8 ms·

Court: ‘ghost gun’ plans can be posted online without State Department approval

79 points by lando2319 6y ago

Rebelgecko 6y ago
Does this mean that codeisfreespeech.com can come back, or is that a separate issue?
bitwize 6y ago
I think it's time we revisit the commonly applied interpretations of the First and Second Amendments and see of there's a way to better balance exercise of individual rights against public safety. Perhaps if/when the Supreme Court gets expanded, some less absolutist rulings can be handed down.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  By "see of there's a way to better balance exercise of individual rights against public safety" you must mean completely gut them.
  - amznthrwaway 6y ago
    It’s a shame that unhelpful and extremist views such as yours make it a challenge to engage in anything resembling civil discourse in this country. Fortunately for you, this website is moderated by individuals who go to lengths to make far-right extremists feel comfortable and unchallenged; so your account is safe. The fact that your post not only added nothing, accused another user of being dishonest about what they wanted, and made it harder to have further discourse is irrelevant. You’re a while, male, right-wing extremist, so your account is safe.
- chroem- 6y ago
  Hypothetical scenario: Donald Trump's political career miraculously comes back to life in 2024 and he is elected president. He does just as you propose and expands the supreme court with justices of his choosing, and curtails the first and second ammendments. Do you still support these policy changes?
  - majormajor 6y ago
    I might vote for Trump if he promised to fight against the second amendment. Enough lives have been lost because of our desire to potentially be heroes in a hypothetical uprising. The second amendment has been ineffective against so many government abuses to date, and enabled so much citizen violence. Nice idea to try, shame it didn't work, time to fix it. Not so much the first, though...
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      Why not just live in a state with more strict gun laws and let people of other states live like they want? As someone in the rural US, guns are part of my heritage. Police response times can be 40+ minutes in non-urban areas, and removing legal guns would just make us vulnerable.
      - majormajor 6y ago
        Because the Republican party and the Supreme Court has been eroding the ability of states to HAVE more strict gun laws? I live in California, why don't the folks who want guns GTFO themselves, instead of trying to change our laws through activist judges?
        TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        So we're in agreement that regional cultural differences need to be embraced and allowed in the legal system. Good! Now what do we need to do to make this a reality in our justice system?
        majormajor 6y ago
        I'm actually NOT convinced that such differences should be allowed, but given that you ARE: you should change the constitution - or the members of the courts interpreting it - to allow my state to restrict guns, because right now the claim is that such a thing violates the second amendment.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
  Perhaps we need to lock everybody down and forbid them to leave their own homes, so that we can take stock of the situation and figure out what's going on.
  - ganoushoreilly 6y ago
    Everyone should wear two vests too to stop the spread of bullets.
- haram_masala 6y ago
  The First and Second Amendments don’t grant you the right to free speech and to bear arms. Being born a human being is where those rights come from. The amendments simply proscribe the government from infringement upon them. Not a hundred SCOTUS judges, not a thousand, not a million of them will change that.
  - exporectomy 6y ago
    What's the general principle you use to determine that a right comes from being born a human?
    - bjt2n3904 6y ago
      "We hold these truths to be self evident..." Either you see them, or you don't. If you don't see them, explaining why is an exercise in futility.
      - krapp 6y ago
        The Declaration of Independence doesn't claim rights are derived from human nature, but that "certain inalienable rights" are "Endowed by [a] Creator." So I guess that solves it. We can have all the guns we want because God said so.
        rainbowzootsuit 6y ago
        The Declaration of Independence isn't part of the U.S. Constitution. The words "god" or "creator" don't appear in the Constitution or Bill of Rights that I'm aware of. It seems quite secular. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
        yeetawayhn 6y ago
        The Declaration of Independence is not a legally binding document either.
- seiferteric 6y ago
  We have ways of changing the constitution. If there was support for these changes, it could be done, as it is it won't happen because there is not enough support for what you are saying. Any other method of subverting the constitution is wrong would violate the "contract" we have with our government... only bad things can result.
  - majormajor 6y ago
    And yet the reason we have the interpretation of the second amendment we have today comes down to a small panel of people ruling at a particular moment in time. Do you think you could pass an amendment expanding the second amendment had the court ruled more narrowly on it? I don't. It's a thin line of interpretation currently, so we shouldn't pretend that there's overwhelming support for the status quo either. The reason these court challenges happen in the first place has been because large groups of Americans have chosen to try to restrict guns. So let's keep having the conversation until we decide to fix the constitution.
    - mgarfias 6y ago
      just how could the court have ruled more narrowly than 5-4? Maybe Thomas only counts as 3/5 of a vote cuz hes black?
      - majormajor 6y ago
        Interpreted the second amendment more narrowly. Think for a second.
        mgarfias 6y ago
