
Pirate Bay Takes Over Distribution of Censored 3D Printable Gun - astaire
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-takes-over-distribution-of-censored-3d-printable-gun-130510
======
willholloway
Guns aren't that scary. We are good at identifying and arresting/shooting
gunmen, they can rarely kill more than a handful of us. Look forward enough in
time and be afraid of the time when it's easy to download and print virulent
pathogens or other WMDs.

As technology amplifies individuals power, it will only take one unhinged
person to cause massive damage.

I don't think law enforcement/military/intelligence/censorship approaches will
work when massive destructive power is in the hands of individuals.

Possible if incomplete solutions I can foresee are in the realm of genetically
engineering increased empathy in humanity and eliminating psychopathic/anti-
social tendencies from the gene pool. Eugenics is unpalatable and too slow, we
will need an intelligent and targeted handover from evolution to engineering
our DNA.

One day our civilization may wake up and realize exploiting entire classes and
nations is untenable in the face of asymmetrical revenge.

This isn't at hand today, but my mind can't help but follow this trend to its
inevitable eventuality. On spaceship earth we are all in this together.

EDIT: My choice of language was poor. Guns are scary, what I should have said
is they are not an existential threat.

EDIT 2, this time for clarity and with feeling: When I say we are good at
stopping gunmen and they rarely kill more than handful of us, I did not mean
in the aggregate. I meant an individual gunmen rarely kills more than a
handful of us.

A great example that underlines my point here is the North Hollywood shootout.
From Wikipedia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout>):

"Both robbers were killed, eleven police officers and seven civilians were
injured, and numerous vehicles and other property were damaged or destroyed by
the nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the robbers and police."

No one but the gunmen were killed. Of course the counterpoint to this anecdote
are mass shootings like Columbine. These shootings terrorize us emotionally
and destroy families, but when thought of statistically they are an extremely
minor threat.

~~~
TomGullen
> Guns aren't that scary. We are good at identifying and arresting/shooting
> gunmen, they can rarely kill more than a handful of us

Guessing you're from the US - where there were 14,078 firearm related homicide
deaths in 2010? I don't think that's an indicator you're any good at
identifying gunmen at all. 14,000 deaths is also considerably more than "a
handful".

Gun deaths in UK in 2007 totalled 51. So yes, I do feel less scared in the UK
than I do in USA.

In 2010, 499 service personnel were killed in Afghanistan. I wonder what
public sentiment would be if that total was closer to the 14,000 back at home.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States)
<http://icasualties.org/oef/>

~~~
betterunix
"14,000 deaths is also considerably more than "a handful"."

It is also considerably less than the number of automobile deaths per year --
less than half, in fact.

"Gun deaths in UK in 2007 totalled 51. So yes, I do feel less scared in the UK
than I do in USA."

The murder rate is lower in the UK for _all_ weapons, so you are right to feel
safer there.

~~~
wtallis
Comparing gun deaths with automobile deaths to show that gun deaths aren't
that big of a problem is silly. Automobile deaths are caused by and
counterbalanced by the extreme usefulness of cars, where guns are mostly just
for sport. So gun deaths can be easily reduced by reducing the number of guns,
and the side-effects would be very minor compared to taking the naive way of
reducing automobile deaths. If your goal is to reduce death rates, you have to
take into account not just the death rate, but how easy it is to change that
death rate.

~~~
hga
At this point, guns in the US are mainly "used" for self-defense; hunting has
gotten to be a very low percentage, between 14-17% from what I've read in the
last 2 years. And guns are used about 2.25 million times a year in self-
defense, which I consider to meet the standard of "extreme usefulness".

But as long as we're talking automobiles, the absolute number of fatal gun
accidents per year is around 600 (down a quarter during the same period the US
population and number of guns owner increased by ~50%). The early estimate for
2012 car accident fatalities is 34,080 (<http://www.nhtsa.gov/NCSA>). Guns
turn out to be a lot easier to use safely.

~~~
wtallis
All the gun owners I know do almost exclusively range/target shooting, a
category you seem to have ignored. And you also don't seem to have at all
tried to normalize for the amount of time spent using a car versus using a
gun. Are you even trying to make a valid point?

~~~
hga
And I'm the only guy who likes to target shoot that I know (now, haven't done
it in a long while).

