For decades, pro-gun legislators in the U.S. have dined out on a mythologized Second Amendment, growing fat on campaign contributions from the powerful National Rifle Association lobby. But the right to bear arms is not the anti-regulation crowd’s only sacred cow. Firearms enthusiasts, broadly speaking, also tend to mythologize their freedom of speech. Perhaps it was inevitable the fight against gun control would emerge as a First Amendment struggle.
Governments can regulate the purchase of firearms. They can impose licensing and registration requirements for people building their own guns, as we do in Canada. But can they stop people from describing how they’re built?
Technology has changed the terms of reference for a debate over the distribution of online blueprints for do-it-yourself guns, in the form of computer-aided design files for 3D printers.
When the 3D printer was invented in the 1980s, it was touted as the greatest innovation since the wheel. The ability to “print” a three-dimensional object, layer by layer, would revolutionize life as we knew it.
We’ve only glimpsed the technology’s transformative potential, using a variety of materials. Earlier this year, a dachshund named Patches received a bespoke titanium cranium. “Bioprinted” human tissue is available for drug trials; someday, it could conceivably meet the demand for skin grafts and organ transplants.
But the technology’s capacity to extend life has equal potential to cut it short. In 2013 the first all-plastic 3D gun – “the Liberator” – was printed and fired by Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed, then a 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas. All it needed was a firing pin – a common nail available from any hardware store.
It bears asking: For what legitimate purpose does anyone need an untraceable and potentially undetectable firearm? We’re talking about a homemade plastic
