Upcoming Hastings Law Journal Symposium on 3-D Printing

The Hastings Law Journal has announced that its annual symposium will cover "The Legal Dimension of 3D Printing." The symposium will take place on February 21, 2014. Here is the tentative schedule:

Regulating Products of 3D Printing 

Practical Effects of 3D Printing on Intellectual Property Law 

Keynote Address – Mark A. LemleyWilliam H. Neukom Professor of Law
Stanford University 

The Right to Print Arms: 3D Printing and Gun Rights

I find 3-D printing to be a pretty interesting subject in general, although my discussions of it are largely constrained to issues surrounding 3-D printing and guns (See here, here, and here).  All of the topics listed on the schedule look fascinating, and I look forward to seeing the scholarship that comes out of the symposium.

I find the Second Amendment implications of regulating 3-D printed firearms to be particularly interesting.  Very little has been said on this topic -- the one published piece of which I am aware is a comment by Peter Jensen-Haxel, entitled, 3D Printers, Obsolete Firearm Supply Controls, and the Right To Build Self-Defense Weapons Under Heller.  A few more pieces seem to be in the works.  I found this short paper by Kevin O'Neill, entitled, Is Technology Outmoding Traditional Firearms Regulation? 3-D Printing, State Security, and the Need for Regulatory Foresight in Gun Policy, and it looks like Josh Blackman is working on a paper discussing the First and Second Amendment implications of 3-D printing regulations.

I have already written on the Second Amendment, and I am worried that if I write something else on the subject that I may be deemed even more of a "gun nut" than I currently am.  But I think that the technology and law in this area is so new and interesting that writing something on this might be worth the risk.