Cody Wilson (3D printed guns)

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Getting back to 3D printer files-- 3D printers at their current state of development make a crappy gun but (I'm guessing) are good enough to make excellent sex toys. Why would we allow anyone to publish printer files of sex toys, because some criminal might print a sex toy in Alabama! It would be especially bad if an Alabama citizen were to post a 3D printer file for a sex toy. Alabama should nip this in the bud by banning 3D printers, or at least Alabama should pass a law requiring that 3D printer firmware be made incapable of printing anything shaped like a sex toy.

Edited May 12, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[Sam1]

Lester, you're going overboard with the "what if".  Using that line of thinking, you should just ban existence in Alabama because someone is operating the 3d printer, someone had to have made it etc... the only way to stop it would be for nothing to exist at all; no people, no things.

 

The people that put these policies into place are voted into office, or go to the polls and the public votes on the items directly.  If you want your opinion to be put into law, have to do a better job of getting votes for people support your same ideas, and get more people to show up at the polls.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Me? Go overboard? Never! Surely you jest! :)

 

But think about it-- If Cody shouldn't publish gun files from TX because the gun might be illegal to print in NY or CA, then shouldn't it also be illegal for CA or NY citizens to publish sex toy files which might be illegal to print in AL? Somebody in AL might put an eye out with that thing!

 

I've gained great enjoyment reading about how nukes are made, but it is doubtful that I'll ever make a nuke in the basement.

Edited May 12, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[DaveTN]

Lester, I’m discussing the legality of making guns. You seem to addressing the legality of transferring model files. There may be some legislation in the works that will attempt to ban the transfer of these files, but the only thing I have seen so far addresses files that were supposedly obtained from a government source.

We manufacturer aerospace parts for some very big names. We sign non-disclosure agreements before they give us the models. It would be a violation for us to post those on the internet. If we manufactured lowers for S&W or Colt to their model specs and I posted those on the forum; it would be a violation.

I have some models of gun parts that I have downloaded. I don’t have any reason to believe they are proprietary information; some of them are clearly made my amateurs as they don’t even maintain position to datum’s. Not something I would want to program machining from; but not illegal.

I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of making sex toys in Alabama so I’ll leave that to you.
 
 

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Lester, I’m discussing the legality of making guns. You seem to addressing the legality of transferring model files. There may be some legislation in the works that will attempt to ban the transfer of these files, but the only thing I have seen so far addresses files that were supposedly obtained from a government source.

We manufacturer aerospace parts for some very big names. We sign non-disclosure agreements before they give us the models. It would be a violation for us to post those on the internet. If we manufactured lowers for S&W or Colt to their model specs and I posted those on the forum; it would be a violation.

I have some models of gun parts that I have downloaded. I don’t have any reason to believe they are proprietary information; some of them are clearly made my amateurs as they don’t even maintain position to datum’s. Not something I would want to program machining from; but not illegal.

I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of making sex toys in Alabama so I’ll leave that to you.

 

Hi DaveTN

 

That's why I suggested you may have been misunderstood, because these threads have straddled parallel topics of "legality of homemade guns regardless of method" versus 1st amendment issues versus the frivolity of anti-tech laws.

 

The first amendment intervention on those 3D gun files is referenced here-- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Letter-from-Department-of-State-to-Defense-Distributed.pdf

 

This article is background from a couple of months ago-- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/3d-printing-gunmaker-forms-company-to-flout-copyright-law-a-la-the-pirate-bay/

 

Cody supposedly started the DefCad site because he got hassles from a 3D printer manufacturer and hassle from a 3D file depository because they didn't approve 3D printing of guns and gun parts. It isn't a first amendment violation if Thingiverse or any other private entity refuses to serve certain files, just as Youtube can block whatever content it so chooses. It may be real close to first amendment violation when the gov bullied Cody into taking down his own files from his own servers.

 

In certain instances, censorship from monopoly-sized private organizations might eventually become "defacto first amendment infringements" even though the government has little to do with it, but perhaps the marketplace will eventually sort that out. For instance if AT&T, Comcast and Verizon were to all conspire to block transmission of certain politically-incorrect content-- Even though that would be a case of private censorship and not public censorship, it would be rather heavy-handed infringement of speech blocking free exchange of info involving millions of citizens.

