More than 1,000 people have already downloaded plans to 3-D print an AR-15

[workinclasszero]

By Doug Criss and Kimberly Berryman, CNN Updated 2:37 AM ET, Tue July 31, 2018

(CNN)Under a court settlement, people aren't supposed to be able to legally download plans for 3-D printed guns until Wednesday.

But because designs for the guns have already been posted online, by Sunday more than 1,000 people had already downloaded plans to print an AR-15-style semiautomatic assault rifle, according to the office of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

Shapiro has been fighting to keep 3-D printed guns out of Pennsylvania. At an emergency hearing held over the phone Sunday, the attorney general's office asked a judge for a restraining order that would block a website run by gun-rights group Defense Distributed from being accessible in Pennsylvania. The group's site allows people to download plans to make 3-D guns.

At the hearing, Defense Distributed agreed to block Pennsylvania IP addresses for a few days until a more formal hearing could be held.

Josh Blackman, a lawyer for Defense Distributed, told CNN on Monday that more than 1,000 AR-15 gun plans have been downloaded but wouldn't confirm Shapiro's claim that they were only downloaded since Friday.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/30/us/pennsylvania-3d-guns-trnd/index.html

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Anyone who makes a 3D printed gun is a Darwin award winner in the making.

Problem is they might take someone else with them.

[workinclasszero]

2. Yes and I wonder how long it will take

for the inevitable to happen?

[lame54]

12. Kill someone then melt it down...

No smoking gun

[mucifer]

3. That's good because there just isn't enough gun violence here in Chicago

[lpbk2713]

4. I wouldn't want to be the first one to fire one.

Give it to a rethug as a gift. They would love it. Until ...

[dumbcat]

5. (Sigh) CNN gets the very first statement wrong

I wish CNN wouldn't do things like this. They could very easily have an editor that checks facts as a brake on their sometimes illiterate writers. Errors like this just gives more grist to the anti-CNN "fake news" meme.

" (CNN)Under a court settlement, people aren't supposed to be able to legally download plans for 3-D printed guns until Wednesday. "

No, that's not correct. Under the settlement Defense Distributed agreed not to upload their files to the 'net until Wednesday. That has nothing to do with people downloading files that are already available. There is no provision at all about anyone being able to "legally download" plans.

Maybe some here just consider it a small "nuance", but it is wrong and just provides more fodder for the gunnuts.

[rusty fender]

11. I appreciate the clarification

Thanks!

[Aristus]

6. Okay, this is going to end well...

[sl8]

7. Plans for AR-15 rifle or Liberator single shot pistol?

Last edited Tue Jul 31, 2018, 04:27 PM - Edit history (1)

The various news articles quote the PA AG as saying that more than 1,000 downloads of AR-15 plans had occurred. Based on this email exchange between the parties, I'm wondering if it was actually downloads of the Liberator pistol plans:

https://princelaw.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/email-doc-3.pdf

[NightWatcher]

8. How many people have a printer in order to make a plastic receiver?

You can buy the rifle for 500-600$ (or at least the receiver portion). How many people have the means to print out guns?

I think this is a huge nothing burger.

[JonLP24]

14. There are 3D printers cheaper than that

I can think of a thousand problems post #12 is one of them. It is already difficult to trace guns at the federal level because the system is outdated (file cabinets) and the BRA & Republicans have resisted efforts to improve on it during the Obama administration. All these dead bodies make me sad.

[LanternWaste]

15. I purchased a $320 3-D printer for home use. Prices are going down. Consistently.

In 1980, someone probably asked "who has the money for a dot-matrix printer to print their own documents?

Newspaper publishers thought the prices of regular printers steadily moving downward was a huge nothing burger as well.

[SQUEE]

9. Can't stop the signal.

Tubing and pipe have been used for a over a century to make improvised firearms, somehow, we are still here.

[NCTraveler]

10. I take it those putting out the design are not gun manufacturers.

I smell some lawsuits.

[roamer65]

13. A plastic AR rifle?

Hopefully it blows up on them.

[sl8]

17. I think the 3D ARs are just the lowers.

In this case, I'm not sure they're ARs at all. See:

https://princelaw.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/email-doc-3.pdf

[LanternWaste]

16. I'm guessing the gun manufacturers hate this...

as much as news print in the nineties hated the desktop publishing revolution.

I won't be surprised if the NRA (the NRA being the lipstick on the manufacturers' pigs) comes out against this (en toto rather than in regards to one particular case) to save the bottom line of gun-industry shareholders.