After looking at the letters you pointed to I would recommend that you take down any files you have posted and let the commodity jurisdiction request process take its course.
My Lawyer (who wishes to remain anonymous)
May 9, 2013
In regards to the files linked to in this post.
[It’s an interesting state of affairs when lawyers don’t want it to be known they are involved.—Joe]
I spent some time investigating ITAR in regards to the files for 3-D printing of weapons. It’s interesting stuff. The implications are huge.
I am not a lawyer although one or more of my sources for this post are. But none claim expertise in this area because it is such a specialized field. One source did claim “I know something about this”. The following may be a too broad interpretation of the law and the legal experts in the field will have to give us a more factual read.
The U.S. Department of State Directorate of Defense Trade Controls is the agency we have concerns about. Their mission is stated as:
The U.S. Government views the sale, export, and re-transfer of defense articles and defense services as an integral part of safeguarding U.S. national security and furthering U.S. foreign policy objectives. The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), in accordance with 22 U.S.C. 2778-2780 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) (22 CFR Parts 120-130), is charged with controlling the export and temporary import of defense articles and defense services covered by the United States Munitions List (USML).
The documents of particular interest in figuring out the implications appear to be these two:
One of my sources ran up against ITAR due to being an NRA Firearms instructor. The NRA recently sent out a notice to instructors telling them not to provide training to foreign students. This is because, according to the first document above:
§ 120.9 Defense service.
(a) Defense service means:
(1) The furnishing of assistance (including
training) to foreign persons,
whether in the United States or abroad
in the design, development, engineering,
manufacture, production, assembly,
testing, repair, maintenance,
modification, operation, demilitarization,
destruction, processing or use of
defense articles;
(2) The furnishing to foreign persons
of any technical data controlled under
this subchapter (see § 120.10), whether
in the United States or abroad; or
(3) Military training of foreign units
and forces, regular and irregular, including
formal or informal instruction
of foreign persons in the United States
or abroad or by correspondence
courses, technical, educational, or information
publications and media of
all kinds, training aid, orientation,
training exercise, and military advice.
(See also § 124.1.)
In the last few months the Department of State is taking a much broader interpretation of this and other sections of U.S. code and applying it to gun owners, manufacturers, and instructors. There are two hypotheses for the change. One is that John Kerry is driving the change. The other is that is part of what Obama was talking about when he said he was working on gun control “under the radar”. The failure to get any gun control through Congress could have inflamed him enough that he sent out the word to find ways to punish us for our success in blocking him.
The law was intended to apply to people selling and providing real militarily useful products and training to our Cold War enemies. Things like night vision equipment and training on tank warfare or repairing high performance jet engines were valid things to be concerned about. And even though rifles that were particularly well suited for winning NRA High Power competition and training for doing better at USPSA matches could have military application the people at the Department of State ignored that. They were concerned with the nation states of the world that declared us their enemies rather than the “right-wing NRA domestic terrorists” who taught Home Firearm Safety classes a few times a year.
The law was written before the Internet and personal computers existed and some of the concepts that made sense then are absurd now. In the mid ‘90s we had the battle over encryption technology being declared an export restricted munitions. This was ultimately decided in favor of freedom under the First Amendment (the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Bernstein case and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Junger case). I don’t see why the present issue wouldn’t fall under the same protection and it might. But being right and being able to fight it to the end in court are two different things.
My sources seem to think the biggest concern is that all firearms instructors, “Mom and Pop” FFLs, and of course libertarian college students with a mischievous streak (borrowing and mangling a phrase from Paul Barrett) will be required to pay the $2000+/year license fees to register with the Department of State. This would be even though there was no technology, products, or training being exported. Just that you’re “in the business” could make you subject to the restrictions and require that you register with the Department of State and pay the annual fee. The government wouldn’t have to directly “stop the signal” in it’s entirety. There a million different signals and they only have to make examples of a few people and most others would want to avoid the hassle and “would lead more compliant lifestyles”. There is very little profit to be made in being a martyr for the cause. The 3-D printer issue could just be noise and a distraction to a much bigger concern.
Ultimately the courts and Congress can probably get most of this straightened out on the side of freedom. If they don’t freedom will be lost to faceless bureaucrats not “blue helmeted elk” that you can shoot at as they go door-to-door confiscating your guns.
In the mean time an enraged narcissist who didn’t get his way with the legislature could conceivably apply the regulations to people posting YouTube videos on how to grip your pistol.
… “Streisand Effect”?
I knew you could.
Details of the topic are here, here, and get it while it lasts here.
Update: Over 45% of my entry page views in the last hour have been for the 3-D printer files.
