Anti-gun lawmakers are bound and determined to try to force 3D printer manufacturers to install software that prevents people from making guns. In theory, that might sound fine if you’re not a fan of people making firearms on their own. After all, 3D printers make it a lot more accessible than it’s been in the past, and while these become so-called ghost guns, so have every homemade firearm since the dawn of time.
One massive problem with the proposal, beyond the First and Second Amendment concerns, is that it’s very difficult for a bit of software to decisively yet accurately determine if a part is a gun or not.
And this one little doo-dad is a prime example of the problem.
Is an e-reader case as dangerous as a Glock 19?
Last month, Louisville, Kentucky-based creator Luke The Maker showed off a bizarre, 3D-printed, pistol-shaped case design for the popular minimalist Xteink X4 e-reader. The X4 lies vertically atop the plastic gun’s slide, with a cutout on the side to access its buttons. Though the frame was digitally modeled after a real gun, this “case” can’t shoot bullets. Squeezing the trigger does nothing at all. He calls his contraption the “Gundle.”
In a post showing off the wacky accessory, Luke (whose last name is Blackford) can be seen flipping through Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye before tossing the gun e-reader case in his car’s center console.
“The perfect e-reader for public reading,” text reads over the clip.
But even though this internet experiment is clearly intended as a joke or commentary, it’s possible future 3D printers won’t see it that way. Lawmakers in multiple states are pushing for laws mandating gun-blocking software on all new printers sold. This still-evolving technology would, in theory, scan every file before it’s physically printed and try to algorithmically determine whether it’s a firearm or firearm part. If the software decides that the thing being printed looks enough like a gun, it stops the printer from completing the job. That is, if it even works. Lawmakers in New York and California are leaving it up to a panel of industry experts to weigh whether the proposed vision is even technically feasible. Despite that cloud of uncertainty, legislation mandating this blocking tech has already become law in New York and passed California’s state assembly.
I’m not a fan of gun-shaped objects as everyday devices. Gun-shaped phone holders, which apparently exist, seem extraordinarily stupid things to carry. All it takes is the wrong person looking and thinking you’re doing something you’re not, and suddenly, you have extra holes in you that don’t need to be there.
And yeah, a carrier for an e-reader is most definitely in that camp, which is clear from the tongue-in-cheek bit about it being perfect for public reading.
Yet the point remains. This particular piece, which looks like a Glock with a platform for the e-reader on top, would likely trip whatever software gets forced into the printers, yet it’s not a gun at all. It doesn’t work like a gun, it doesn’t act like a gun, and while I happen to think anyone who uses something like this outside the home is an absolute moron, people have a God-given right to be stupid.
Where else do you think politicians come from?
Anyway, this is an example of where one of the problems with the software lies.
It’s one thing to try to prevent someone from doing something illegal. It’s quite another when your nanny-stating starts to interfere with lawful behavior, which is what we’re looking at here.
Then, of course, there are the Second Amendment concerns, as well as the First Amendment issues in a world that has long decided that code equals speech, and 3D printer files are code, plain and simple.
That includes code to make things that are probably stupid on some level, but also to make things that aren’t but just look too much like something forbidden.
Honestly, it still boggles my mind that anti-gunners can’t, or won’t, see this.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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