Look, I've been in the gun business long enough to know when politicians are overstepping their bounds, and New Jersey's latest stunt takes the cake. The Garden State made it a CRIME to share computer code for 3D printed guns — and now the Supreme Court might finally have a chance to tell them to knock it off.
The Second Amendment Foundation just filed a cert petition with SCOTUS in Defense Distributed v. Davenport, challenging New Jersey's law that makes it illegal to distribute digital files that can be used to 3D print gun parts. Think about that for a second — they're trying to criminalize CODE. Information. Text files. That's some scary First Amendment territory.
Here's the thing: this case has been bouncing around for eight years already. It started in Texas, got shuffled to New Jersey, and now we've got the Third Circuit and Fifth Circuit fighting over which court should even hear it. The Third Circuit says computer code isn't "expressive" enough for First Amendment protection. Meanwhile, the Sixth Circuit already ruled the opposite way in the Junger case — code CAN be protected speech.
This is exactly the kind of gun control overreach that makes my blood boil. New Jersey politicians are so terrified of Americans printing their own guns that they're willing to throw the First Amendment under the bus. They're not going after criminals — they're going after anyone who dares to share information.
The Supreme Court needs to take this case and shut this down. Whether you agree with 3D printed guns or not, the principle here matters: the government shouldn't be able to ban the sharing of information just because they don't like what that information can produce. That's the kind of logic that leads to banningCAD files for anything.
If SCOTUS grants cert and rules for the plaintiffs, it could open the door for more sensible 3D printing laws and put a check on states trying to regulate their way around our rights. Either way, this is a case every gun owner should watch.
The radicals will keep pushing — but we've got constitutional rights on our side.