For the second time in as many weeks, the Supreme Court had to intervene to rescue Biden’s “Ghost Gun” rule from the judgments of O’Connor and the Fifth Circuit. Defense Distributed’s injunctions were vacated twice! Winning hurts, and in our experience is one of the fastest ways to lose.
The pressburied us everywhere. It makes all their quiet in our weeks of victory more conspicuous.
The Court’s second order comes without explanation or dissent.
I guess being “Supreme” means never having to issue an opinion.
So that’s it for kit guns by mail, at least for a couple of years. Can’t say we didn’t fight Old Man Biden. The only advice I have is that you have to aestheticize these kinds of reversals. Appropriate your defeats and integrate them with strong plastic powers. I gave a speech about this last month in Prague.
There’s a movie about our ten years of official defeat premiering in Austin tonight at AFS. It’s called Death Athletic.
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To answer my charge that Freeman1337 is a coward, Everytown defendant Gatalog-Printable Magazines, joined by the owner of the Gatalog, have offered to make an appearance on this weekend’s Out of Battery Live. Discerning readers may note this is not the traditional way a man answers the charge of cowardice. Nevertheless, Freeman’s keepers have two hours to explain why trapping him in the Everytown case with them, why persuading CtrlPew to perjure himself, and why hiding the fact they were identified by Odysee are all 200 IQ moves that you, too, would have made.
You are free to believe the “no worries” above is actually a coded message. By “no worries”, Freeman (a known Straussian) secretly means: “Actually, you guys, I’m very worried, and with any pressure at all I’ll probably, understandably, abandon my post.”
Anyway, now that he’s missed his show-cause hearing on the 11th, a chain of events begins which will include final judgment, takedown orders, and–most likely–Freeman in jail or underground. Though no longer with us, he can at least take comfort in the gravediggers at the Gatalog releasing a printable Freeman figurine. The Gatalog: Where dead developers bury the living.™
The dearly departed’s files are restored at DEFCAD, where they will remain safely archived according to our mission of preservation. DEFCAD will always be home to files censored by enemy actors, even when those enemy actors are the creators themselves. We’ve now finished archiving the Gatalog as well.
I’m amused by the large response to our last post, and the readers who shared Freeman’s identity. Thank you, but this isn’t the point. Freeman’s information has been an open secret among 3D2A developers for at least the last year. And this shouldn’t be a surprise given his daily commitment to maintaining a certain kind of profile on social media. Profile work requires producing a constant stream of information about oneself, and advertising this information in public and private spaces.
We should instead consider Freeman’s weakness of personality as a notable kind of failure within our community. A failure to engage with what is actually happening.
As I said in the previous post, the cause for the loss of this winnable case was the profile politics of the Gatalog. The only coherent response I’ve seen from them is: “it’s ok we were all immediately doxxed by Odysee, they have to obey subpoenas.” Sweethearts, not only is this not true, there was not even a subpoena.
And don’t take my word for it. Behold Twitter’s third party motions to intervene from November of 2021:
An excellent primer on Rule 45 and the First Amendment
This defense of the rights of 3D gun printers by Twitter was made a year before Elon Musk bought the platform. I am telling you that our avowed enemy, Twitter.com, put in more work to fight this judge’s ex parte discovery orders than Odysee, who produced instantly and without any kind of objection.
Defendant “TheGatalog-PrintableMagazines” made a decision not to join this case at all. His big bet was Odysee wouldn’t ID him if Odysee wasn’t a named party in the lawsuit. He was instead ID’d within ten days. Realizing their entire organizational identity was built on sand, and that any of their devs will be ID’d whenever any authority so much as asks, “The Gatalog” invented and popularized fantasy defenses to their real trauma: “We were the victims of a mean lawyer (one must never confess to being unfortunate)” and “Actually it was DEFCAD (who would take the anonymity fight to the Second Circuit three times) who was doxxing creators.”
You cannot make it up. Anyway, I’ve agreed to share what’s left to say about this on Out of Battery Live on Saturday.
In VanDerStok v. Garland, No. 4:22-cv-691 (N.D. Tex.) and No. 23-10718 (5th Cir.), the Fifth Circuit confirmed Defense Distributed and Blackhawk Manufacturing are now the only two companies in the country who can legally sell printable gun build kits and build kits containing receivers and fixtures.
Remember: though this case was billed in the media as being about 80% receivers, it was actually about ATF illegally squeezing every combination of unregulated parts into the meaning of the word “firearm.” Many in our industry gave up creating and selling build kits after the last two of years of this mess. But, unless the ATF can get *another* emergency Supreme Court order, partially complete build kits will survive until the Fifth Circuit rules on the legality of Biden’s ATF2021-R05F. The “F” now stands for FUBAR.
DD v. New Jersey
In Defense Distributed v. Platkin, No. 3:21-cv-09867-MAS-TJB (D. NJ.), which will always live in my heart as Defense Distributed v. Grewal, the district court has dismissed the case after five years of high stakes procedural games and a demand from the Fifth Circuit that the case be returned to Texas. I wonder why. Oh yeah, because this is the case that will decide whether CAD files have First Amendment protections. Perhaps a Third Circuit panel will actually do their job when we appeal.
