About
Code is Free Speech
Just as individuals have the right to express their ideas and opinions through words, they also have the right to express them through code. Code can convey complex ideas, solve problems, and enable innovation, making it an essential medium for modern communication and creativity.
Unlike traditional forms of speech, complex code and large file formats can be difficult for the average person to understand. Printing code in a book or simplifying it and printing it on a t-shirt transforms the intangible into an undeniable example of expression. Many examples exist that were part of successful evasions and challenges to regulations on code.
- PGP: Source Code and Internals [ read more here ]
- The Munitions T-shirt [ read more here ]
- DeCSS T-shirt and other formats [ read more here ]
Code can enable someone to print a firearm in the privacy of their home, thwarting any attempt at bans or regulation. Such a thought mobilizes many to become critics of free speech. In their fear of the genie that has already been let out of the bottle they have tried to ban sharing files on the internet.
In 2018 while the modern era of functional 3D-printable firearms was getting its feet, and before the "creator" of the Liberator and founder of Defense Distributed was charged with child sex crimes, this design lauded as the first 3D printable gun was at the forefront publicly pushing the envelope on "3D blueprints" of guns as Free Speech.
In response to some news regarding lawsuits about Defense Distributed being banned from posting their provocative (but largely untested garbage) design files online, there was a tweet posting a PNG with the binary data of the STLs encoded in it. A clever way to distribute it in a tweet, but lacked the ability to be used in printed material. So I wondered
I'll leave comment on Defense Distributed's history of legal strategy and its effectiveness to others [here's one]. However, as recently as Oct 2023 a federal judge has ruled that CAD files are not expressive and their lawsuit challenging a New Jersey law regulating sharing of gun CAD files was dismissed.
I certainly have no real insight into whether my creations will ever or if they even could contribute to a successful challenge. My hope is that making the concept of code-is-free-speech more relatable, visually apparent, and that printing it on consumable media helps to underscore the fundamental argument that code, especially code to make a gun, is a form of expression deserving of the same protections as other types of speech.
In the mean time, it's an entertaining activity and experiencing meticulously written code turn into a working firearm is extremely gratifying.
Shall Not Be Infringed
While I started this journey from a cypherpunk free-speech-maximalist perspective, I quickly developed an appreciation for those exercising their natural rights and pushing the limits of building firearms in a hobbyist workshop; whether in the open protected by Second Amendment, or in secret against the laws of the State they lived.
One completely home-built design, the FGC-9, was developed and build by JStark1809 in a country with strict laws aimed to completely restrict the ability to do so. The success of this design and the follow-up FGC-9 MKII has been seen around the globe, built by contrarians pushing the limits of laws restricting them and by freedom fighters actually using it to defend themselves against a murderous regime.
With the development of the FGC-9 and other firearms JStark and company, calling themselves Deterrence Dispensed, refined the process of testing and documenting these projects before release; a process more or less adopted by most online communities that seriously develop 3D printed weapons.
If you want to get started in the rewarding hobby of 3D printing firearms start with Ctrl+Pew's Complete Getting Started Guide, the community at Deterence Dispensed, and their tested and well documented designs at The Gatalog.