Calls for tougher laws as Australian authorities brace for downloadable guns
39 replies, posted
A US court settlement allowing 3D-printable gun plans to be posted online has fuelled calls for a national adoption of the NSW approach to outlawing blueprints.
Key points:
The court ruling would make it easier to download plans for guns that can be manufactured on 3D printers
Some of the simple models can be fired only once
However, the more sophisticated weapons include metal parts and are reusable
The open-source organisation at the heart of the case, Defense Distributed, declared "the age of the downloadable gun" would begin on August 1, when it could legally post its plans for undetectable and untraceable firearms online.
However, a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary injunction on Tuesday afternoon — this morning Australian time — to block their release.
Eight attorneys had filed a lawsuit earlier this week, arguing the 3D guns would be a safety risk.
Academics in Australia fear the release of blueprints will increase experimentation amongst so-called "tinkerers" in Australia, and NSW Police have warned even possessing the plans on a cloud service is a criminal offence.
Australian National University Professor of Criminology Roderic Broadhurst said Australia already had a home-made gun manufacturing world whose members were eyeing off 3D printer advancements.
"We can expect to see more tinkerers and more people involved who don't have easy access to firearms perhaps finding this as an opportunity," he said.
"There are enough examples now where it's gone from ideas to actual practice."
Methods for dealing with nefarious applications of 3D printing differ between states and territories.
A 2015 reform to NSW legislation created a unique offence for possessing digital blueprints for firearms, including a maximum penalty of 14 years' jail.
Head of the NSW Drug and Firearms Squad Detective Acting Superintendent Jason Weinstein pointed to a broad interpretation of when a person "possesses" blueprints — including when blueprints were held in someone else's computer and outside the jurisdiction.
"That is to say, that whilst it is stored in 'the cloud' one is still deemed to be in possession under the Act," he said.
He said police proactively identified persons of interest who downloaded CAD (computer-aided design) diagrams for illegal purposes.
"We continue to aggressively pursue this new and developing phenomena."
Professor Broadhurst said he believed it was time to consider the NSW law as a national approach.
"It does give you a bit more room to move from a deterrence point of view or from an investigative point of view," he said.
"You can have a search warrant for that. It gives law enforcement agencies a bit of an opportunity to intervene."
The rise of 3D
Talk about dumb as shit. These plans have been around for ages. I downloaded them at least a decade ago. Basically anyone could build a sten knockoff in their shed.
P.A Luty proved a majority of these idiots completely wrong more than a decade ago
Seeing as the legal attitude to guns in Australia is one of strict control they're obliged to develop legislation like this. It'd be contradictory to do otherwise.
You wouldn't DOWNLOAD A GUN
To control, minimise, and hopefully prevent the manufacture of illegal firearms. Similar to restrictions on precursor drugs such as pseudoephedrine.
If i download a gun , shoot a person with it , and delete the gun: will i get in trouble?
What if its a gun that deletes people? Can't get arrested if they don't exist
The change to the law made it illegal to possess the digital blueprints, even if you didn’t end up making the gun. Come on mate, it’s not that hard to comprehend.
So a victimless crime.
Won't make it as easy, that's for sure. That in itself would almost certainly deter people who don't have the practical know-how to make a sten knock-off or w/e.
Except while the plans are legal everywhere else in the world it will literally take 5 seconds to find and download them.
Just because a crime can be victimless doesn’t mean that it’s wrong for it to be a crime. Eg speeding and driving without a seatbelt on are victimless crimes, and surely I don’t need to explain why it’s a good thing that those are criminalised.
Anyways the theory is probably that it’s an additional deterrence. Eg, just imagine that 50% of people who ever download the gun blueprints go on to actually make the gun. Criminalising possession of the blueprints might not decrease that ratio of people with blueprints going on to make the gun, but it would decrease the number of people possessing bllueprints to begin with. Reducing the number of homebuilt guns that way.
Speeding isn't a victimless crime. I also don't care if an adult gets themselves killed because they chose to forgo a seat belt and don't think it should be a crime.
That's a very large leap to make. You would have to prove that's the case.
If the police receive a tip off that someone may be building guns in their shed and selling them on the black market, they’d possibly be able to charge the suspect even if no guns were found, as long as the suspect had blueprints and the means to make the guns. That’s an example of the legislation being enforced.
Speeding on its own IS a victims crime though...
On a track perhaps, but speeding on a road carries a substantial risk of killing someone else. Owning a CAD file on your computer is not going to spontaneously create a functioning gun which will fly about shooting children.
Yeah, and hitting someone is a separate crime. Lots of people speed without hitting anyone.
Called Crimestoppers 👋
More charges and a heavier sentence. Also, if it's illegal to possess the blueprints, it's also illegal to share them, giving the government a legal mean to curb their spread.
lol "bracing" for the maybe 300 people who will have a 3d printer
I can easily see Australia controlling the importation of 3D printers to only those with licenses
Disregarding the fact that it's a good thing that the government is being prescient for once, should we wait until more people get 3D printers before thinking about this? And even if it's only 100 people with 3D printers, they would be able to churn out quite a few cheap guns each.
When can I download a car
I get what you're trying to say, but I don't see how this is the same at all. Downloading child porn shows that there is demand for such images and indirectly encourages the child abusers behind the images to make more. Owning a CAD file is drastically more victimless than owning what requires horrifying levels of mental and physical abuse just to exist. Of course people are going to view the two differently.
I think our present laws deal with the situation fine. You can have any of the dangerous information you want, but you can also be charged if there's evidence that you intend to use it.
Nobody needs gun blueprints though. I can understand a real gun is required for some niche things but fuck off, nobody should have their hands on the means to make uncontrolled firearms.
This should be illegal in the same way pirating is illegal, you may not download, distribute or hold these blueprints.
Its not enforceable just like anti piracy measures, but it should be in law.
ya but this would be more akin to possessing of the recipe for meth, something one could independantly create with but a handful of texts and a working knowledge of chemistry which one could also do here with 3d printed guns
So when can I download a car?
you could already do this with some machining tools and basic knowledge
I think you're understating the resources required to make a weapon i.e money for the machinery, time to learn the way moving parts fit, to understand how you will do that process, the place to store your machinery, the gathering of high quality materials, etc.
Gunsmithing isn't taking an anglegrinder to a tube and metal block.
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