I didn't ignore it; one of my sources, which I now see reading it is useless/I
misread the headline, was a 1 to 5 ratio of hunters to gun owners, using a
fairly low estimate for the latter (about 3/4th of the estimate I use; we only
have hard numbers on hunters because they have to buy licenses). Many of those
5 could be target shooters ... but how many of them have them exclusively for
target shooting? Ditto guns, e.g. look at Remington's hunting optimized R-15
and R-25 versions of the AR-15 and AR-10; I know one person who bought one
because its also very good for self-defense.

Heck, VP Joe Biden shoots clay pigeons with a double-barreled shotgun and is
full of advice about how it is great for self-defense (note, don't follow much
of it unless you want to end up in jail).

------
300bps
I heard the designer of the gun on the BBC today. He said he created the
design because he is a Libertarian and is trying to hasten the time when all
information is freely available. He rejects government censorship of
information.

He also said that the printer used to make his gun costs about $8,000 but that
people were reporting making a working gun with as low as a $2,000 printer.

<http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22478310>

~~~
rickyc091
I'm pretty sure a $2000 printer isn't necessary to print it. Printrbots are
relatively cheap < $500, but you have to assemble it yourself.

PrintrBot+ printing + superfine resolutions
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyrP4LWc0yk>

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I can't imagine a $500 or even a $2000 printer can print a solid enough gun
that could be reused over and over. A couple of shots, maybe.

~~~
olefoo
You would need a printer that can do selective sintering of metal dust. And
I'm fairly sure you could build a gun that had an extended duty cycle.

[http://gpiprototype.com/services/dmls-direct-metal-laser-
sin...](http://gpiprototype.com/services/dmls-direct-metal-laser-
sintering.html)

------
Zoepfli
So what's the legality of distributing just the magnet link hash? That's just
a 40 char string. If somebody would publish that string in this place here, is
that illegal as well? It's a lot of steps removed from a crime:

1- crime where a shot is fired

2- gun

3- gun creation

4- gun 3d file

5- somebody supplying you this file

6- the magnet directory giving you a link to the file supplier

7- the link hash giving you a link to the magnet directory

Can a 40 char string be illegal?

~~~
mpyne
Free speech is free speech. This is how Phil Zimmerman defeated export
controls in the first place with PGP. He developed the code outside of the
U.S. (where it was legal), printed books containing it (one of the best-
protected free speech rights), imported the _book_ to the U.S. (so that he's
not trafficking in "munitions"), scanned in the code in the U.S., and formed a
PGP in the U.S.

The U.S.-based code could then be distributed within the U.S. since ITAR is an
_export_ control only. The sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing eventually
helped lead to legalizing useful crypto in the U.S. I guess we'll see what
happens here.

~~~
Zoepfli
A 3d blueprint file could be considered free speech as well, and yet it was
just declared illegal. Can you explain that?

~~~
mpyne
The company agreed _not_ to release it when they were certified to do firearms
design, from what I can tell from the rest of the comments. The government is
still stupid for causing the Streisand effect but if the company agreed to be
bound and then broke those terms that is on them.

There are, of course, other legally-granted limits to free speech (e.g. PII,
classified material, customer financial passwords, etc.) that I would like to
not have to itemize just because people on HN like to beat dead horses, but
merely mentioning the existance of a magnet hash seems pretty unambiguous IMO.

~~~
Pinckney
I was under the impression that ITAR was just as applicable to individuals as
to organizations. Is this not the case?

~~~
mpyne
AFAIK yes, which is why I mentioned that there are categories of information
not legally protected by the concept of free speech, and how Phil Zimmerman
got around that.

------
Zikes
> the Government explains that it wants to review whether the designs are in
> compliance with arms export control laws.

I don't understand why this is so reactionary. People have been (very
publicly) attempting to make a working 3D printable gun for years, and only
now that it's finally happened the appropriate government agency has decided
to explore the legal implications?

~~~
mikeyouse
The government isn't pondering some philosophical question about 3D guns.

Defense Distributed has an active federal license to manufacture and
distribute firearms. By posting blueprints online, it's very likely they've
violated the conditions of that license.

From ITAR, what qualifies as sensitive:

    
    
        Technical data directly related to the manufacture or
        production of any defense articles enumerated elsewhere
        in this category that are designated as Significant
        Military Equipment (SME) shall itself be designated SME.
    

Further clarification:

    
    
        Information .... which is required for the design
        development, production, manufacture, assembly, operation,
        repair, testing, maintenance or modification of defense 
        articles. This includes information in the form of 
        blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, instructions 
        and documentation.
    

