– US State Department Halts 3-D Gun Production: Demands Removal Of All Online Blueprints (ZeroHedge, May 9, 2013):
Three days ago, in an article that looked at the convergence of 3-D printing and the 2nd Amendment, we presented “the Liberator” – the world’s first fully 3-D printed firearm. The name was aptly chosen because courtesy of its creator, 25-year old UofT law student Cody Wilson, and his non-profit group Defense Distributed, its online blueprint and assembly instructions liberated “anyone to be able to download and print a gun with no serial number, in the privacy of their garage” in effect completely circumventing any gun control/distribution laws, background checks and other regulatory hurdles of an increasingly authoritarian government. In fact, we were counting the number of days before some US Federal agency would come knocking on Cody Wilson’s door and involved that other key Amendment – the First, by either “disappearing him” or politely enforcing a permanent Cease and Desist of all production, including, of course, the removal of all online “liberating” blueprints. We didn’t have long to wait – it took just one week.
As Tech Crunch reports, “the State Department has demanded that new blueprints for a fully 3-D-printed gun be taken offline just a week after they were posted. The Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance is forcing outspoken Second Amendment crusader Cody Wilson to remove the downloadable 3-D printer files from Defcad.org under expert laws known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).”
“Until the Department provides Defense Distributed with final [commodity jurisdiction] determinations, Defense Distributed should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controled,” reads the State Department order, seen below in its entirety.
Specifically, the Dept of State claims that under “ITAR, it is unlawful to export any defense article or technical data for which a license or written approval is required without first obtaining the required authorization from the DDTC. Please note that disclosing (including oral or visual disclosure) or transferring technical data to a foreign person, whether in the United States or abroad, is considered an expoert under [ ] ITAR.” And since by implication this means that all the data can be seen by at least one foreigner, “this means that all such data should be removed from public access immediately.”