The Constitution of the United States of America is a living document. Even at it’s inception, it was not ratified until a set of 10 amendments to it’s original text were added (The Bill of Rights). Since then there have been many changes to it’s text and to it’s interpretation, all with striking implications on how american society has conducted itself since. The Constitution is a basis for how American citizens can legally conduct themselves in the country and how the government shall govern those citizens.

That said, at the time of writing, the Constitution is 232 years old. This document has survived every person that signed it, their children, their grandchildren, and so on. The authors could never have known what sort of effect it would leave in its wake, let alone how it would interact with the rapid advancement of technology. For example, within our current decade we’ve seen first hand how social media has radically altered the pace at which we are able to exercise our 1st amendment rights, and to what ends that takes us.

At the time of the drafting of the Constitution, America was just at the doorstep of the Industrial Revolution. Some of the critical pieces that categorized that era were a shift from agricultural production to factory manufacturing, from hand tools to industrial machines, and from human power to coal and water power. The world is now at the 4th Industrial Revolution, and building off of the 3 previous, it is defined by increased automation in machines, p2p technologies, decentralization, and the internet of things to name a few.

In light of the ways our culture has shifted around these technologies, what does that mean for our Constitution? How do these changes interact with our founding document, and what does that mean for us as citizens?

The 1A2A3D looks at this question by focusing in on 3 elements:

• The First Amendment - 1A - The right to speech, religion, and freedom of the press.

• The Second Amendment - 2A - The right to bear arms.

• 3D-Printing - 3D - Accessible autonomous at-home manufacturing.

On their own these are 3 incredibly dense subjects, each with their own histories and legends. Where the three combine, we can find a uniquely American gestalt occurring that has implications the world over.

/Statement

3D printing guns isn’t a new thing, in fact it’s existed for the better part of a decade. Take for instance the best know example, the veritable shot heard round the world…

Shown here is the first recorded test firing of the first fully 3D printed firearm, entitled the Liberator. Designed by American crypto-anarchist Cody Wilson, the files for The Liberator were posted online May 6th, 2013. By the next day the files had been downloaded over 100k times, ensuring that even if the original was removed from online the files would exist somewhere. Pandora’s Box would remain open.

Coincidentally, I’ve been doing 3D printing for about as long. My first printer was completed near the end of 2014, back in the days where Makerbots we’rent trash and Rep-Raps were king. It was built with a laser cut acrylic frame and all the printed pieces were put together on my universities shop printer.

So this is a topic that’s been on my mind for while.

Cut forward to some of the recent legal battles over Cody Wilson’s company Defense Distributed, which since its inception had been embroiled in legal battles. Come 2018, they reached definitive settlement with the US DOJ and are allowed to distribute the collection of files they’d amassed.

It’s a bit of a thing.

However, the piece that really got my attention was coming across a group that goes by the moniker of “Deterence Dispenced”, in particular a test of a 3D-Printed lower receiver of an AR-15 where they were able to put thousands of rounds through the assembled firearm before it failed. Given that that the original Liberator pistol could at best handle a few dozen rounds through it, things had come a long way.

So I started researching, and in the process discovered an aspect of life in Massachusetts that I hadn’t really encountered before. The gun laws, which are dense to say the least. To learn more, I started to research the existing laws to get a better handle on what the existing approach to firearms is both federally. I attended a class on some of the local legal minutia put on by an instructional group here in the state, which answered some questions but not others. I started reading articles and immersing myself in what the current discourse around this topic is.

With all those thoughts fresh in my head, I started sketching, thinking on some of the concepts that had come up during my research. I came up with over a dozen different avenues to pursue in translating these ideas into physical forms. I’m still working on refining these concepts, but one of the critical ideas that jumped out early on was the importance of the Second Amendment in all of the arguments underpinning the current discourse on guns. Within pro-2A groups, it’s considered a basic human right to be able to protect yourself in any way you see fit. Guns of any type are part of that, but in America that’s not always been the case. In fact, in many parts of the world the right to use a weapon in self defense is not a protected act. So where did that concept within American gun culture come from?

