You might be a First Amendment Extremist if you believe that...

[stone space]

...the First Amendment, written more than two centuries ago, guarantees your God-Given Right to print out guns on a 3-D Printer.

Our Founding Fathers (Hallowed be thy names!) obviously could not have anticipated the technological advances that have occurred and which will continue to occur in computer printing technology.

Arguing that the writers of the First Amendment, in guaranteeing Freedom of the Press, somehow anticipated a printing press capable of making deadly weapons would be akin to arguing that the writers of the Second Amendment somehow anticipated modern semi-automatic weapons. And we all know what a steaming pile of bullshit that is. (I mean, come on now...how many of the Founding Fathers were Sci-Fi writers?)

The Printing Presses that the Founding Fathers knew about at the time were every bit as primitive as the muskets and powder that they carried.

So let's get real here, shall we?

We live in a different world.

And the First Amendment most certainly does not guarantee your right to print out an AR-15 with your 3-D Printer.

[GGJohn]

1. Welcome back.

The Founding Fathers most certainly anticipated that technology would advance, they were not stupid people.

[HERVEPA]

3. yes. And I'm sure you can anticipate the technology two hundred years from now.

Oh, and your wavy thing is still ridiculously immature.

[GGJohn]

6. And a pleasant good morning to you too.

The Founding Fathers knew that technology would advance, just as it did in their time, these were not stupid people.
And the insults are still childish and immature, please try acting like a grown up.
Have a wonderful, productive day.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. Did they foresee the internet upon which you're posting?

[Scuba]

4. It may not be a right in the Constitution but God or Jesus could add it any day!

[ileus]

5. Why print an AR when you can just buy one.

If you don't want one "in your name" just buy a used one off a BST page on Facebook.

[Nye Bevan]

7. I'm about as pro-First Amendment as anyone.

Unlike most here, I even join with the ACLU in supporting the Citizens United decision.

But even I don't see how printing a gun could be considered "speech".

[Fumesucker]

12. A translation of information from one form to another

In this case from digital bits and bytes to cold blue steel.

Note that I don't necessarily believe this but it's an argument that can and will be made.

[Nye Bevan]

13. And child porn is also a "translation of information"

but still illegal, with no First Amendment protection.

[Fumesucker]

15. That's up to SCOTUS, they will hear the arguments and decide

I think gun control is a losing issue for Democrats at the moment, I don't care much about guns as an issue either way, I'm surrounded by neighbors with guns and I know that's not going to change no matter what the politicians may or may not do. There's deer hunting coming up and they'll be shooting about 200 yards from where I'm typing this, the property owner has given permission and I don't disagree with their right to do so. I've posted here where the hunters have given me a scare before, I'd just as soon they weren't here but if they are they are.

You have a wishy washy majority that mostly doesn't care enough about guns to be single issue voters on it and a rigid minority who cares about little else but guns, that's why they have political power out of proportion to their numbers.

[hobbit709]

8. Printing a working AR15 with a 3D printer would be a miracle

[Fumesucker]

11. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

The technology will get there...

[Orrex]

17. Bookmarking that post to check back on it in ten years.

[LonePirate]

9. Right wingers and their inconsistencies make my head spin.

To them, we are to use the very narrow and late 1700s definition of "well-regulated" (within the 2A) to mean well-armed and nothing else. However, they want the word "press" from the 1A to mean anything and everything in order to support their disgusting gun fetishes and addictions.

Sensible people in this country need to take the reins and put an end to this insanity.

[Xyzse]

10. I remember when some would convert certain files in to text files to basically say.

See? It is a text file, it isn't an MP3, exe or whatever.

That didn't work in their definition, but this is just getting ridiculous.

[Fumesucker]

16. 3D printer files ~are~ text files...

They are formatted in a certain shorthand way but they are basically text files, you can put them in Notepad and make sense of them if you know the language.

[Xyzse]

18. Yep, it was fine to have as text.

The conversion was the issue, in this case the printing.

[MindPilot]

14. It is things like this that make me wish I had become a lawyer.

I can see an argument that, like flag-burning, producing a gun on your 3D printer could be considered political speech and therefore protected under the first amendment.