 

I don't have any sympathy for copyright infringement. Though patents and copyrights ARE areas of potential and real abuse, with bad actors "gaming the system", bullying and "getting their way" via weak or frivolous patents, tons of money and armies of lawyers.

 

I don't know about printing of sex toys in AL either. Mere speculation. Perhaps an equal-opportunity offender would publish CAD files of weapons that ALSO function as sex toys. Scandalize as many people possible. Phallic pistol. Combination shotgun/gerbil injector. Combination tazer and HO model railroad fake crabmeat car. The possibilities are endless! :)

[DaveTN]

In certain instances, censorship from monopoly-sized private organizations might eventually become "defacto first amendment infringements" even though the government has little to do with it, but perhaps the marketplace will eventually sort that out. For instance if AT&T, Comcast and Verizon were to all conspire to block transmission of certain politically-incorrect content-- Even though that would be a case of private censorship and not public censorship, it would be rather heavy-handed infringement of speech blocking free exchange of info involving millions of citizens.

You don’t have to guess about companies doing that. Google has pulled firearms links and eBay bans gun sales. That’s free enterprise and they have the right to do that even though we don’t agree with it. Constitutional issues to me would be the government banning smoking in businesses that want it, or state government forcing private property owners to allow guns on their property in a state where carrying a gun is a crime.

[Guest Keal G Seo]

One comparison I have yet to hear is any government entity requiring YouTube, or any other video hosting site, to remove from it's servers how to make firearms. I know you can search zip guns on there, aren't those videos not also available in states where owning a firearm is nearly illegal and the same goes for international trade/export, those videos are viewable in many countries.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

You don’t have to guess about companies doing that. Google has pulled firearms links and eBay bans gun sales. That’s free enterprise and they have the right to do that even though we don’t agree with it. Constitutional issues to me would be the government banning smoking in businesses that want it, or state government forcing private property owners to allow guns on their property in a state where carrying a gun is a crime.

 

Hi DaveTN

 

I basically agree. Can't see the future. Maybe we will see more internet service provider choices and more competition in the future, or maybe we will not.

 

Am not an advocate of numerous laws regulating business practices, but there are many things businesses can't do according to the law. Some of the laws may be reasonable, and most likely many are not reasonable. 

 

But assuming that the future trends toward "bigness" polyopolies (a handful of companies controlling an entire market), or perhaps even thousands of small companies all owned/controlled by the same bunch of "elites"--

 

For random instance, I can't quickly find a breakout of comcast's number of internet customers, but their total base of TV/internet/phone is currently about 52 million customers. Are most of these also internet customers, or only half, or what? Dunno.

 

The biggest constitutional rationale for the first amendment is POLITICAL speech. Assume Comcast has 40 million internet customers for sake of estimation. USA has in the ballpark of 207 million eligible voters. Assuming only one eligible voter per Comcast customer account, that would be 19 percent of voters on the Comcast information teat. Assuming two eligible voters per Comcast customer account, that would be about 38 percent of voters on the Comcast information teat. Split the difference and assume that 29 percent of eligible voters are on the Comcast internet teat.

 

If Comcast "just accidentally" happens to be slow as molasses serving republican-sympathetic sites and faster than all-bran + magnesium citrate serving democratic-sympathetic sites. Elections nowadays often depend on barely one or two percent majorities. Just minor manipulations on 29 percent of voters could conceivably swing elections.

 

I'm not advising that "there ought to be a law" but EVEN IF THE GOV AIN'T DOING IT, there is RIGHT NOW strong potential for big ISP providers to rig elections via relatively "innocuous" modulation of network performance.

 

That is just on the "hardware trunk" level. Not even considering both potential and real mischiefs by such as Google.

 

Just wondering whether, eventually, or perhaps even nowadays, the first amendment might need reinterpretation to sometimes apply to big corp censorship in addition to big gov censorship?

 

Another sore point is nanny filters. Now sure a corporation or private hospital can install any nanny filter it wants. It can even install a nanny filter on an entire ISP with thousands or millions of customers, as long as the nanny filter is in the terms of service and the people willingly sign up for service anyway.

 

But what about, for instance, nanny filters on public school or university or government agency networks? Is a nanny filter on a public university network a violation of the first amendment? I think that may be the case.

[Dustbuster]

How about a 3d ex wife so the real ex wife will think she's crazy and driver herself to the asylum <efg>