Turns out that at least part of my answer was right in my neighborhood. Just prior to the start of the Revolutionary War, British forces recognized the brewing unrest within the colonists, and endeavored to disarm them prior to widespread violence breaking out. In one particularly fateful action on September 1st 1774, a force of about 260 British soldiers rowed up the Mystic river to a point along the banks in Somerville MA. From there they marched to the Powder House, a gunpowder magazine that held the largest supply of gunpowder in the state, and proceeded to confiscate the gunpowder. They then marched back to Boston, confiscating a few cannons along the way, and interred the lot at Castle Williams (Renamed in 1779 to Fort Independence). The raid on the Powder House set off a series of events called the Powder Alarm, where rumors of further British raids propagated throughout the colonies, prompting the formation of of militias and further accelerating the escalating tensions.

Seized cannons? A rumor mill about gun control? A story involving a castle? Perfect.

With that in mind, I started pondering the question - What might a militiaman from this time period have used a 3D-Printer for… and if you excuse the slight artistic liberty taken here, I think they may have wanted to print a cannon to replace the ones confiscated by the British.

And so I came up with the first piece in this series, entitled Castle Doctrine.

After about 30 hours of CAD work, I had my first model.

Using plans found in Military Mathematician John Mullers Treatise on Artillery (1759), this cannon is made to the dimensions of a fortification gun, sized to chamber a 12 lbs. cannonball. This pattern of large bore garrison cannons would have used around Castle Williams.

The cannon barrel seen here is composed of 54 individual 3D printed components with materials selected to show of the method of their construction. Translucent areas highlight the hollow nature of many 3D printed objects, while the reflective bronze calls attention to the layers of material used to build up the 3-dimensional object. In the style of many other 3D printed weapons, Castle Doctrine incorporates both 3D-printed elements as well as stock pieces from their traditionally made counterparts, in this case the garrison carriage. The name Castle Doctrine reflects both these cannons use in actual castles, as well as one of the quirks of US firearms law where firearms can be used for self-defense, typically know as Stand Your Ground laws or as the Castle Doctrine.

Bada-bing, bada-boom.

And then I started running calc’s on how much material and time this is going to take. After running a few tests with large nozzles (0.8mm) I was able to cut the print time to about 1/4th of what it would be otherwise, but still comes out to over 105 hours of machine time, and over 14 kilograms of 3D printer filament. Add in the cost of all the hardware needed to hold it together and the to-be-designed carriage to support it all, and this is going to be quite costly to self fund.

But I’m crafty! I can make this work!

Would anyone be interested in a mini?

Overall dimensions of the above are about 13” long by 6” wide by 7” tall.

Originally I’d planned on only making these small pieces to test the overall form and fit of the designed pieces, but they’re just so much fun. To help offset some of the costs of developing the first piece in its entirely, I’ll be selling a limited edition of 12 of the mini cannons.

You can find a link to that on my webstore here: Castle Doctrine - Edition of 12

Each one will be individually numbered and signed, but once 12 are made, that’s it! That’ll be the lot of them forevermore. So if you’d like to support the project, consider purchasing one of the minis. Alternatively, if you’d like to support but don’t want to deal with upsetting your interior decoration with a frickin-sweet mini cannon, consider donating using the button here.

Anyways, that’s primarily what I’ve been working on. I’ve got so many ideas and possible avenues to take this. This project has so many interesting nuances that I’d like to explore moving forward, and it seems like it could serve as a point of discussion as these topics proceed ever forward. The eventual goal is to make a cohesive show that could be displayed in a gallery setting, as well as an online resources that explains these pieces.

And wouldn’t you know it, 1A2A3D.com was available.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

Cheers,

Mac

A fun post-script tidbit. At the time of writing (September 1st, 2020), it’s as of today the 246th anniversary of the raid that kicked off the Powder Panic. Neat-o!