        Yeah, I did. A better ruling would have been on P&I grounds, as Gura had asked the court and Thomas concurred. THAT would have nuked the drug war from orbit, along with every other instance of modern federal over reach. As far as I’m concerned the ruling was stupidly ruled, and very carefully crafted to not upset any apple carts. ETA: reread your statement above, it was very easy for me to misconstrue “narrow” as in the vote tally.
- xdennis 6y ago
  If the party in power now packs the court, the other party will pack it the other way when it gets in power.
  - sigzero 6y ago
    One of the many reasons it's a stupid idea.
  - majormajor 6y ago
    The reasonable end game is probably something like justices with term limits, or a fixed number of appointments per presidential term. We probably will never get there without having to play stupid political games in the meantime, given the state of our political parties.
  - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
    You don't understand. The party that packs the court should have enough votes to make sure they never lose power again. If the party in power packs the court, what's going to happen is the other half of the country will just declare the federal government illegitimate and form their own.
    - JKCalhoun 6y ago
      I'm counting at least one Supreme Court justice robbed of the American people. Two more are ... questionable....
  - lindy2021 6y ago
    Which is why they are pushing to make DC the 51st state in tandem to ensure that doesn't happen. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989119412/house-democrats-pass-bill-to-make-d-c-the-51st-state https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989119412/house-democrats-pas...
    - majormajor 6y ago
      Yeah, fuck those people, they don't deserve representation cause it would be bad for the Republican Party.
- int_19h 6y ago
  The most extensive 2A ruling from the Supreme Court to date is DC v. Heller. The majority opinion has the following bit in it: > Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. As well as: > We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” ... We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.” Are you seriously claiming that this is an "absolutist" interpretation?
- culturthrowaway 6y ago
  Refraining from packing the court is one of the very last truces still in place just barely holding the country together by a thread. I truly wonder what you suppose the marginal odds are that you or someone you love is killed in an event that your proposed action would prevent, vs the marginal odds that you or someone you love is killed as a somewhere-down-the-line butterfly effect of your trying to take that action?
distortedsignal 6y ago
This story seems complicated - could someone correct my understanding if it's incorrect? From the article: * In 2015, federal courts stated that plans for weapons posted online needed State Department approval (I assume this is referred to as "export controlled weapons"?). * In 2018, the State Department settled a lawsuit by ordering the removal of these plans from the list of export-controlled weapons? * Directly after this settlement, 22 states (and D.C.) sued to keep those plans on the list of export-controlled weapons. * In 2021, the State Department upheld their decision to remove the plans from the "export-controlled weapons" list. Is that... mostly right?
- setr 6y ago
  >* In 2021, the State Department upheld their decision to remove the plans from the "export-controlled weapons" list. >the appellate panel found 2-1 that a 1989 federal law prohibits courts from overruling the State Department’s decision to add or remove a weapon from the Munitions List nit: As I understand it, they didn't uphold the decision, they decided the courts had no say in the matter, and could not overrule even if they wanted to. Which makes the dissenting judge's opinion a little concerning, because he seems to have been trying a different decision making process -- the courts should have a say, because he wanted to have a say in the matter. but I'm basing this on the one quote from the article.
oaththrowaway 6y ago
Good
polartx 6y ago
Oh my God! <wringing hands> What about the children?!?
- bullfightonmars 6y ago
  Literally > Nearly 300 children were shot and killed in 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/23/2020-shootings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/23/2020-shooti...
  - Acrobatic_Road 5y ago
    children = young black men aged around 16-17 and 364 days edit: flagged for what, exactly?
Lucasoato 6y ago
> This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws. Nice solution, thanks for the effort.
- xdennis 6y ago
  You forgot to quote the important part: > Our European visitors are important to us. So important that they'd rather not have me see anything than to ask if they can track me.
morpheuskafka 6y ago
> argued that the potential increase in accessibility of ghost guns presents “a serious threat to public safety” and noted that the weapons have been linked to several mass shootings. This reasoning is completely irrelevant as the law in question concerns international arms trafficking, not availability of guns to domestic criminals. Nor did this ruling have anything to do with the Second Amendment or its interpretation. The question was whether or not guns could be exported from the country via the Internet. The State Department exercised its unilateral foreign policy prerogative to remove these prints from the US Munitions List as part of its role in implementing arms treaties. Other state and federal laws regulate who can actually make these guns and what they can do with them.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  What a lot of people don't understand is that these are freedom of speech concerns, not second amendment concerns. As an aside, it is already legal in the US to manufacture your own gun at home. There are countless sources of information in printed form that show you how to do that -- gun manufacture for personal use is 100% unregulated by any existing federal law and, as of 2018, in states other than California (Updated - see https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/homemade-guns-are-they-legal-must-they-be-registered https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/homemade-gun....). It is the sale and distribution of guns that is regulated at the Federal level, and in states other than California. The issue here is whether the state department can take down websites that show instructions for gun manufacturing, whereas no one is arguing that printed books with the same information would be subject to similar bans. But something about the internet makes a lot of regulatory bodies think that freedom of publication and prohibitions on prior restraint just don't apply there, and this ruling is one small step to setting that straight.
