3D Printer Gun Plans

Schematics for 3D printing a working handgun have been yanked from their original website by order of the State Department—but the files remain online at the Pirate Bay website and elsewhere.

The files for the Liberator hand gun were published at the Defense Distributed website on Monday. Defense Distributed is a non-profit organization founded by University of Texas law student Cody Wilson to "create freely available plans for 3D printable guns."

Wilson received a letter from U.S. State Department on Thursday ordering him to take down the files. It said the department was reviewing Defense Distributed actions for possible violations of regulations adopted under the federal Arms Export Control Act.

Until that review is completed, the letter stated, the files should "be removed from public access immediately."

Nevertheless, the files were online for almost four days—plenty of time for them to be posted elsewhere on the Net. One of those places is the notorious The Pirate Bay, which reportedly offers several torrents of the offending CAD files.

According to TorrentFreak, The Pirate Bay is adamant about keeping the files online. It reported that a Pirate Bay insider told the BitTorrent watching website: "TPB has for close to 10 years been operating without taking down one single torrent due to pressure from the outside. And it will never start doing that."