Shapeways' policies concerning the printing of firearms.

I was going to post this controversial comment in the recent ongoing discussion concerning the subject since it appeared that the original poster had gotten an answer, but then I thought it would be best to just create a new thread on this. Here's my comment:

If I had a company such as Shapeways my policy would be people can print whatever they want. If they print a gun and that gun and was used to kill somebody. So what! Not my problem. The person that did the shooting should have followed the laws of their country. Or how about if some 8-year-old downloaded a 3D model of a gun and then had it printed out and was walking around with it and then got shot and killed by police because they thought the gun was real. So what! Not my problem. The parents of the child should have made sure that the child was obeying the laws of whatever country that was pertinent to them.

And what about countries like Holland, where there are laws concerning the making of firearms? By the way, for those not in the know Shapeways is based in Holland. In this instance, I'm still going to say, "Not my problem." If the authorities in Holland are concerned, then they should monitor what is being 3D printed and by whom. I would look at it as it is not my responsibility to enforce the laws of my country. I would leave that matter to the law enforcement officials. If I have the policy that Shapeways has an somebody prints out a gun and I for whatever reason didn't catch it and then they go out and kill somebody with it that's going to make shape ways look very bad. It will make Shapeways with bad because they didn't do good enough at enforcing the law. Thus, if I were Shapeways I would let law enforcement enforce the laws. That way, if ever an incident did occur, such as this, I wouldn't be held responsible because I'm not law enforcement. What's more is, if one looks at it in basic, Shapeways doesn't actually "make" anything. Shapeways simply rents out machines that users control remotely. Shapeways then cleans off the printouts, throws them in boxes and ships them. So in this light Shapeways does not actually make anything, all that Shapeways does is tend to the machines that other people use to make things.

Controversial, for sure. And indefensible, in my opinion. Or at the very least, of arguable validity. Perhaps you are merely trolling.

Seems to me that your argument is based solely on legal, or pseudo-legal, arguments.

I say "pseudo-legal" because even a cursory investigation of common law yields statements such as the one in wikipedia that

"In some jurisdictions, criminal "facilitation" laws do not require that the primary crime be actually committed as a prerequisite for criminal liability. These include state statutes making it a crime to "provide" a person with "means or opportunity" to commit a crime, "believing it probable that he is rendering aid to a person who intends to commit a crime."

Regardless of the legalities, I applaud Shapeways for taking a stand which takes into account moral and cultural norms which inform all our lives with values which extend far beyond mere legality.

Thank you Shapeways!

Shel M
NH, USA

This redneck rant about firearms production appears to be totally besides the point. The problem as I see it is that shapeways' current policy goes beyond the requirements of applicable law as at least its most recent interpretation as exemplified in the other thread appears to subsume even scale models of heavy military equipment into the "weapons" category.
While that is certainly defensible as a pacifist stance, it seems to be a poorly communicated business move that may cause grief to many shop owners whose larger models of historic fighter aircraft or warships may face a new kind of individual "rejection" on a case by case basis.
(While I am not personally affected by this particular move, it introduces a new form of unpredictability into shapeways' actions that I feel is highly detrimental)

Having looked at the other thread, I'm not sure this one adds anything useful to the proceedings. (If anything, it dissipates the potential impact of the other thread, squandering a chance to have meaningful impact on developing SW policy...)

Thanks for starting up this discussion James, we know that this is a serious issue and everyone is entitled to their opinion on it.

The other thread was a discussion specifically relating to one model, so I'm happy to see this more general discussion of our content policy move into another thread.

Your feelings on the subject are always helpful as we look at improvements we can make to the standing policy. barkingdigger, if there's anything you'd like to add feel free, this isn't going to squander your chance to weigh in on our content policy.

Even the TSA is inconsistent in what they allow through airports over time. Policy and bureaucracy are the result of limited resources dealing with large volumes of things that need to be examined by matching them to all sorts of rules. At one extreme there's the "print anything you want" policy and at the other extreme there's the "pay us an examination fee to maybe permit your part for sale after we clear it with law enforcement and our lawyers" - and we won't refund your examination fee. The in-between squishy zone is where inconsistency and irrationality rules because anyone who enforces rules tends to want to keep their job will almost always err on the more limiting side of things. And even one person is inconsistent over time in the decisions they make. It's a tough problem.

Having said that. is it ok to make accessories for guns for personal use? Items like adapter brackets for lasers or gun sights? Custom gun hand grip attachments or holsters? In other words items that are not weapons but are commonly sold over the counter (potentially to an 8 year old) and which may be transported anywhere without special government permit cards? I'm just wondering where the line might ultimately get drawn.

Interesting points everyone.

Eventually 3D printing machines will become so capable that all manner of weapons will be able to be produced; not just firearms. I'm thinking as far as Tomahawk cruise missiles and the like! So where will the line be drawn where companies like Shapeways say, "Hey, we're not the worlds police here!"

To be clear, for a significant amount of Shapeways production, the restriction is not a decision by Shapeways, but rather by the Dutch government. One of their production facilities is in Eindhoven, NL, and the Dutch do not allow production and shipping of "weapons", so you'd need to take the issue up with that government, not with Shapeways.