  - cjhveal 6y ago
    It's definitely not 100% unregulated to produce your own firearm in the United States. It can be very very illegal to do so and it's a really dangerous piece of advice to be giving a bunch of hackers. You must obey state and municipal laws regarding your eligibility to own a firearm at all. The firearm itself must be legal according to your state law. In the entire country, you must apply to the DOJ for a serial number before completion of the firearm and you must have it permanently engraved or imprinted upon the receiver or a piece of embedded steel.
bjt2n3904 6y ago
"Ghost gun" is an extremely loaded term. It's built on the premise that authorities should approve and track firearm ownership, as if it is a privilege and not a right. It makes discussions very difficult. (Similarly, it would be difficult to discuss this if the headline referred to the DOJ as "the fun police".) A neutral term would be "blueprints for 3d printable firearms".
- whatthesmack 6y ago
  Exactly. "Ghost gun" is a political term used for political purposes. Making guns at home is legal in the US. It just has to be detectable in a metal detector according to federal law.
- jhgb 6y ago
  Why is it "loaded"? Is there no precise definition of that term? > It's built on the premise that authorities should approve and track firearm ownership Assuming the definition would be "A gun without serial numbers, that cannot be easily tracked", as Wiktionary tells me, I don't see how that supposed premise is connected to it. To my knowledge, historically, weapons manufacturers marked their products regardless of the involvement of the authorities.
tyingq 6y ago
I'm curious what regulations (if any) exist for the parts you need to complete a ghost gun. Surely some parts can't be plastic for a gun that shoots more than once.
- cconover 6y ago
  The only part that is actually considered a firearm under federal regulations is the lower receiver, so it is the only item that is controlled and requires paperwork. Everything else (with the exception of prohibited or specifically regulated items such as suppressors) is a generally available component that does not require the ATF to approve the purchase. Laws state to state on other components may vary, such as magazine capacity.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    There's still a lot of ways the ATF can show up and shoot your dog if you pick the wrong components and put them together without paying $200 and waiting half an eternity.
    - throwawayherts 6y ago
      > There's still a lot of ways the ATF can show up and shoot your dog Don't forget your teenage son! Or your wife while she nurses her newborn!
    - cconover 6y ago
      The question, though, wasn’t whether ATF agents might interpret the regulations one way or another, but what the regulations are. Millions of people purchase legal and freely available components for their legal firearm with a serial number, and do not run afoul of the law. As soon as we are talking about components or firearms requiring a NFA tax stamp we’re in a different category though.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- seany 6y ago
cjhveal 6y ago
I really don't see 3D-printed firearms as a threat. It requires expensive, specialized equipment and days of patience to produce a product that is almost universally inferior to a length of pipe, a block of wood, and a nail. Everything one needs to create an improvised firearm is available cheaper and with less scrutiny at the hardware store. Despite all the fight over distributing models for this junk, Defense Distributed also currently sells a genuinely dangerous CNC product[0] that is designed to automatically mill out so-called 80% receivers. If you're not familiar with U.S. firearm law, the part of a gun that's legally considered a "firearm" is the frame or "receiver" that houses the other components. If you sell or produce one of these frames, you are selling or producing a firearm, whether it's made of plastic or metal. Companies get around this by selling incomplete receivers that still require machining, and Defense Distributed sells everything you need to finish the receiver and commit the felony yourself. I don't actually know if there's actually any evidence of crimes (beyond production) committed with completed receivers but what I do know is that it has much more potential to create an actually reliable and dangerous firearm than 3D printing. [0]: https://ghostgunner.net/ https://ghostgunner.net/
- jskybowen 6y ago
  In the US it isn't a crime to manufacture a firearm lower for personal use.
- ctrlc-root 6y ago
  You can finish an AR-15 80% lower with commonly available hand tools in a few minutes. I don't see how the CNC machine that automates this procedure is somehow "dangerous". It's just a smaller, cheaper, and more specialized variant of a regular CNC machine which anyone could already buy. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccO1Day60sA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccO1Day60sA
  - cjhveal 6y ago
    You're 100% correct-- I believe it's more legally dangerous to those purchasing it than physically dangerous. It just lowers the barrier of entry and creates a frictionless path where someone buys a bunch of products, combines them in the way they were intended and they commit a felony and get a reliable firearm. When combined with the rhetoric that doing so is patriotic or in support of your rights it becomes worrying.
lacker 6y ago
How does this article not bother defining what it means by a "ghost gun"? Do they just mean any gun that uses 3D-printed parts?

