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An Instruction Book for 3D Printed Guns Was Uploaded to Amazon. Then Amazon Removed It

By
Natasha Bach
Natasha Bach
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By
Natasha Bach
Natasha Bach
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August 24, 2018, 9:09 AM ET

Amazon has removed a book that provided the code to create a 3D printed gun.

The book, a 584-page tome called The Liberator Code Book: An Exercise in the Freedom of Speech, contained computer code that could reportedly be fed to a 3D printer to create a plastic gun called The Liberator.

“This is a printed copy of step files for the Liberator, and not much else,” author CJ Awelow wrote on Amazon. “Don’t expect a gripping narrative; that’s being played out in the news and the courts,” he added.

According to The Washington Post, the book had appeared on Amazon on August 1, just a day after a federal judge had issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the public availability of the code in question.

On Wednesday, August 22—just over three weeks after the book had first appeared on Amazon—the company said it had dropped the book, noting that it violated Amazon’s content guidelines. It declined to elaborate further and did not cite the temporary restraining order in its explanation.

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