• Gadgetoblog.Streisand, armed and dangerous
  • International.US Justice Blocks Wiki-Weapons

Firearms whose blueprints can be downloaded and used to create parts on a 3D printer have reappeared in American politics.

The attorneys general of 25 states have written a letter to the Justice Department and the United States Department of State asking the Trump government to block a page from which these plans can be downloaded. Its distribution had previously been blocked (especially during the Obama term) and when the Trump administration gave its approval, the American Justice finally did not allow it. Despite this, the page has been active since March.

Behind this initiative is Defense Distributed, a company led by Cody Wilson, who, according to these prosecutors, is " a cryptanarchist " whose objective is to evade arms control laws and destroy intermediaries in this sector.

"Anyone who downloads and uses one of the Defense Distributed files - even if that person cannot possess a weapon because of their age, criminal history, or any other factor - could make functional weapons that cannot be detected (...) and are untraceable, because they do not have a serial number ", they denounce.

Blueprints allow the creation of automatic weapon parts such as the 'Liberator' pistol, which, being made of plastic, is able to dodge traditional metal detectors. These files, they explain, are on the list of ammunition in the United States and publishing them on the Internet without federal authorization could be a violation of the law.

"If the government does not act, these files will be widely distributed with potentially serious consequences for our domestic and national security," they lament in their letter. Thus, the effectiveness of your existing metal detectors in places such as airports, schools or stadiums would be compromised.

Throughout the process, the main problem has been that US legislation does not prohibit the publication of the plans. Also, although the possibility of creating firearms using printers is real, the process is much more laborious than buying one of them. On the other hand, their reliability and their materials make them not very useful.

To this must be added that the measure seems to be late: the page is available and the prosecutors' own letter has created a Streisand effect - as happened a few years ago - that has caused the plans to be downloaded and distributed.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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