Last night (UK time), via Twitter, Cody Wilson let the world know that “#DEFCAD is going dark at the request of the SOS Department of Defense Trade Controls.” Having received a letter from the State Department yesterday demanding that the digital files of the 3D-printable gun be removed from the DEFCAD site, Cody (rather smugly) has complied, citing “This is the conversation that I want.” The files (of the full gun and other gun parts) are down until regulators determine whether or not they violate export control violations.
Of course, with a direct communication line to Cody, Andy Greenberg at Forbes covered this very quickly and divulged the full contents of the letter that DEFCAD received. And also indicated that the organisation’s compliance does not mean that the files stop circulating — having been downloaded in excess of 100,000 times, loaded to Pirate Bay and held (intentionally for this very reason, one assumes) on a New Zealand-based server developed by a US government critic.
None of this can really come as a huge surprise, which ever side of the argument you are on within this debate, and it’s only going to go on and on and on …… Another non-shocker was the airwaves lighting up, yet again, with discussion, plenty of opinions and just a few insults (both ways). @Radomysisky (and @2Perfect4Hoes) vs @Pilz was particularly brow raising.
Gotta love free speech even if we don’t all agree with free access to guns ……….