How it can be in violation of law:

    
    
        An agreement whereby a U.S. person grants a foreign
        person an authorization to manufacture defense articles 
        abroad and which involves or contemplates .... The 
        export of technical data or defense articles ... 
        without first obtaining the required license or 
        written approval from the ODTC.
    

Possible punishment entails:

    
    
        Any person who willfully ... Violates any provision ... of 
        the Arms Export Control Act ... or ...  any rule or regulation 
        issued under either section ... shall upon conviction be
        fined for each violation not more than $1,000,000 or
        imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
    

Their blueprints clearly qualify as sensitive, any download traffic from
overseas is enough to prove they distributed to 'foreign persons'. The
political calculus could save them since it would appear like Obama is trying
to ban guns even though Distributed Defense is clearly in violation of federal
law.

I hope for their sake, there was no download activity from Iran, Cuba, North
Korea, etc...

~~~
cobrausn
Actually I think they would hope their was download activity from Iran, Cuba,
North Korea, etc... their stated goal is getting guns into the hands of
oppressed citizens.

~~~
mikeyouse
I doubt they would think that way with the possibility of a 20-year felony
staring them in the face.

Besides, for Iran and Cuba at least, private gun ownership isn't even
uncommon.

------
BashiBazouk
It seems to me that if you can afford a 3D printer, the computer to run it and
the technical ability to do the printing and assembly you probably already
have better options than a funky zip gun of questionable quality. I would
think the money to buy the above equipment would get you a decent gun on the
black market if guns are illegal in your country. And if there is no black
market to speak of, then you would probably not be allowed to buy the 3D
printer in the first place.

It seems like this is more of a novelty than anything useful.

~~~
anExcitedBeast
You're right in that this weapon isn't really worth the effort, and if it were
only about this particular file neither Defense Distributed or the US
government would have cause for concern.

This is a big deal because 1) this is one of the first weapons designed from
the ground up to be printed. Most printed firearms based on existing tech
break easily because they weren't designed to be built with the materials you
can print with. Over the next several years better and better firearms will be
designed. In this way it is important the same way the very first shitty light
bulb was important. 2) this addresses the still very unanswered question about
what options governments have to restrict speech and international
distribution of information over the Internet.

------
Finster
And that's how the State Department learned there is no delete button on the
internet.

~~~
TomGullen
I don't think people in charge are stupid. I just think they are pretty much
forced to look like they are trying to act on it.

~~~
betterunix
Forced by who? Whoever is doing the forcing is the stupid...

~~~
mpyne
If they don't enforce blatant violations of whatever law keeps our military-
industrial complex from selling U.S. arms to every even-more-evil miscreant
out there then they may lose the ability to control arms sales at all, as the
aforementioned exporters can then rightly say that "The U.S. let them do it,
why not us?"

------
gasull
Some countries like Switzerland have plenty of guns and they are pretty safe
places.

Those who want to harm other people find the means to do it. Let's focus on
the roots of violence, not the means.

~~~
saraid216
Most of the gun proliferation behaviors in the US are rooted in a desire to
hurt people. They're using plenty of other tools besides guns to do it,
because ultimately, even a nuclear bomb is less efficient at screwing others
over than denying universal healthcare.

~~~
obviouslygreen
_Most of the gun proliferation behaviors in the US are rooted in a desire to
hurt people._

I can confirm this. As an American from a family with a long history of gun
ownership, and having grown up around and interacted with many others of the
same nature, there is not a single doubt that gun ownership in the US can be
trivially summed up in such a fashion.

There is, after all, no other reason to own guns in the US. We do not allow
hunting here, target shooting is not a popular activity, and with near-zero
crime rates, there is no reason anyone should consider owning a firearm for
protection.

Honestly, I don't understand how some people feel justified making ridiculous
claims like this.

~~~
hga
WRT to those near-zero crime rates, it's also not the case that 42 states with
around 2/3rd the population has _de jure_ or _de facto_ shall issue concealed
carry regimes, along with much of rural Massachusetts (!!!) and California,
and upstate New York, plus a thoroughly confused situation in Rhode Island.
Nor does Illinois face a June 9th deadline to replace their no issue regime
with a shall issue one, or see their law go "poof".

And it is clearly just in my imagination that I holster a M1911 almost every
time I walk out the door.

------
deadsy
I'm not sure what the big deal is. Individuals have been smithing guns since
their invention. Hillbillies in the Ozarks could make rifled barrels. People
with a manual or cnc mill in their garage are making ar15 lower receivers from
billet aluminum. The 3d printing technique takes a lot of the skill out of it,
but at the moment all you are getting is a low quality plastic gun. As a
practical matter I don't think the swapping of gun part cad files is a
significant vector for the creation of guns that are used to do bad things.