Never be so trusting of a government to protect you that you give up your own means of self defense. A good government will never try to render its citizens defenseless—an evil government always will.
Aaron Zelman and Richard Stevens
2001
Death by “Gun Control:” the Human Cost of Victim Disarmament
[Via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Following the lead of Robb and Barron I’m hosting the files to produce firearms on a 3-D printer.
One of the risks to “the signal that cannot be stopped” is that the signal could be subtly corrupted without the possessor knowing. Therefore I am computing and including the hashes of the files so that you can verify it has not been corrupted. Of course someone could corrupt the hashes posted on this blog post to match the corrupted files but I have saved copies of the hashes in a secure location for later comparison. Contact me if there is a concern the hashes have been tampered.
To compute and verify the hashes I used File Checksum Tools (free and quite functional).
The Defense Distributed file pack is here. Hashes:
The Liberator is here (removed upon the advice of My Lawyer). Hashes:
The ATF just Tweeted a link to a Q & A .PDF about 3-D printed guns.
I put a copy here.
The short version is:
Yes, it’s legal without a license as long as it is not an NFA item. If it does not have a rifled barrel then it might be classified as ‘Any Other Weapon” which is an NFA item.
Summary of who can and how to get a license to manufacture.
It seems a reasonable response once you suspend disbelief enough to allow that the ATF is more constitutionally permissible than a BRAS (Bureau of Religion, Assembly, and Speech).
Update: There are some questions (and this is why I was deliberately vague above) about what constitutes an AOW. From 26 USC § 5845:
The term “any other weapon” means any weapon or device capable of being concealed on the person from which a shot can be discharged through the energy of an explosive, a pistol or revolver having a barrel with a smooth bore designed or redesigned to fire a fixed shotgun shell, weapons with combination shotgun and rifle barrels 12 inches or more, less than 18 inches in length, from which only a single discharge can be made from either barrel without manual reloading, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire. Such term shall not include a pistol or a revolver having a rifled bore, or rifled bores, or weapons designed, made, or intended to be fired from the shoulder and not capable of firing fixed ammunition.
It is my NON-LAWYER reading of this that since neither the current nor WWII Liberator fires a shogun shell they do not qualify as an AOW even though the barrels are not rifled.
To my fellow citizens who are anti-gun I say: So long as you deny our humanity, so long as you malign our dignity, intelligence and wisdom, so long as you seek to shade us under a cloud of evil that we do not partake in or support, so long as you tell us that because we own guns we are terrible people, you will prove yourselves absolutely right in that we won’t come to the table to talk with you.
And there will be no hope for resolution but through victory by force initiated by one side or the other, God help us, for we will not plow for those who didn’t beat their swords into plowshares.
Barry Snell
May 3, 2013
Snell: Waking the dragon — How Feinstein fiddled while America burned
[Via son James.
Nearly every paragraph of this editorial could be a QOTD. It’s very good.
…that gun homicides are down. Way down. Via theBlaze.
The majority of Americans apparently believe that “gun violence” is on the rise. This is because there are people in high places who want us to believe things that aren’t true.
But as Tam put it, and I paraphrase;
“Even if every other gun owner on the planet tried to murder someone last night, I didn’t. So leave me alone.”
The right to keep and bear arms is not conditional. It is based on sound, moral principles, which do not change with the weather or with any other circumstances as some would have us think.
Either way (that is to say; using their own false logic or using moral principle) the anti-rights forces lose the argument when people pay attention. The other takeaway here is that lies, even big, transparent lies, do seem to work somewhat, at least for a while.
There is nothing celebratory about the fact that two brothers suspected of planting bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon a few weeks ago were able to get a gun without a proper permit. This gun was used to kill a police officer.
Despite these morbid realities, the NRA is still celebrating this weekend in the Lone Star State, slowly but surely consigning itself to irrelevance as Americans continue to pressure Congress to do something about gun violence weeks after the Senate’s failure to pass the gun violence prevention bill.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal
May 3, 2013
There’s Nothing To Celebrate: NRA’s Celebratory Atmosphere At National Conference Is Disgusting
[Proper permit? Perhaps legislation should be passed that requires “a proper permit” before high school students can purchase recreation drugs like beer and cigarettes. Blumenthal is a blooming idiot if he does not understand the realities of economics and black markets in a quasi-free society. Or alternatively he is desirous of implementing a tyrannical police state. I can see no other alternatives. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and declare him an idiot.
Would it be disgusting if the NAACP and ADL celebrated defeating legislation that would required background checks before their members could get permits to be on public streets after dark? Surely it’s just “common sense” that we don’t want people like that “on the streets” unless they have permission from the government. Right?