Finally, the judge in Everytown v. DEFCAD, No. 1:21-cv-08704-PGG-RWL (S.D. N.Y.) denied the last motion to dismiss and ordered Freeman1337 to identify himself to the court and to Everytown tomorrow. The court further ordered that Freeman show up in person at a hearing on October 11 in New York. This is ironic.
I organized the attorneys, the common defense agreement and financing for this case back in 2021. The co-defendants and I had separate counsel and understood our common purpose was to fight Everytown’s efforts to tie CAD files to the law of trademark infringement (and thereby establish a new mode of threatening CAD developers and polluting 1A protections).
The first surprises in this case were that the judge was *very* hostile to 3D guns, and would not allow the co-defendants to litigate the court’s jurisdiction anonymously. He even ordered expedited discovery from non-parties to the case, including Odysee and Twitter. To our dismay, Odysee provided all the goods they had on the co-defendants, including identifying every Gatalog Odysee account and their relevant communications with Gatalog members and representatives. Odysee did this without any kind of fight, and ignored our requests to at least wait while we appealed to the Second Circuit. Even Twitter would object and eventually join our effort to produce discovery under a protective order.
Gatalog gets doxxed by Odysee
Gatalog continuing to get doxxed by Odysee.
The declaration of Erin Galloway of Everytown, below, is a decent summary of the goods they got during expedited discovery. Feel free to download it and learn something.
Once we had appealed (and failed) more than once to the Second Circuit to fight the judge’s hostile orders, we began to prepare interrogatories and bunker down for a discovery fight with Everytown. Freeman at this point showed his cowardice and abandoned all contact with his attorney from fear of eventually being identified. I guess no one told him lawsuits don’t always go the way you want.
The story has since evolved that mean old DEFCAD doxxed poor Freeman, but the record, finally unsealed, shows otherwise:
Freeman assured us well before litigation that his email and Signal number (acquired outside of DEFCAD) were insufficient to identify him, and he agreed to join our lawsuit, which quickly became about the very right to litigate anonymously. A fight worth having in New York and the Second Circuit. Even after Freeman shit himself and abandoned his post, and even after all his howling that DEFCAD is a honeypot, I paid for his attorney and appeals for another year. These are the last words addressed to Freeman from the Second Circuit.
Meanwhile, at the very same time, Freeman was out self-soothing on Reddit. He bragged about settling out of the case and lying to his attorney and a federal judge to feather his Twitter profile, which is his only real product.
I have trouble imagining being such an absolute, post-literate prole. Is it possible to forget that you’re involved in a federal case? What magical thinking got him there? The mere assurance of his “attorney” at the Gatalog? I include so many pictures in this post because so many of you share Freeman’s disease.
So now, because he cannot shut up about how private he is in public, Freeman is stuck and alone in the Everytown case, and Everytown will press their advantage. The sanctions they want are a final judgment (which will produce bad law related to CAD and trademark, as well as the right to litigate anonymously in NY), and an injunction against Freeman, which, because he is a coward, he will almost certainly obey anyway. So why did he fight at all?
Some advice: If you fight, you should not be a coward. And if you are a coward, you should not fight.
Freeman allowed his “friends”, who know he’s suggestible and suffers from a personality disorder, to convince him this case was about him. But the case was truly about the profile politics of the Gatalog. After a couple of years of fighting the case, I came to understand that the Gatalog’s only interests were in hiding the facts that they were 1) a corporation owned by three dudes in Florida, 2) that they censored and read the private messages of users in their Rocketchat, and 3) that their relationship with Odysee was completely unprotected. Is this not public knowledge by now? Is this not the story of the origin of AWCY? Was this worth scuttling an important question of law in enemy territory?
The second generation of 3D gun printers largely succumbed to the mere presentation of practical politics. It is enough for them to ape the slogans on Twitter. To play struggle before the general peer of social media with empty rhetorical positions and pique. To administer the surplus enjoyment of the pure “process” of engineering and releasing open source files, without doing either of these.
I discussed some of this at a recent speech in Prague. And I’ll likely do so again. Fighting gun control will eventually require you to fight gun control, dear hearts.
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Last month a cringing Roberts Court blinked under protest and preserved the Biden frame and receiver rule for the life of the first appeal from a final judgment of the Texas district court. Big sad. That appeal isn’t exactly going well for ATF, as you can hear below, but Roberts is still giving the agency the next two years to have their rule.
VanDerStok CA5 Oral Arguments:
This month, judge O’Connor strikes back with forty two pages of just why he has the authority to issue an injunction against the frame and receiver rule, as to at least two VanDerStok plaintiffs: Defense Distributed and 80 Percent Arms.
DOJ probably appeals, but the Biden admin is now in the worst place they could be: The true believer fanatics in this industry have achieved commercial monopoly. Oops.
In other Biden gun law news, the president’s son will have to argue Bruen to beat his federal case.