~~~
BrianEatWorld
I'd agree with you on the model in question, but I could see costs going down,
quality improving and designs shifting to cater to the limitations of the
medium over time to the extent that more lethal firearms are being produced.

For this particular model, its an interesting question of margins. If you are
someone who is looking to willfully harm people, you could download these CAD
files, find a printer and be armed without ever showing up on enforcement
radar and without the need for links to underground dealers. However, your
lethality will be limited.

~~~
testbro
Given that all a 3D printer will produce is plastic (ignoring SLS as it's much
further away on the radar), the number of shots is limited before it fails.
That's in addition to the requirement to buy ammunition first. Something from
Home Depot probably poses a greater threat and would be equally undetectable.

I can't imagine anyone opting to buy a printer, calibrate it and print a
terrible gun when they could just buy a hammer (or improvise a firearm out of
a piece of pipe).

------
samfisher83
Once it is on the internet it is going to hard for any government to stop it.
There are too many links to sever.

~~~
egeozcan
I'd say impossible. Are there any similar cases where a government or a
company succeeded?

~~~
Atropos
I would estimate that it would be pretty much impossible for the average
internet user to find child pornography or videos of murder/rape etc. But I
find it is hard to estimate if the reason for that is targeted government
action, or it is because sharing those kinds of material goes against the
natural moral instinct of most normal people.

~~~
DanBC
Only this year Facebook refused to remove videos of a woman being killed by
having her head cut off.

(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22368287>)

They've since changed[1] their mind about this, but finding videos of real
people being really killed is trivially easy for anyone. This isn't in some
specialised guro community or a shock image on 4chan, these were distributed
on a social network with a billion users.

[1] Weird that they had to change their mind because these clips seem pretty
clearly to violate their rules already.

------
Zenst
I can understand the govermental concerns and questions I have are:

1) If such a gun was used in a crime, would bullet rifeling patterns be usable
to tie up the shot fired to the plastic barrel gun and let alone the ability
to dispose of said gun with a simple lighter.

2) Concerns about it only having a metal firing pin and with that how hard
would it be to use say another material for the firing pin like graphite or a
the like - only needs to fire one shot

I also understand why this project was done, it was a challange and we like
challanges.

But as other have said, it is a simple type of gun that is the form that can
be made by anybody wishing to make such a zip gun, still need ammunition.

What the concerns are is they have created a form of weapon that can be
produced as easily as a photograph and that is just the tip of the concerns.

I will say that personaly whilst making a printable gun was something that was
going to happen, giving out the blueprints for anybody to use and abuse was
perhaps akin to writing expliot code and releaseing into the wild for any
script kiddy to use and abuse with there click-run mentality.

The sad part is that people pushing out such blueprints for such printers will
only mean that down the line such printers will get taxed and curtailed and
effect those who mean no harm and the type of people who given a nuke button
infron of them would resist in pressing it as they know the concequences.

As soon as a crime is commited with such a gun they will be banned and the 3d
printer market will get more controled by legislation. Which is sad when such
vigor is not bestowed upon normal guns.

Facts are guns do bad things in bad hands so the net result is they are
outlawed in many countries and championed as rights in others. So if anything
this highlights the issue with guns and not 3D printers, though I suspect the
Rifle associations of the World will not defend 3D printers if they start to
be restricted over this issue.

As an aside nukes are illegal, yet if somebody posted blueprints to make one,
well that would pan out badly. Yet on some level this is just the same.

I applaud that somebody did and proved it was viable, I'm personaly not happy
they gave out the blueprints in a form that enable people who do not
understand the issues free access to them. Most will be good people, but not
all and that is the crux of concerns however you look at them. So with that
this is akin to releaseing 0-day expliot code into the wild in a point and
click form.

~~~
phreeza
> giving out the blueprints for anybody to use and abuse was perhaps akin to
> writing expliot code and releaseing into the wild for any script kiddy to
> use and abuse with there click-run mentality.

I am no expert, but from what I understand, 3D printing is still far from
being a 'click-and-run' type of experience.

~~~
Zenst
You may be right and as I don't own a 3D printer or have used one myself I
could not say if it is or not, but certainly that is the level of consumer use
that they will end up, and be no differnt in ease of use than a normal inkjet.

