The US Department of Defense Trade Controls has just forced Cody Wilson to remove the plans for a firearm made of plastic from his website.
Wilson, a law student from Texas, caused a storm in the US recently when he fired a gun made by a 3D printer. The plans for the gun, a CAD file were put in the public domain by Wilson on the Defence Distributed website, giving anyone the opportunity to download and print their own weapon.
This act was met with criticism from many but in some quarters, it was seen as a victory for those supporting the right to bare arms.
Now the government has stepped in and tried to take the plans offline, however they have been downloaded over 100,000 times and now exist in peer to peer torrent sites.
It does seem very strange that only a month ago, Obama's attempt to introduce background checks for firearms purchases was thwarted by the huge a powerful anti-gun control lobby and yet as soon as it becomes possible for anyone to print a gun the legal action is instant and the lobby are silent.
The reason is clear - gun sales. They didn't want back ground checks introduced because guns sales would have fallen. They don't want Cody Wilson upsetting the apple cart by making it possible to print guns at home because this will also cause the sales to fall.
So much for the land of the free.
[Originally published 5 October 21013]