90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, May 7, 2015

3-D Printed Gun Lawsuit Starts the War Between Gun Control and Free Speech

THIS WEEK MARKS the two-year anniversary since Cody Wilson, the inventor of the world’s first 3-D printable gun, received a letter from the State Department demanding that he remove the blueprints for his plastic-printed firearm from the internet. The alternative: face possible prosecution for violating regulations that forbid the international export of unapproved arms.

Now Wilson is challenging that letter. And in doing so, he’s picking a fight that could pit proponents of gun control and defenders of free speech against each other in an age when the line between a lethal weapon and a collection of bits is blurrier than ever before.

Wilson’s gun manufacturing advocacy group Defense Distributed, along with the gun rights group the Second Amendment Foundation, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the State Department and several of its officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry. In their complaint, they claim that a State Department agency called the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) violated their first amendment right to free speech by telling Defense Distributed that it couldn’t publish a 3-D printable file for its one-shot plastic pistol known as the Liberator, along with a collection of other printable gun parts, on its website.

By posting a file online, the DDTC claimed Defense Distributed had potentially violated arms export controls—just as if it had shipped AR-15s to Mexico.

In its 2013 letter to Defense Distributed, the DDTC cited a long-controversial set of ...

Girls With Guns

After expanding to do business on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges last year, a Wisconsin-based health insurance company founded in 1892 has announced it will close its doors.

Assurant Inc. announced last week one of its subsidiaries, Assurant Health, an insurance company, will either be sold or shuttered after losing tens of millions of dollars this year. The decision comes 18 months after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and industry watchers argue Assurant Health’s end can be attributed to the new health care law.

“The health and employee benefits business segments possess differentiated capabilities in their respective markets, but we do not believe they can meet our return targets at the pace we require,” Alan Colberg, president of Assurant Inc., said in a statement. “While this is a difficult decision, we believe they would be strong assets for new owners that are focused more exclusively on health care and employee benefits.”

In a letter to its shareholders, Assurant Health said it lost money because of...