On Undetectable Firearms Act Renewal

DOJ began a PR push last week to find legislative traction for a set of proposed bills that would criminalize the individual production of rifle receivers and magazines with 3D printers. Sections 4 and 5 of the proposed House bill directly criminalize 3D printed receivers and magazines, and mandate an arbitrary amount of metal be part of their fabrication. Beyond suffering from fatal Due Process and GCA problems, the bill’s prohibitions are not extended to manufacturers because (hint) there isn’t actually a security issue at stake. The bad faith and fraud required to hide this from the current public discussion is of course par for the course. The media organs have dutifully repeated the official account.

The NRA used to say “no inroads.” You can make gun parts on 3D printers now, just like you can and have been able to mill them for about the last few hundred years. Guns aren’t allowed on airplanes and in courthouses. Now that it has reached a new level of visibility and popularity, the usual suspects would like to suppress the adoption of the digital manufacture of firearms. The goal of a new Undetectable Firearms Act is to make development and experimentation with these computer-aided devices fraught with danger and difficulty for the common man; to raise again the lowered barrier to entry to DIY gunsmithing, and to enable a means for arbitrary and capricious enforcement- like any good police state should.

Ceterum censeo

Source: Defense Distributed