Day 626 of 1000
My buddy Eric sent me a link to this article about how the State Department has shut down a website that distributes know-how and designs for printable gun. Is this a first amendment or a second amendment violation?
Day 626 of 1000
My buddy Eric sent me a link to this article about how the State Department has shut down a website that distributes know-how and designs for printable gun. Is this a first amendment or a second amendment violation?
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Eric
I dug a little deeper today and learned that the print-a-gun guys were shut down by the Department of State as an ITAR precaution. The International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR) are managed by DoS as a sort of intellectual property rights law for the U.S. as it relates to defense and strategic information and material (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations). It doesn’t mean you cannot export defense related information, you just have to have it reviewed by the DoS and approved. We wouldn’t want tactical or strategic information to end up in the hand of our adversaries or strategic competitors, would we? I know I wouldn’t.
I periodically deal with ITAR issues and totally understand why the US might not want every Tom, Dick and Terrorist to have CAD models for an AR-15 lower receiver. If you think of the print-a-gun guys from a purely American-2nd Amendment standpoint, your hackles rise when your government limits their freedoms. However, if you think about how the wrong information can easily get into the hands of extremists who want to annihilate our fellow countrymen, it becomes just a little more ominous.
Knowing you have a problem but not knowing the solution is a dilemma. This is a dilemma. I work with this type of rapid prototyping technology on a daily basis and understand that the print-a-gun guys have a point. The technology is not all that new and is not going away. What would resolve the dilemma is a highly moral culture and populous. The guy in the print-a-gun video is a self-described anarchist. These guys have a morality all their own. They will never have to answer to a higher, eternal Power (i.e. no concern of eternal judgement) and are therefore free to do whatever THEY think is necessary to fix the problem as they see it. We, on the other hand, will answer to our Creator in the next life for our actions in this life … and that guides our thoughts and actions (this is the perfection of Christianity, in my opinion).
All that said, the 3D printing is COOL. As materials evolve, I’m sure there will come a time when we can even print circuits using this technology. Imagine printing the an entire computer, motherboard and all, using this technology. You would then download the firmware and software to make it operational. NOW, imagine that for a medical device that keeps a loved one alive. Something to think about.
It is a violation of the Obama amendment(s).
As Americans, our default button should always be on freedom. We should punish those who abuse their freedoms, of course, but the rest of us should have the greatest possible amount of personal liberty consistent with public safety. There has to be a very compelling reason to limit the choice of a fellow American.
I agree on all of these comments. In addition, I think it is crazy to try to control something like this. The cat is out of the bag. This is like trying to outlaw hammers, saws, or other tools that build things. The other thing is that these kinds of printers are not that hard to make. The materials and methods will get better with time, but the base technology is very well known and documented now.