Hey everyone!
I stumbled upon this recent, 20-something minute documentary about a (crazy) young man in the US who owns a 3D Printer and has dedicated himself to home-manufacturing of dangerous weapons such as assault riffles. He is developing his own codes to manufacture these guns, as well as recieving codes from interested followers, and he has recently been granted a licence by the US government to sell some of the gun parts he is manufacturing in his storage garage.
His goal is to allow everyone and anyone the ability to manufacture guns at home, and he sees nothing wrong with it, believing this to be a solution for gun-enthusiasts to evade gun control laws.
This video serves as a perfect case-study of our previous class topic of 3D printers and what that spells out for the global economy as well as interesting legal issues. If people can re-produce anything on their own, what would that do economically to those industries and people employed to manufacture and sell goods? Their service would be obsolete. And likewise, in the instance of those wishing to allow complete ease of access to potentially harmful information- such as the reciepe to produce weapons- how could this new piece of technology hinder legal efforts to protect society and individuals from harm?
There is an interesting point made, in that many powerful inventions- such as the internet or automobiles- often have harmful, unintended consequences, which the inventors never could have foretold. Hopefully, the case illustrated here is an anomoly, but it could also be repeated in the future as this technology becomes more widely available.
What are your thoughts on this issue? How could an invention such as 3D printers be regulated so that they can be used appropriately? There are rules in place for the internet, however cyber crimes of all kinds seem to be outpacing the efforts to control them.
nminiacidigitalhumanities 
Hey Nick, I also posted something on a similar topic, and am very intrigued about what will occur in the near future. I think that the invention of 3D printing has ushered in a new era of “gun control” (which has recently become a prevalent issue within the United States). However, the issue did not start here, and has emerged from the “internet revolution” which had started the global phenomenon of file sharing. Some major instances are obviously Napster, Pirate Bay, Limewire etc. The problem lies with the idea that people can spread information and files quickly, without the governments permission (which is another topic on its own). Furthermore this technology knows no boundaries, and has not been handled well by the government, as millions continue to download every day. But regardless, the gun control issue is solved by Chris Rock, in some of his standup, stating that the issue isn’t with guns but with bullets. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and the problem goes much further than this but I thought I would just add a little to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuX-nFmL0II