Right to Print Arms

Are you very afraid? 3D-printed guns are coming.

"Virtually undetectable!" shrieked CNN.

"This changes the safety of Americans forever!" shrieked MSNBC.

Does it?

Six years ago, a company called Defense Distributed posted blueprints for 3D-printed guns on the web. The Obama State Department said that violated the Arms Control Act because allowing foreigners to see them is equivalent to exporting a missile launcher, and that's illegal.

Defense Distributed withdrew the blueprints. Gun control advocates were relieved.

"We have enough guns in this country already," Massachusetts legislator David Linsky tells me in my new video about 3D-printed guns.

But this debate is about free speech, too.

"You can't ban lawful U.S. citizens from sharing information with other lawful U.S. citizens," says Defense Distributed's lawyer, Josh Blackman.

"After the Oklahoma City bombing, Congress asked the Department of Justice, 'Can we make a law that bans putting bomb-making instruction on the internet?' The DOJ said, 'No, you can't ban putting files on the internet.'"

Not even files showing how to make a nuclear weapon?

"Nuclear bomb's ... different because it's classified information," he said. Courts have upheld restrictions on publishing classified information.

But the web is filled with unclassified information about how to make all sorts of deadly things.