3D printed guns just cleared a major legal hurdle

Last week, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson won a major ruling in his quest to distribute gun-printing software. The video above from February outlines the background of the case.

Via Reason:

The Justice Department has reached a settlement with the Second Amendment Foundation and Defense Distributed, a collective that organizes, promotes, and distributes technologies to help home gun-makers. Under the agreement, which resolved a suit filed by the two groups in 2015, Americans may "access, discuss, use, reproduce or otherwise benefit from the technical data" that the government had previously ordered Defense Distributed to cease distributing.

Before this, the feds had insisted that Defense Distributed's gun-making files violate the munitions export rules embedded in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Defense Distributed's suit claimed that this was was "censorship of Plaintiffs' speech," since the files in question consist of computer code and thus counted as expression. It also argued that "the ad hoc, informal and arbitrary manner in which that scheme is applied, violate the First, Second, and Fifth Amendments." (The Second because the information in the computer files implicates weapons possession rights.)

Critics argue this will hasten the rise of "ghost guns," unregistered weapons created without government knowledge or oversight. Advocates argue that's the whole idea of 3D printed weapons.

The Government Will Allow Cody Wilson's Defense Distributed to Distribute Gun-Making Software (Reason)