“The Non-Violence Torrent” is an initiative that, according to themselves, aims to disrupt the 3D-printed gun market. They plan to do this by flooding popular file sharing sites with fake gun CAD files and torrents. Instead of the CAD file, your download will contain a 3D render of the Non-Violence’s symbol – the knotted gun.

Quote: “So when people are on the verge of printing a deadly weapon, they will meet a peaceful message instead.”

The “knotted gun” was originally created as a memorial tribute to the singer and songwriter John Lennon. (Source) The original can be found outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, USA.

Above you can see a sample of The Non-Violence Torrent CAD file. I think anyone who finds this file instead of what he was expecting to download, will notice that this is probably not the correct one.

You can check the Vimeo Video here, and learn more about the Non-Violence project (English).

Below you can see the 3D technician and student Rammzi talk (Swedish, no subtitles, unfortunately) about the project and at the end print the Non-Violence Torrent file in one of their machines.

“Rammzi on 3D got the honor to be part of a large project that works against violence.” (Video in Swedish – 39 seconds)

Below you can see one of the layers of the 3D printed non-violence project being prepared and printed.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7   Photos from the various videos

Already in 2013, The Pirate Bay made an interesting statement:

So apparently there are some 3D prints of guns in the physibles section at TPB. Prints that the US government now claim ownership of. Our position is, as always, to not delete any torrents as long as its contents are as stated in the torrents description. Printable guns [are] a very serious matter that will be up for debate for a long time from now. We don’t condone gun violence. We believe that the world needs less guns, not more of them. We believe however that these prints will stay on the internets regardless of blocks and censorship, since that’s how the internets works. If there’s a lunatic out there who wants to print guns to kill people, he or she will do it. With or without TPB. Better to have these prints out in the open internets (TPB) and up for peer review (the comment threads), than semi hidden in the darker parts of the internet.

Personally, I have a lot of interest in 3D printing and Rapid Prototyping, but absolutely NO interest in 3D printed guns or any other firearms other than reading and reporting on the subject.

As the 3D printing technology is considered to be new – after all it has only been around for about 40 years – it is also considered (by some people) to be dangerous. New, unknown things are scary – they must be banned or restricted. Personally, I’d be a lot more afraid of a firearm that was made with traditional production methods than something 3D printed in plastic.

Where I live, and I suppose most laws are written in a similar way, it doesn’t matter how you produce the illegal part.

An illegal part is illegal regardless of which method of production you chose. But a 3D printer is new technology and therefore considered dangerous? CNC machines have been around a lot longer, just as an example, and they can produce parts of way higher quality.

Everyone seems to think that working ammunition comes out of 3D-printers as well. However live ammunition might actually be the biggest problem to acquire for a criminal. When you see random pictures of seized illegal firearms, there is usually a real shortage of ammunition.

What do you think of The Non-Violence Torrent and their idea?

I don’t really use Torrents for anything, so I cannot personally verify if the “market” has been flooded or not. However, I figure that if I really wanted to see that forbidden and censored video (It was any of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films when I was young) I would probably be successful sooner rather than later. Finding the right Torrent to download is probably just as easy?

In Similar News: 3D printing technology enhancing logistics for Army (Devon L. Suits, Army News Service)

“We don’t want adversaries to get into our files and download our spare parts. Or to make counterfeit parts that … are engineered to fail,” he added. “And we do not want internal flaws in the printing that could degrade our weapon systems.”