------
fudged71
It pains me that so many people are talking about the freedom to distribute
these designs without discussing the negative impact that "3D printed weapons"
will have on the widespread acceptance of 3D printing in homes and
communities.

I'd much rather see the world embrace 3D printing than fear it. Talk about
"what we can print" after we all have access to 3D printers. We aren't there
yet.

------
sageikosa
And what if each of the individual parts were distributed at different sites?
I am thinking of the "world's funniest joke" sketch from Monty Python, the
joke so funny it was lethal.

Would any one file describing a single fashionable part be in violation also?

------
lifeguard
This is all absurd for an important reason:

One can not create a riffled barrel out of plastic. This is a $20k zip gun.

"Within production quality firearms, pistol and rifle barrels have tiny
grooves cut inside of them. The grooves do not run straight, however are
curved slowly throughout the length of the barrel. This technique is called
rifling. Rifling causes the bullet to spin as it passes through the barrel.
The spinning assists in stabilizing the bullet and making the gun more
accurate. "

[http://www.gunslot.com/blog/how-make-gun-common-materials-
se...](http://www.gunslot.com/blog/how-make-gun-common-materials-self-defense)

~~~
hga
So was the original Liberator: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator>

And some of the use cases are the same, e.g. you can use it to "liberate" far
more useful weapons.

~~~
lifeguard
Only in fevered dreams. The original was a psy op against the Germans. It was
also VASTLY superior to this plastic gizmo.

"Most of the cartridge's hot gas spills out of the muzzle without getting a
chance to do any work on the bullet, which is the main reason the cruddy
"barrel" doesn't (always) come to bits on the first shot and the cartridge
case (probably) doesn't just spit backward into the user's face."

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plasti...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plastic_3d_gun/)

~~~
hga
Errrm, I guess you don't know that at contact range blanks are lethal....

~~~
lifeguard
I was trained and licensed to carry a firearm for a job. I have probably
forgotten more about gun fighting than you know.

One example:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9igSoJHEdUo>

~~~
hga
Appeal to vague authority, when you have little or no idea of my experience.

The video is good, except I've tested the "21 foot rule" myself as the
attacker and the video suggests you're sort of safe at that distance, whereas
the closer ones had the officer surviving by getting out of the line of the
attack to give him more time (to shoot a crossing target...).

~~~
lifeguard
now you are debating yourself

------
acomjean
who didn't see that coming?

They'll also be the home of plans for all copyrighted StarWars and other
figurines.

Be interesting to see if they can stop the spread of those plans. I doubt it
though.

------
Nux
Somehow this makes me sad. Guns are bad.

~~~
jff
I think you have a bright future in the opinion pages!

------
ttrreeww
Information wants to be free. Soon, technology will want to be free. And we
will all work for free.

------
rollo_tommasi
Clearly impossible to stop the spread of this information, and any attempts to
make it possible would be extremely objectionable, but anyone found actually
_producing_ or _using_ these weapons should face extreme prison terms. Mass
proliferation of handguns is responsible for thousands of deaths each year in
this country alone, and we should be taking all feasible steps to reign it in.

~~~
Zikes
Not 24 hours ago the #1 post on HN was that gun crime has been downright
_plummeting_ for the past 20 years, despite the fact that more and more guns
are being manufactured and sold.

I know it's a tired old saying, but the honest truth is that guns do not kill
people, people kill people. Once you realize that, you realize that 3D
printable guns are not a danger justifying "extreme prison terms".

~~~
cmdkeen
Gun crime has plummeted in the USA nowhere near as much as in Australia where
guns are banned. Gun crime hasn't plummeted in Mexico, with the USA being a
prime source of weapons.

Crime in general has plummeted across the West, the increase in firearms in
the USA is not a causative factor.

Keynes made the point that it is better to be austere in a time of plenty. The
time to introduce gun control is when crime is falling, not try and introduce
it when crime is rising and people feel like they might want to have weapons
for self defence.

~~~
dr_doom
The US does not supply the majority of guns to Mexico. We supply 17-38%
depending on your source.

If you really wanted to end the crime in Mexico reevaluating prohibition would
be a good start.

[1][http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-
supply-a...](http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-
and-90-percent-myth) [2] <http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-
guns/> [3][http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-
smal...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-
fraction-guns-mexico-come/)

~~~
mikeyouse
To be fair, he never said the US supplied a majority of weapons in Mexico.
Only that we were a 'prime source' of weapons, which if the range is 20 - 40%,
would be completely accurate.