79 points by lando2319 6y ago

Does this mean that codeisfreespeech.com can come back, or is that a separate issue?

I think it's time we revisit the commonly applied interpretations of the First and Second Amendments and see of there's a way to better balance exercise of individual rights against public safety. Perhaps if/when the Supreme Court gets expanded, some less absolutist rulings can be handed down.

Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
By "see of there's a way to better balance exercise of individual rights against public safety" you must mean completely gut them.
- amznthrwaway 6y ago
  It’s a shame that unhelpful and extremist views such as yours make it a challenge to engage in anything resembling civil discourse in this country. Fortunately for you, this website is moderated by individuals who go to lengths to make far-right extremists feel comfortable and unchallenged; so your account is safe. The fact that your post not only added nothing, accused another user of being dishonest about what they wanted, and made it harder to have further discourse is irrelevant. You’re a while, male, right-wing extremist, so your account is safe.
chroem- 6y ago
Hypothetical scenario: Donald Trump's political career miraculously comes back to life in 2024 and he is elected president. He does just as you propose and expands the supreme court with justices of his choosing, and curtails the first and second ammendments. Do you still support these policy changes?
- majormajor 6y ago
  I might vote for Trump if he promised to fight against the second amendment. Enough lives have been lost because of our desire to potentially be heroes in a hypothetical uprising. The second amendment has been ineffective against so many government abuses to date, and enabled so much citizen violence. Nice idea to try, shame it didn't work, time to fix it. Not so much the first, though...
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    Why not just live in a state with more strict gun laws and let people of other states live like they want? As someone in the rural US, guns are part of my heritage. Police response times can be 40+ minutes in non-urban areas, and removing legal guns would just make us vulnerable.
    - majormajor 6y ago
      Because the Republican party and the Supreme Court has been eroding the ability of states to HAVE more strict gun laws? I live in California, why don't the folks who want guns GTFO themselves, instead of trying to change our laws through activist judges?
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        So we're in agreement that regional cultural differences need to be embraced and allowed in the legal system. Good! Now what do we need to do to make this a reality in our justice system?
        majormajor 6y ago
        I'm actually NOT convinced that such differences should be allowed, but given that you ARE: you should change the constitution - or the members of the courts interpreting it - to allow my state to restrict guns, because right now the claim is that such a thing violates the second amendment.
AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
Perhaps we need to lock everybody down and forbid them to leave their own homes, so that we can take stock of the situation and figure out what's going on.
- ganoushoreilly 6y ago
  Everyone should wear two vests too to stop the spread of bullets.
haram_masala 6y ago
The First and Second Amendments don’t grant you the right to free speech and to bear arms. Being born a human being is where those rights come from. The amendments simply proscribe the government from infringement upon them. Not a hundred SCOTUS judges, not a thousand, not a million of them will change that.
- exporectomy 6y ago
  What's the general principle you use to determine that a right comes from being born a human?
  - bjt2n3904 6y ago
    "We hold these truths to be self evident..." Either you see them, or you don't. If you don't see them, explaining why is an exercise in futility.
    - krapp 6y ago
      The Declaration of Independence doesn't claim rights are derived from human nature, but that "certain inalienable rights" are "Endowed by [a] Creator." So I guess that solves it. We can have all the guns we want because God said so.
      - rainbowzootsuit 6y ago
