As a legal fight simmered this week over the legality of creating working guns on 3D printers, libraries and other groups offering access to the technology faced questions from local officials and reporters: Can community makerspaces now be turned into impromptu weapons factories?
In some cases, the answer came back a clear ‘No’ for technical reasons, as the entry-level printers available at some library makerspaces simply aren’t up to the task of fabricating a firearm. And many others who lead public makerspaces stressed that existing policies already ban the creation of weapons, and that any design is typically seen by staff members before or during the many hours it takes to print out something as complicated as a gun.
“A library that has a maker space probably has policies that govern its use,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the American Library…
