3D-printed Gun CAD Files Pulled from Web

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After only a few days online, the blueprint's for Defense Distributed's 3D-printed gun have been taken down.

Earlier this week, Defense Distributed released the blueprints for its 3D-printed gun, posting them to its website, DefCAD.org. Today, that site hosts a notice explaining that the aforementioned files have been pulled at the behest of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls.

 

According to Forbes, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson yesterday received a letter from the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance asking that he remove the files relating to the "Liberator" as well as nine other 3D-printable firearms components hosted on DefCAD. Wilson, a 25-year University of Texas law student, told the site that while it might be hard to remove the files from public access (they have been downloaded thousands of times), Defense Distributed will do its best to comply.

"We have to comply," he told Forbes. "All such data should be removed from public access, the letter says. That might be an impossible standard. But we’ll do our part to remove it from our servers."

Indeed, the message currently present on the DefCAD homepage reads:

"Defcad files are being removed from public access at the request of the U.S. Department of Defence Trade Controls. Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information."

The letter from the State Department cites potential violation of gun export laws (specifically, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or ITARs) as the reason for the take down request and said Defense Distributed should treat the data as ITAR-controlled until it receives final determinations from the Department. But compliance from Defense Distributed doesn't mean the files have completely disappeared. Like Wilson told Forbes, it may be impossible to completely remove the files from public access. TorrentFreak reports that The Pirate Bay and many other file-sharing sites are already hosting the files. Not only that, but TPB says it's happy to have them and has no intention of taking them down.

The DefCAD site is currently being slammed with traffic. We could only gain access a handful of the times we tried to load up the site. That said, Defense Distributed is working on mirrors for downloads so keep checking back.

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Jane McEntegart

Jane McEntegart works in marketing communications at Intel and was previously Manager of Content Marketing at ASUS North America. Before that, she worked for more than seven years at Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, holding such roles as Contributing Editor and Senior News Editor and writing about everything from smartphones to tablets and games consoles.

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48 Comments Comment from the forums
  • christop
    I think the printed gun is a bad thing for people to have. Some one could make everything plastic and sneak it in any where.
    Reply
  • catswold
    This article just points out the futility of going after the weapon. Go after the criminal--profile criminal behavior and when you nail them, send them up for long sentences--that's how you reduce crime, not by restricting access to firearms for the law-abiding citizens.
    Besides, why all the bed-wetter hype? This is nothing more than a novel--and for now, exceptionally expensive--means of doing what criminals have been doing for decades, making zip-guns.
    You can make a better, far cheaper zip-gun just by visiting the hardware store.
    Reply
  • cptnjarhead
    A truly free society is inherently dangerous by nature and its citizens should be responsible for their own actions and safety.
    Citizens who are educated, armed and free are more dangerous to the government trying to control them, than the people who elect them.
    Study the constitution, educate as many people who will listen.
    Reply
  • cptnjarhead
    A truly free society is inherently dangerous by nature and its citizens should be responsible for their own actions and safety.
    Citizens who are educated, armed and free are more dangerous to the government trying to control them, than the people who elect them.
    Study the constitution, educate as many people who will listen.
    Reply
  • wanderer11
    Ah, yes "pulled from web". After 100,000 people downloaded it there is no way to get rid of it. It is already up on TPB. Resistance is futile.
    Reply
  • yannigr
    They chosen to print a gun. From all things in the world, they chosen a gun.
    catswold
    American? You must be American. Only Americans love guns so much that they put logic aside. Many people are not criminals but they could over react in some occasions. Putting a gun in those people's hands, is the most stupid thing to do. Many deaths would have been avoided if guns where not so easy to reach, and many lives of people who could not control themselves in that bad moment, would have not being destroyed.
    Helping someone to do the biggest mistake in his/her life, is not clever.
    Reply
  • yannigr
    They chosen to print a gun. From all things in the world, they chosen a gun.
    catswold
    American? You must be American. Only Americans love guns so much that they put logic aside. Many people are not criminals but they could over react in some occasions. Putting a gun in those people's hands, is the most stupid thing to do. Many deaths would have been avoided if guns where not so easy to reach, and many lives of people who could not control themselves in that bad moment, would have not being destroyed.
    Helping someone to do the biggest mistake in his/her life, is not clever.
    Reply
  • cptnjarhead
    A truly free society is inherently dangerous by nature and its citizens should be responsible for their own actions and safety.
    Citizens who are educated, armed and free are more dangerous to the government trying to control them, than the people who elect them.
    Study the constitution, educate as many people who will listen.
    Reply
  • koga73
    "Citizens who are educated, armed and free are more dangerous to the government trying to control them, than the people who elect them."
    War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
    As an educated, armed, free citizen I am less dangerous than the government yet I have the power to stand together with other educated, armed, and free citizens in the name of tyranny and defense of the constitution.
    Reply
  • internetlad
    all issues with printing firearms aside, this is pretty clearly an exercise in futility. Zip guns/homemade one-off pistols have been available for as long as firearms have been. At it's core you can have a tube, capped off at one end with a wick or blast cap igniting gunpowder in the back and shrapnel in the front as a homemade blunderbuss.
    All you need to really make a zip gun is a nail, a tube of applicable size, and possibly a sabot to house the round, it's not difficult. At the end of the day the bullets are the big problem, and they're readily available, and not especially expensive.
    All this is, is a civilized zip gun. They will never fully remove this or any other homemade weapons from existence. Where there is a will, there is a way. Regulations can be attempted, but at the end of the day, they're just throwing tax money down a rathole, fighting a war that cannot be won.
    Reply