        The Declaration of Independence isn't part of the U.S. Constitution. The words "god" or "creator" don't appear in the Constitution or Bill of Rights that I'm aware of. It seems quite secular. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
        yeetawayhn 6y ago
        The Declaration of Independence is not a legally binding document either.
seiferteric 6y ago
We have ways of changing the constitution. If there was support for these changes, it could be done, as it is it won't happen because there is not enough support for what you are saying. Any other method of subverting the constitution is wrong would violate the "contract" we have with our government... only bad things can result.
- majormajor 6y ago
  And yet the reason we have the interpretation of the second amendment we have today comes down to a small panel of people ruling at a particular moment in time. Do you think you could pass an amendment expanding the second amendment had the court ruled more narrowly on it? I don't. It's a thin line of interpretation currently, so we shouldn't pretend that there's overwhelming support for the status quo either. The reason these court challenges happen in the first place has been because large groups of Americans have chosen to try to restrict guns. So let's keep having the conversation until we decide to fix the constitution.
  - mgarfias 6y ago
    just how could the court have ruled more narrowly than 5-4? Maybe Thomas only counts as 3/5 of a vote cuz hes black?
    - majormajor 6y ago
      Interpreted the second amendment more narrowly. Think for a second.
      - mgarfias 6y ago
        Yeah, I did. A better ruling would have been on P&I grounds, as Gura had asked the court and Thomas concurred. THAT would have nuked the drug war from orbit, along with every other instance of modern federal over reach. As far as I’m concerned the ruling was stupidly ruled, and very carefully crafted to not upset any apple carts. ETA: reread your statement above, it was very easy for me to misconstrue “narrow” as in the vote tally.
xdennis 6y ago
If the party in power now packs the court, the other party will pack it the other way when it gets in power.
- sigzero 6y ago
  One of the many reasons it's a stupid idea.
- majormajor 6y ago
  The reasonable end game is probably something like justices with term limits, or a fixed number of appointments per presidential term. We probably will never get there without having to play stupid political games in the meantime, given the state of our political parties.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  You don't understand. The party that packs the court should have enough votes to make sure they never lose power again. If the party in power packs the court, what's going to happen is the other half of the country will just declare the federal government illegitimate and form their own.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    I'm counting at least one Supreme Court justice robbed of the American people. Two more are ... questionable....
- lindy2021 6y ago
  Which is why they are pushing to make DC the 51st state in tandem to ensure that doesn't happen. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989119412/house-democrats-pass-bill-to-make-d-c-the-51st-state https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989119412/house-democrats-pas...
  - majormajor 6y ago
    Yeah, fuck those people, they don't deserve representation cause it would be bad for the Republican Party.
int_19h 6y ago
The most extensive 2A ruling from the Supreme Court to date is DC v. Heller. The majority opinion has the following bit in it: > Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. As well as: > We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” ... We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.” Are you seriously claiming that this is an "absolutist" interpretation?
culturthrowaway 6y ago
Refraining from packing the court is one of the very last truces still in place just barely holding the country together by a thread. I truly wonder what you suppose the marginal odds are that you or someone you love is killed in an event that your proposed action would prevent, vs the marginal odds that you or someone you love is killed as a somewhere-down-the-line butterfly effect of your trying to take that action?

