It’s fun to challenge the State to greater and greater levels . . . To challenge it successfully enough leads to its own suicide, its own collapse. . . . There is a certain kind of logic to it, an extreme logic, a fatal startegy. — Cody Wilson (ReasonTV)
Cody Wilson — have gun, will publish
Cody Wilson likes guns, of a certain variety that is. He savors guns of the 3-D printable genre. With Mr. Wilson’s instructions and a costly 3-D printer, anyone can make a “Wiki weapon” or “Liberator” as he tags these plastic guns that can fire deadly bullets. The process is summarized by the “techno anarchist” in this YouTube video (see also 25-minute ReasonTV video interview here).
What does this mean? Well, it “won’t be long before a felon, unable to buy a gun legally, can print one at home. Teenagers could make them in their bedroom while their parents think they are ‘playing on their computer.’ I’m talking about a fully functional gun,” adds New York Times reporter Nick Bilton, “where the schematic is downloaded free from the Internet and built on a 3-D printer, all with the click of a button.” Worse still, says Bilton, “[a]fter committing a crime with a printed weapon, a person could simply melt down the plastic and reprint it as something as mundane as a statue of Buddha. And guns made of plastic might not be spotted by metal detectors in airports, courthouses or other government facilities.” (See May 6, 2015 NYT story here re history leading up to this controversy.)
We’re not interested in making you a machine where you have a more productive life. We’re interested in multiplying the problem. — Cody Wilson (BackChannel, March 11, 2015)
According to a Fox News report, “[w]ithin two days of publishing the blueprints on the Internet, on May 5, 2013, 100,000 people around the world had downloaded them. The goal, Wilson said, was to invalidate the government’s ‘unconstitutional’ hold on gun technology.” Predictably, the government stepped in. The State Department “claimed Wilson violated the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which ‘requires advance government authorization to export technical data,’ and as a result, could spend up to 20 years in prison and be fined as much as $1 million per violation.”
In October 2014 Wilson revealed his biggest project to date: the Ghost Gunner, a miniaturized [Computer Numeric Control] milling machine small enough to sit on a desktop. It’s thousands of dollars cheaper than big CNC mills [and can be used to make plastic guns] . . . . Defense Distributed sold out a pre-order of 500 machines, collecting nearly $700,000 in the process. Wilson moved back to Austin. By December, Defense Distributed was assembling Ghost Gunners in a new, 1,800-square-foot factory. [Source here]
→ Wired Magazine branded Cody Wilson as one of the “15 most dangerous people in the world.”
Acting through his 3-D gun printer company, Defense Distributed, the former University of Texas Law School student (he dropped out) has decided to defend his purported Second Amendment rights by way of a First Amendment defense to publish his computer code gun-making instructions. To that end, the 27 year-old Wilson has taken on the State Department by filing a lawsuit charging that the government’s attempts to prevent him from publishing his instructions are an unconstitutional prior restraint of his free speech rights.
- Name of Case: Defense Distributed v. U.S. Dep’t of State (complaint here)
- Named Plaintiffs: Defense Distributed & Second Amendment Foundation
- Complaint filed in: US District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division
The attorneys in the case are:
- Alan Gura (he successfully argued Dist. of Columbia v. Heller & McDonald v. Chicago)
- Matthew Goldstein, and
- Professor Josh Blackman.
Summary of Complaint
Alan Gura
“Contrary to the Justice Department’s warning that such actions are unconstitutional, Defendants unlawfully apply the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, 22 C.F.R. Part 120 et seq. (“ITAR”) to prohibit and frustrate Plaintiffs’ public speech, on the Internet and other open forums, regarding arms in common use for lawful purposes. Defendants’ censorship of Plaintiffs’ speech, and the ad hoc, informal and arbitrary manner in which that scheme is applied, violate the First, Second, and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Plaintiffs are entitled to declaratory and injunctive relief barring any further application of this prior restraint scheme, and torecover money damages to compensate for the harm such application has already caused.”
First Amendment claims
- Defendants’ prepublication approval requirement is invalid on its face, and as applied to Plaintiffs’ speech, as an unconstitutional prior restraint on protected expression.
- Defendants’ prepublication approval requirement is invalid on its face, and as applied to Plaintiffs’ speech, as overly broad, inherently vague, ambiguous, and lacking adequate procedural protections.
- Defendants’ prepublication approval requirement is invalid as applied to Defense Distributed’s posting of the Subject Files, because Defendants have selectively applied the prior restraint based on the content of speech and/or the identity of the speaker.
- Defendants’ interruption and prevention of Plaintiffs from publishing the subject files, under color of federal law, violates Plaintiffs’ rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution causing Plaintiffs, their customers, visitors and members significant damages. Plaintiffs are therefore entitled to injunctive relief against Defendants’ application of the prior restraint.