So what about a Philadelphia Derringer? Less than $200 in kit form. No registration, no background checks (because it's not a firearm under federal law) and as easy, if not easier to put together than the Liberator, and it fires a larger (more mass - more impact energy) bullet. It's probably more accurate than the…

Thus "can or cannot."

Silence, or heavy breathing when there was air. Kubrik did it right. Plenty of suspense and anxiety.

It's about time someone redid the 1969 film Marooned.

No, he would have just sent plans for a home. There are laws restricting how weapon plans can or cannot be shared with people in other countries.

Just because a law should be applied and enforced consistently doesn't mean that the financial resources exist to do so. Imagine the cost of scouring the Internet for anything that might be an ITAR violating export violation, tracing down who posted it, how they posted it and all the related criteria (according to…

I expect that if any other zip gun plans were the center of as large of a self-promoted media storm as the Liberator, they'd get similar attention from the same branches of the Federal Government.

"NASA has employed manned rovers since the Apollo era"

"Are people not allowed to own how to build a gun?" There are legal limitations on providing information about weapons to people in countries that are not military allies of the US.

Just because it's online doesn't mean it's allowed.

Doesn't matter. Moving "weapons data" overseas to put it on the server would also be an ITAR violation. What the feds have asked Defense Distributed to do (not forced them to do) is stop distributing the files while they determine whether the files qualify for those restrictions or not.

This isn't an issue of 3D printing or the 2nd amendment, or whether Americans have the right to 3D print guns.

No, the Feds only asked that the files be taken down while they investigate, it was not a legal order.

Assembling the printed Liberator kit (it doesn't print as an assembled gun, but rather as a kit of parts) is a little more complicated than assembling a Philadelphia Derringer kit. Having used both 3D printers and 3 axis mills in my work, I can say that both require training and skills. Getting a usable print from a…

The firing pin is a metal nail.

Should they also delete blueprints for weapons or anything that might be used as a weapon from anywhere else on the Internet?

And how is that any different from someone making a single shot zip gun out of $10 in plumbing parts in their garage - aside from the fact that they would need the technical expertise to run a 3D printer and manipulate CAD files?

Good point.

What, the majority of urban crime isn't committed by people well enough educated to know how to do CAD work and operate a 3D printer?

But what is different about them using a 3D printer to do that, versus casting them in resin from hand molded clay (like John Malkovich's character in Line of Fire) or machining them from solid plastic pieces with a used machining mill in their garage.