distortedsignal 6y ago

This story seems complicated - could someone correct my understanding if it's incorrect? From the article: * In 2015, federal courts stated that plans for weapons posted online needed State Department approval (I assume this is referred to as "export controlled weapons"?). * In 2018, the State Department settled a lawsuit by ordering the removal of these plans from the list of export-controlled weapons? * Directly after this settlement, 22 states (and D.C.) sued to keep those plans on the list of export-controlled weapons. * In 2021, the State Department upheld their decision to remove the plans from the "export-controlled weapons" list. Is that... mostly right?

setr 6y ago
>* In 2021, the State Department upheld their decision to remove the plans from the "export-controlled weapons" list. >the appellate panel found 2-1 that a 1989 federal law prohibits courts from overruling the State Department’s decision to add or remove a weapon from the Munitions List nit: As I understand it, they didn't uphold the decision, they decided the courts had no say in the matter, and could not overrule even if they wanted to. Which makes the dissenting judge's opinion a little concerning, because he seems to have been trying a different decision making process -- the courts should have a say, because he wanted to have a say in the matter. but I'm basing this on the one quote from the article.

oaththrowaway 6y ago

Good

polartx 6y ago

Oh my God! <wringing hands> What about the children?!?

bullfightonmars 6y ago
Literally > Nearly 300 children were shot and killed in 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/23/2020-shootings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/23/2020-shooti...
- Acrobatic_Road 5y ago
  children = young black men aged around 16-17 and 364 days edit: flagged for what, exactly?

Lucasoato 6y ago

> This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws. Nice solution, thanks for the effort.

xdennis 6y ago
You forgot to quote the important part: > Our European visitors are important to us. So important that they'd rather not have me see anything than to ask if they can track me.

morpheuskafka 6y ago

> argued that the potential increase in accessibility of ghost guns presents “a serious threat to public safety” and noted that the weapons have been linked to several mass shootings. This reasoning is completely irrelevant as the law in question concerns international arms trafficking, not availability of guns to domestic criminals. Nor did this ruling have anything to do with the Second Amendment or its interpretation. The question was whether or not guns could be exported from the country via the Internet. The State Department exercised its unilateral foreign policy prerogative to remove these prints from the US Munitions List as part of its role in implementing arms treaties. Other state and federal laws regulate who can actually make these guns and what they can do with them.

rsj_hn 6y ago
What a lot of people don't understand is that these are freedom of speech concerns, not second amendment concerns. As an aside, it is already legal in the US to manufacture your own gun at home. There are countless sources of information in printed form that show you how to do that -- gun manufacture for personal use is 100% unregulated by any existing federal law and, as of 2018, in states other than California (Updated - see https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/homemade-guns-are-they-legal-must-they-be-registered https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/homemade-gun....). It is the sale and distribution of guns that is regulated at the Federal level, and in states other than California. The issue here is whether the state department can take down websites that show instructions for gun manufacturing, whereas no one is arguing that printed books with the same information would be subject to similar bans. But something about the internet makes a lot of regulatory bodies think that freedom of publication and prohibitions on prior restraint just don't apply there, and this ruling is one small step to setting that straight.
- cjhveal 6y ago
  It's definitely not 100% unregulated to produce your own firearm in the United States. It can be very very illegal to do so and it's a really dangerous piece of advice to be giving a bunch of hackers. You must obey state and municipal laws regarding your eligibility to own a firearm at all. The firearm itself must be legal according to your state law. In the entire country, you must apply to the DOJ for a serial number before completion of the firearm and you must have it permanently engraved or imprinted upon the receiver or a piece of embedded steel.

