US government orders removal of Defcad 3D-gun designs

[Jazzy]

The US government has demanded designs for a 3D-printed gun be taken offline.

The order to remove the blueprints for the plastic gun comes after they were downloaded more than 100,000 times.

The US State Department wrote to the gun's designer, Defense Distributed, suggesting publishing them online may breach arms-control regulations.

Although the files have been removed from the company's Defcad site, it is not clear whether this will stop people accessing the blueprints.

They were being hosted by the Mega online service and may still reside on its servers.

Also, many links to copies of the blueprints have been uploaded to file-sharing site the Pirate Bay, making them widely available. The Pirate Bay has also publicised its links to the files via social news site Reddit suggesting many more people will get hold of the blueprints.

Cody Wilson, who founded Defense Distributed, told the BBC that the genie was out of the bottle.

The Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance emailed Mr Wilson a document demanding the designs be "removed from public access" until he could prove he had not broken laws governing shipping weapons overseas by putting the files online and letting people outside the US download them.

Mr Wilson said that Defense Distributed had complied with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) rules. He said the rules were pretty convoluted, but he believed his project was exempt as Defense Distributed had been set up specifically to meet requirements that exempted it from ITAR.

"Our gun operations were registered with ITAR."

e welcomed the US government's intervention, saying it would highlight the issue of whether it was possible to stop the spread of 3D-printed weapons.

Unlike conventional weapons, the printed gun - called the Liberator by its creators - is made out of plastic on a printer. Many engineering firms and manufacturers use these machines to test prototypes before starting large-scale production.

While desktop 3D printers are becoming more popular, Defense Distributed used an industrial 3D printer that cost more than £5,000 to produce its gun. This was able to use high-density plastic that could withstand and channel the explosive force involved in firing a bullet.

Before making the Liberator, Mr Wilson got a licence to manufacture and sell the weapon from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Mr Wilson, who describes himself as a crypto-anarchist, said the project to create a printed gun and make it widely available was all "about liberty".

Watch the 3D-printed gun's first test in Austin, Texas

How do you feel about the Liberator?

 

[Evil Eye]

I admire his principles, but I cannot quite agree with this.
It's fine for now, 3D printers cost quite a bit more than guns - legal or otherwise. However, prices will fall and giving every random idiot access to a potentially lethal, ranged, concealable weapon seems like a rather bad idea.

 

[Jazzy]

The order to remove the blueprints for the plastic gun comes after they were downloaded more than 100,000 times.

I find this extremely scary. Granted not all that downloaded can afford to make the Liberator..YET. What about the ones that can? Are they people who should never have access to a gun? Are they going to be sold and kids will think they're a toy? This is just plain scary.

 

[Evil Eye]

Are they going to be sold and kids will think they're a toy?

Why would that happen? They're free...

In any case, we'll just have to live with this. Not like anything can be done about it now.
And I'm not just saying that, I just managed to find and download the thing in less than 5 minutes.