* * * *
Hey, let’s launch a new product together. We like to do that when we win things.
crw
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VanDerStok v. Garland, the federal case against the ATF’s new frame and receiver rule, has ended with a summary judgment for the plaintiffs. The ATF noticed its appeal to the Fifth Circuit today.
This is the first federal court case that Defense Distributed has been a party to *and* won. In ten years, one win.
Which goes to show there are many more ways to win than officially winning.
We at DD would like to thank our Legionnaires, many thousands strong after all this time, for your contribution and attention. We’d like to thank Jennifer VanDerStok, Tactical Machining and the FPC as well. VanDerStok went from being an outside shot among many attacks against the ATF frame and receiver rule, to an iconic decision against ATF overreach.
This is a great time, however, to remind those new to our movement that even in the wake of decisions like Bruen and VanDerStok, which are emotionally satisfying if only because they make sense of the law and the institutions, federal cases in guns and gun technology are desperate ground. The judiciary is overwhelmingly stacked against us.
Maybe we can talk about it at Bear Arms N Bitcoin 2023, which has recently opened for registration in Austin.
Anyway, as a Defense Distributed tradition, we release new private defense contracts with the public when we win lawsuits. Though I’m proud of our G0 release and its reception with the DIY pistol community, we’ve got a special piece of technology to show you in August.
You’re going to love it. Thank you for building our company for ten years.
The third annual Gun Maker’s Match was held in Monroeville, PA last weekend. The event featured competitions in 3D Printed and Kit Build divisions.
We’d like to send a special congratulations to Mr. Snow, who took first in all his divisions this year (PCC, Rifle, and .22). All three of his builds were AR-00, a concept from Ghost Gunner.
Notes on Mr. Snow’s builds:
The 22lr was an AR-00 (Zero Percent) made on the GG3 with a CMMG dedicated 4.5 inch barrel and suppressors.
The 9mm PCC used a 16 inch barrel with a PSA bolt, 10oz buffer, standard AR buffer spring… hybrid 3D printed lower with metal buffer tower.
The rifle is the same hybrid AR-00 print with milled buffer tower.
Mr. Snow
Desktop CNC and home 3D printing are married techniques, and their union should be defended in our movement. Anyone telling you otherwise doesn’t want to win.
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This week will mark the ten year anniversary of the first public exposition of the principles of 3D gun printing. The following remarks were made at SXSW in March 2013. We had only just begun work on Liberator.
These words, before a public forum, are the birth of your discourse. Listening to them again, I find the thoughts (to twist Richard III) sent before their time into this breathing world already formed, already finished.
May they be a mirror in which you find your character, 3D gun printer:
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Mamurius Veturius is regarded by ancient custom as the smith who made the ancilia that hung in the temple of Mars, the war god. Because the Roman calendar originally began in March, Mamurius rituals once marked the transition from the old year to the new in antiquity.
We have much to thank the war god for this March. He humbles all corporate gun control before our Legion in one week.
In VanDerStok v. Garland, Judge O’Connor delivers an injunction to Defense Distributed. The document follows. This is not just a blow to ATF, who pushed a new definition of “firearm” at their peril. It is also a defeat for Giffords, who were the agents of this illegal attempt to expand the Gun Control Act through the APA process. Their lobbying and regulatory laundry has now spectacularly backfired, and I’m going to personally send them a card and fruit basket.
In Everytown v. DEFCAD, the parties have reached a settlement. According to the terms of that settlement I will say, on behalf of DEFCAD, we are gratified that we were able to work with the parties to reach a resolution and bring this matter to a close. Some words of admonition are warranted for two of our co-defendants, who lost their nerve and composure in this fight. But fear makes men restless. They fall to shouting at night to keep up their courage.
Brady’s cases against Ghost Gunner and the rest of the 80 percent industry connected to the Tehama shooting have also been settled in Orange County, California. Some four years in, Brady admits they never had a case to begin with, and are now rightly being sued by some of the victims’ families for being taken on a ride.
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Since April our industry was more than busy dealing with Biden’s new ATF rule. Its confused rollout, as well as the frenzied blue state response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen, have made for all kinds of fun and games this summer.
Let’s see where we are as of late September 2022.
VanDerStok v. Garland
On Sept. 2, Tactical Machining and FPC landed an early, mortal blow against the ATF frame and receiver rule in the Northern District of Texas. The court has since denied motions for transfer and is considering expansion of its preliminary injunction to Tactical Machining’s customers, members of FPC, and Defense Distributed.
The Fifth Circuit has expedited the appeal in our long-running First Amendment lawsuit against New Jersey and the State Department. Its most recent order is below. We expect to return to New Orleans in November or so for something like a season finale.
California’s SB 1327 has law firms across the country staying or dismissing their Second Amendment cases in California. We don’t feel like waiting the bastards out. For us, the next civil war is already here. Best to start digging trenches.
Everytown for Gun Safety v. DEFCAD
You’d have to ask Everytown about this one. Is three appeals to the Second Circuit enough for them? We could make it four by the end of the year, but recent filings would suggest settlement is possible.
Ah, the green leaves of summer. If you’d like to support our legal efforts, please join LEGIO.