bjt2n3904 6y ago

"Ghost gun" is an extremely loaded term. It's built on the premise that authorities should approve and track firearm ownership, as if it is a privilege and not a right. It makes discussions very difficult. (Similarly, it would be difficult to discuss this if the headline referred to the DOJ as "the fun police".) A neutral term would be "blueprints for 3d printable firearms".

whatthesmack 6y ago
Exactly. "Ghost gun" is a political term used for political purposes. Making guns at home is legal in the US. It just has to be detectable in a metal detector according to federal law.
jhgb 6y ago
Why is it "loaded"? Is there no precise definition of that term? > It's built on the premise that authorities should approve and track firearm ownership Assuming the definition would be "A gun without serial numbers, that cannot be easily tracked", as Wiktionary tells me, I don't see how that supposed premise is connected to it. To my knowledge, historically, weapons manufacturers marked their products regardless of the involvement of the authorities.

tyingq 6y ago

I'm curious what regulations (if any) exist for the parts you need to complete a ghost gun. Surely some parts can't be plastic for a gun that shoots more than once.

cconover 6y ago
The only part that is actually considered a firearm under federal regulations is the lower receiver, so it is the only item that is controlled and requires paperwork. Everything else (with the exception of prohibited or specifically regulated items such as suppressors) is a generally available component that does not require the ATF to approve the purchase. Laws state to state on other components may vary, such as magazine capacity.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  There's still a lot of ways the ATF can show up and shoot your dog if you pick the wrong components and put them together without paying $200 and waiting half an eternity.
  - throwawayherts 6y ago
    > There's still a lot of ways the ATF can show up and shoot your dog Don't forget your teenage son! Or your wife while she nurses her newborn!
  - cconover 6y ago
    The question, though, wasn’t whether ATF agents might interpret the regulations one way or another, but what the regulations are. Millions of people purchase legal and freely available components for their legal firearm with a serial number, and do not run afoul of the law. As soon as we are talking about components or firearms requiring a NFA tax stamp we’re in a different category though.
deleted 6y ago
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seany 6y ago

cjhveal 6y ago

I really don't see 3D-printed firearms as a threat. It requires expensive, specialized equipment and days of patience to produce a product that is almost universally inferior to a length of pipe, a block of wood, and a nail. Everything one needs to create an improvised firearm is available cheaper and with less scrutiny at the hardware store. Despite all the fight over distributing models for this junk, Defense Distributed also currently sells a genuinely dangerous CNC product[0] that is designed to automatically mill out so-called 80% receivers. If you're not familiar with U.S. firearm law, the part of a gun that's legally considered a "firearm" is the frame or "receiver" that houses the other components. If you sell or produce one of these frames, you are selling or producing a firearm, whether it's made of plastic or metal. Companies get around this by selling incomplete receivers that still require machining, and Defense Distributed sells everything you need to finish the receiver and commit the felony yourself. I don't actually know if there's actually any evidence of crimes (beyond production) committed with completed receivers but what I do know is that it has much more potential to create an actually reliable and dangerous firearm than 3D printing. [0]: https://ghostgunner.net/ https://ghostgunner.net/

jskybowen 6y ago
In the US it isn't a crime to manufacture a firearm lower for personal use.
ctrlc-root 6y ago
You can finish an AR-15 80% lower with commonly available hand tools in a few minutes. I don't see how the CNC machine that automates this procedure is somehow "dangerous". It's just a smaller, cheaper, and more specialized variant of a regular CNC machine which anyone could already buy. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccO1Day60sA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccO1Day60sA
- cjhveal 6y ago
  You're 100% correct-- I believe it's more legally dangerous to those purchasing it than physically dangerous. It just lowers the barrier of entry and creates a frictionless path where someone buys a bunch of products, combines them in the way they were intended and they commit a felony and get a reliable firearm. When combined with the rhetoric that doing so is patriotic or in support of your rights it becomes worrying.

lacker 6y ago

How does this article not bother defining what it means by a "ghost gun"? Do they just mean any gun that uses 3D-printed parts?