The impotent prohibitionist freak-out over 3D printed guns.
Downloadable 3D gun plans have been ubiquitous online for about five years. Almost nothing has changed in reality. Anyone tech savvy enough to 3D print a gun is certainly capable of accessing the Pirate Bay.
Infringing on what is a clear exercise of first amendment rights isn't going to change anything, and it would be a horrible precedent to set. Whatever your feelings on gun control are, the ability of the government to control the physical items in the possession of the populace is going to be over soon. Just like ride-sharing, Air BnB, and a bunch of other new tech, 3D printing is going to leave the government increasingly out of the picture and put the power to create where it belongs, in the hands of people. Without government or corporate gatekeepers.
Like the war on drugs, the war on 3D printing will be lost. Give it up. Whatever you do, however you try to interfere, people are going to have the ability to make what they want, by themselves, in their basements. More and more cheaply, more and more easily. People, working class people, all of us, will have access to technology that can make the stuff in our heads into material fact.
If you don't think this is good, please, don't call yourself a liberal. You're not. Either way, though, like it or not, it's going to happen. You can't stop the democratising force of technology.
Guns don't kill people. People with guns, kill people. Forbid people NOT guns xD
They have no authority to restrict this! If I decide to build, I have a machine shop; and I will build it with steel. That said, I also have a 3D printer.... :)
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
I've heard someone is releasing files to 3D print deadly sharp set squares.
https://steemit.com/guns/@smurphed/3d-weapons-of-mass-destruction
Secrecy is not security. The government will never succeed in trying to keep information from the public at large. Even if you can't download it, it doesn't stop someone from coming up with it on their own. A year ago, I knew nothing about 3D printing. But, I've learned a lot over the past year as I built my own. My experience tells me one thing... there's not a chance that I will ever pull the trigger on a 3D printed gun and risk blowing off the finger that I use to click my mouse. If I wanted to do it though, there is nothing to stop me or anyone else from designing our own and then printing it out. It's all about control and who gets to be in control... of information, of production and of our lives.