In my opinion Shapeways should be approaching lawmakers there and encouraging them to develop new laws that take into account situations concerning 3D printing. I can envision a time where companies like Shapeways have no employees working for them other than maybe a maintenance person or two and the whole process would be completely automated from the customer placing the order online to the customer receiving their shipment. In this case my position becomes quite clear, if there's nobody there to look and see what's being printed, then how is Shapeways supposed to enforce the laws. It's sort of like renting a telescope and remotely operating it. If I take a picture of Jupiter. The company renting the telescope to me didn't actually take a picture of Jupiter, I am the one who took the picture.

If law enforcement officials came to Shapeways in that case and said, Hey, you need to hire employees that look at every single model coming in just in case there might be a weapon that is going to be printed. And I could see Shapeways' officials saying you're the law enforcement agency, so why don't you send your law enforcement people over here to look at every order coming in! And let's say they said ok but we are going to charge you for our law enforcement people working there. Well, that charge would be passed on to the customers and when enough customers got perturbed about this extra charge they would make the lawmakers change the law.

Lawmakers are already freaked out by gun components printed with 3D printing and have made laws against doing that. In theory even if there were no real manufacturing floor employees to speak of pattern matching and recognition software would need to be leveraged to at least flag potential items that were prohibited. Someone would have to check up on those items to the best of their ability. It all depends on balancing the costs of software, either developed internally or obtained from vendors, versus the costs of paying fines and other legal costs to defend against accidentally shipping illegal product across national or state boundaries, unless the full burden of penalties can somehow be transferred to the designer/buyer. If SW has good lobbyists they could probably get the government to fund the development of such software, just as when the government mandates fuel efficiency rules but also funds multi-million dollar programs for auto companies to develop high mileage demonstrator vehicles. That way the politicians can claim they created jobs and helped "the cause," even though they are doing it with your money and even if the results run counter to their claims.

There are probably similar analogs to what happens with software that can automatically screen online videos/files for unlicensed music content, etc. While it's not an easy problem to solve whoever has their bottom line potentially affected by this has an incentive to do something about it. And as far as costs being passed on to customers being a problem that's already being done to cover the costs of all the other regulations of government. In the case of SW you could probably calculate some cost per item related to government regulations/taxes. For all we know government regulations could account for 20% of total product costs. Maybe it's 5%, maybe it's 30%. Who knows? But that's precisely the problem. It becomes difficult to say to a politician "Your 3D printing anti-weapon laws are costing me XXXX.XX dollars a year! I'm not going to vote for you!"

Suspect there are no laws specifically against 3d printing firearms, just general laws against unlicensed production by any means that get applied to 3d printing (and the novelty of 3d printing is what gets such cases into the tabloids).
(Posting this mainly to get a chance to unsubscribe from this hamsterwheel - may I remind the participants that the elephant in the room is a content policy - or recent interpretation thereof - that appears to exceed all legal requirements by prohibiting scale models of anything that would be considered a weapon in reality, if the model size exceeds 10cm ?)

Depends where you live though. In Japan it's illegal to possess a 3D printed gun. Philadelphia has an ordinance that will fine you $2,000 if you're caught with one. In the US there's a federal law which makes illegal sale or possession of guns made of materials that are not visible with X-ray machines. That would pretty much apply to plastic printed guns, although plastic isn't so great for many parts of a reliable gun. As with other gun laws it really depends on the jurisdiction. But it is more about possession than manufacture so far in the law.

However in the US it is illegal to make your own gun for personal use, as long as it isn't a type that is otherwise problematic (like a machine gun or non-detectable). I don't know if you need to serialize and register it with anyone if you do this. And does making your own gun disallow having some components made by a 3D printing company and shipped to you? Maybe. But if you have a good machine shop you could make a muzzle loader, revolver, or semi-automatic if you have the ability. In reality it's easier just to go down to the local sports store and purchase a more reliable product that won't blow up in your face.

Guns?

Shapeways banned a 3D puzzle cylinder of mine, because some new-born-christian Americans thought it resembled a penis. One argument for the ban was that the production could offend/shock some of Shapeways staff, and they did not want to stir controversy. I can understand and accept that, as I am aware of the fragile emotions of Americans.

Now imagine the feelings of the Shapeways person who printed, cleaned and shipped the gun parts that lead to the killing of a child. Could you live with yourself as a responsible employer to burden your staff with that risk?

Oskar

I believe the correct term is "born-again" seeing as a "new-born" would be much too young to find gainful employment at Shapeways.

So by that logic they can't print crucifixes (may offend any no believers) or any other religious symbol come to that. Or anything related to One Direction (may offend any music fans).

Seems the only thing that Shapeways can print safely is celebrity butt plugs.

Interesting issue you raise, Oskar. If the parts don't LOOK like guns, and aren't LABELLED as "gun parts", then unsuspecting SW techs could well be printing nasty gun parts in complete ignorance even as we speak! The real trouble with these policies is the way they become arbitrary in application. After all, no action can be taken until a SW tech identifies a model as a potential weapon in the first place...

@wozwasntere, sounds like you've hit on a great new untapped market! Unless of course the butt plugs look too pointy and weapon-like in the eyes of the tech...

This guy's already cornered that market - https://www.shapeways.com/shops/amznfx

So many of my models contain orifices - should I worry ? Seriously shapeways - did you hire a bunch of "interesting" people lately, or was the recent round of funding actually an acquisition by a religious fringe group ?

Is that a gun in your model file or are you just happy to see me?