that "technical information" posted on "firearms-related message boards" were ITAR violations, and any technical information found on message boards were subject to prosecution under the ITAR... Yeah, it was going that far, here, brother... There are news articles out there on that very thing... It was at that point, that I realized that the US was seriously under attack by liberal gun-grabbers, the US Constitution was seriously in jeopardy, and Australians had more gun rights than US Citizens. You know what I mean, with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
308kiwi Posted July 21, 2018 Report Share Posted July 21, 2018 I hear ya, believe it or not there was a news article on the very subject of 3D printed guns and desk top cnc machines on our local news channel just a few nights ago. I've always considered the gun culture in the USA so deeply entrenched that is would live in perpetuity, never thought the lib-scourge ever had the balls let alone the power or means to have any effect, I guess it just goes to show you should never take anything for granted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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