[Discuss] Reactions to Defense Distributed?

[Devlin Thyne]

Looking at my RSS feed from Thingiverse, it seems the last post was in 
December of 2012. If you would like, I can send you all the posts since 
early 2011.

Bre Pettis had a post about deadly weapons from October 3rd of 2011, 
quoted below:

When we started Thingiverse we didn’t want there to be weapons on it, 
but there were a number of awesome toy weapons that blurred the line and 
so we changed the TOS to something more blurry and toy weapons carried 
on. In fact, if you shoot anything on Thingiverse fast enough, you could 
hurt someone. There have been a lot of things on Thingiverse that could 
be classified as weapons, but they could also be classified as toys. A 
miniature catapult is technically a siege weapon, but it could also be 
classified as a toy. To summarize, our weapons policy has been a blurry 
line.

Recently there has been a lot of discussion around guns since the lower 
arm of an AR-15 model went up on Thingiverse. It’s a beautiful model. 
It’s also the only part of the AR-15 that you can’t just mail order. 
It’s been possible and legal to make your own firearms since the 
beginning of the USA, but is Thingiverse the right place for deadly weapons?

We’re discussing this internally and we’re spending time exploring the 
legalities of firearms on Thingiverse. We want to make sure that 
Thingiverse can be accessed from schools and is student friendly and we 
are exploring the implications of weapons on Thingiverse for classrooms.

It’s a controversial subject. For myself, I get a lot of satisfaction 
from shooting guns in the woods at tin cans, but I also had my best 
childhood friend commit suicide with a gun he bought by routing around 
the registration process. I’m not convinced that 3D printing is easier 
than buying a gun illegally, but it does offer another avenue for 
weapons to enter the world. Will the next war be armed with 3D printers? 
One thing that’s for sure, the cat is out of the bag and that cat can be 
armed with guns made with printed parts.

Before we make a decision, I’d like to get the Thingiverse users’ 
feedback. We’re going to either change the terms of service or not, but 
we want to get your feedback before we make that decision.

On Thingiverse you’ll find a poll in the sidebar with three possible 
choices. Below the choices is a place for you to leave your comments. 
This poll can only be seen if you’re logged in. Each Thingiverse user 
can only vote once and once you’ve made your choice, the poll 
disappears. I hope you’ll take the time to tell us what kind of 
Thingiverse you want and use the comment section to tell us why.

On 11/01/2013 09:20 AM, Catarina Mota wrote:
> Also, am I missing something is the Thingiverse blog gone? Searched the
> Makerbot blog and couldn't find anything about the weapons ban.
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 9:28 AM, Catarina Mota
> <catarina at openmaterials.org <mailto:catarina at openmaterials.org>> wrote:
>
>     Thanks Johan, that's a great tip! Do you by any chance have links?
>     I've only been able to find weapon-related discussions from the last
>     6 months.
>
>
>     On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 7:58 AM, Johan Söderberg
>     <johan.soderberg at sts.gu.se <mailto:johan.soderberg at sts.gu.se>> wrote:
>
>         Hi Catarina,
>
>         You can find reactions from the community in-real-time in the
>         Rep-rap discussion forums and on Thingiverse blog from
>         September-Oktober 2011. In the Rep-rap forum, speculations on
>         this possibility dates back to day one the project was started
>         (2005), but in threads that have been pushed to the back by the
>         moderators. Please keep me updated, I be very interested to read
>         if you are going to write about this topic.
>
>         /Johan
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