Wrong. We are talking about specific enumerated rights. Requiring government permission to exercise a right is to deny that it is a right. And the thing that is disgusting is that we had to even have a debate, let alone a fight, about recognizing that right.
It’s Senator Blumenthal and the anti-freedom people he supports that are consigning themselves to irrelevance. Over 86,000 people showed up at the NRA annual meeting and the NRA has a membership of over 5,000,000. How many show up at the gun control annual meetings? About 50 to 100 for the nations largest anti-gun group. The entire email list of the Brady Campaign is only about 50,000. The Brady Campaign doesn’t even have “members” in the sense that the NRA does.
No matter how you look at what Blumenthal has to say it’s clear he is unfit to hold public office. Instead he should be on the street corner handing out free copies of CPUSA newsletters. It would be more philosophically in alignment with his politics than being a member of the U.S. Senate.—Joe]
I got an e-mail today off our web site, complaining that we’re too hard to contact. He went on and on about it. He wants to spend money. He was asking several questions that are answered on the web site. His message did not include his phone number or address, just the e-mail.
My e-mail reply was bounced back to me by his mail server.
This reminds me of the woman who always hooks up with scum-of-the-Earth men, who abuse her, and she then ends up hating men, the Progressive who advocates massive restrictions on commerce and then complains about businesses colluding with politicians, and the gun control advocate who points to Chicago’s crime rate as a reason why we need more gun restrictions.
Methinks thy complaints be self fulfilling.
Remember when the control freaks announced they wanted background checks for the sale of explosive powders after the Boston Bombing? This, of course, was aimed at gun owners. Not real terrorists because real terrorist could easily find substitutes. Gun owners could not.
We now know the explosive powder the villains used:
Yup. That’s right. They disassembled fireworks and put that powder in the pressure cookers.
So now I wonder… Who will the control freaks seek to punish now? Will they want background checks on anyone that buys fireworks?
Never mind. Those were rhetorical questions. The Boston Bombers (WeaponsMan calls them “Speed Bump” and “Flashbang”—I like!) were just an excuse. Gun owners are the real targets and it will still be the gun owners they seek to control.
Second amendment rights or phallic inadequacy?That is the question #gun #guns #NRA #guncontrol
Teri Szucs (@Teriszucs)
Tweeted on January 29, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via still another Tweet from Linoge.—Joe]
They espouse an insurrectionist, anti-democratic philosophy, and they have a lot of people on their board that, to put it lightly, you wouldn’t want in polite company.
Josh Horwitz
Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
May 3, 2013
NRA gathering proves a big draw amid gun-control debate
[I would like to suggest that Mr. Horwitz read the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. The Second Amendment is specifically for insurrection in the case of tyranny and we do not have a democratic government. We have a republic.
And as far as polite company is concerned I would not spend time with the likes of Horwitz. I’ve spent time with several different board members of the NRA and I found them very pleasant.
At every opportunity Horwitz attempts to infringe up on my specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. I’ve spent nearly 20 years as a gun rights advocate and I am no more inclined to exchange pleasantries with him than I would if I were civil rights advocate in a mixed race marriage and he were the head of the KKK.—Joe]
Barb L. and I went for a short drive and a hike today. The main attraction was Snoqualmie Falls:
The weather was warm and with snow still in the mountains the water flow was on the high side of normal.
And when we went on our hike I open carried. No one noticed or if they did they did not seem to care.
By the end of 2010, prosecutors had only 32 convictions or pleas agreements, and only 13 of those involved falsified information when buying a gun or illegal possession of a gun, that translates into just 0.018% of the 71,010 initial denials.
…
These numbers are just one of the reason that no study by criminologists or economists has found that the Federal Brady Law has reduced national crime rates.
Of course, being falsely labeled as being ineligible to own a gun isn’t the only cost imposed on law-abiding Americans. Even those who aren’t prevented from buying a gun face delays in getting approved.
John Lott
June 13, 2011
The Problem with Brady Background Checks: Virtually all of those denied purchasing a gun are false positives
[Via David Hardy.
When advocates of background checks crow about the Brady checks stopping millions of gun sales realize they are celebrating the delay and/or denial of a specific enumerated right.–Joe]
I say we meet the democrats halfway on gun control by simply banning all democrats from owning guns. This way we also solve the problem of the mentally unstable and incompetent having access to firearms.
Forrest Sargente
April 30, 2013
Comment to Dems love guns. No, really. Stop laughing.
[H/T to Say Uncle.
I find it funny but I wouldn’t seriously advocate for the infringement of anyone’s specific enumerated rights. Even communists, socialists, or (I repeat myself) democrats.
Although the case could be made that people who self-identify as such are mentally unstable and/or incompetent that is the same argument used by the Soviet Union to send political dissidents to mental institutions. Hence, I think it’s history lesson we don’t need to repeat.—Joe]
The NRA sent out an alert today entitled, “Washington State Attorney General Takes Action Against Florida Gun Owners” encouraging members to contact the Washington Attorney General and ask him to rescind his decision to stop the recognition of Florida CCW licenses by Washington. The reason that Washington took this action is that Florida changed their statute to allow honorably discharged veterans under 21 to apply for a Florida license.
However anybody feels about mandatory CCW licensing, I think we can universally agree that this is a group that should be able to obtain a license to the extent that anyone is required to in order to carry. As a policy decision on the part of Washington I think that this is execrable- the problem with the alert (authored by Marion Hammer) is that it is barking up the wrong tree and maybe causing some collateral damage in the meantime.
I’ve been in contact with the person at the Washington AG’s office, who Ms. Hammer suggested contacting, regarding Washington recognition of the Idaho Enhanced CWL. This person was straightforward with me about Washington’s rules: if the other state complies with Washington’s statutory requirements then Washington will recognize; if not then it won’t.
These requirements are pretty simple as these things go: 1) you have to take Washington 2) you have to have an explicit mental health records check in your statute and 3) you can’t issue to people under 21. In this case Florida’s statute doesn’t meet requirement #3.
I don’t think there is any question that the current Washington Attorney General is not a fervent supporter of gun rights. But in this case he is just doing what he is supposed to be doing: applying the statute as written and not imposing his spin on it– if Florida has an issue it is with the Washington legislature.
Why am I concerned about this? Because I am working hard trying to get Washington (and other states) to recognize the new Idaho Enhanced license when it comes into existence on July 1 and I just want the Washington AG to apply their recognition law as written. Is it within his power to drag his feet over recognition?: Sure it is. Could he come up with some niggling reason why the Idaho statute isn’t in compliance with Washington’s: Sure he could. Has he done anything (yet) other than apply their law as written?: No he hasn’t.
I just don’t see how having gun owners across the country contact someone about something they don’t have the discretion to do anything about is going to encourage them to do the right thing– when it is in their power to do so.
Statistics about how often gun-related crimes occur in the population is no evidence against you. That’s collectivist thinking. The choices made by others are irrelevant to the choices that you will make.
People understand the wrongness of collectivist thinking in other cases. They would indignantly reject the idea that a member of a given racial group is under suspicion because 10 percent of those with his skin color commit crimes. But the individualist approach also applies to gun ownership and concealed carrying of guns: group ratios offer no evidence about what a given individual will do.
Harry Binswanger
January 1, 2013
With Gun Control, Cost Benefit Analysis Is Amoral
[Or as Tam said:
Where the hell do you get off thinking you can tell me I can’t own a gun? I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night. I didn’t. So piss off.
A significant and unique component of western civilization is the concept of the individual apart from the tribe/village/collective. This gave us the greatest increase in our standard of living, wealth, and life expectancy in the shortest time the world has ever known. Yet many people want to revert back to a form of society more appropriate for stone age tribes that frequently, when applied to modern conditions, has resulted in brutal dictators, mass starvation, and death camps.
Even more interesting is that in the last 100 years the brutal dictators, mass starvation, and death camps only occurred in societies with gun control (see also Innocents Betrayed). So when the collectivists both insist we join their collective and that we give up our guns I think there are only two questions of, mostly incidental, interest in asking:
Regardless of whether you bother to ask the questions your response should be congruent with Tam’s.—Joe]
Nothing is more insulting then being talked down too by someone who is ignorant about guns and dishonest about what they want to do with them.
RJHJ
April 24, 2013
Comment to Dear Gun Control Democrats: 6 Ways to Make a Better Argument
[I’m not sure “insulting” is the word I would use. “Infuriating” is probably how I would describe it. A lawmaker who describes barrel shrouds as “the shoulder thing that goes up” or thinks that a magazine is consumed once the ammo in it has been fired has no business writing gun laws.
I take that back. They have no business writing laws of any type.
Would people tolerate a lawmaker who cannot distinguish a jacket cover from an index writing laws that ban books that use a “high-capacity font”?
Would people tolerate a lawmaker who cannot distinguish a reel from a lure writing laws banning “high-capacity fishing line”?
That is the equivalent of what we have had for decades in the case of our gun laws and it shows.—Joe]
If you need one of these 158 weapons of war listed in #AWB2013 to go target shooting, you should really consider penis enlargement surgery.
Lefty (@LeftofLeftMA)
Tweeted on January 24, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via still another Tweet from Linoge.—Joe]