So if some serial killer type were to discover an easy way to make a nerve gas from products bought solely from Wal-Mart, you'd rather that they have the right to widely publish the recipe than it be repressed due to the entirely reasonable fear of many deaths due to the discovery?
Repressive governments killed more people during the 20th century than all of the serial killers in history. We have far more to fear from governments than from individual psychopaths.
This does not occur in a legal vacuum; for example Hit Man: A technical manual for independent contractors is an incredibly detailed description on how to commit a murder, hide the body etc, and was found to be used as a manual in a triple murder. It was found to not be protected under the first amendment (although it never reached the supreme court).
First, there was no such finding about the book. Just because the first judge to hear a motion to dismiss on first amendment grounds refuses to grant it doesn't mean that the book was found to not be protected. The case was settled by Paladin Press's insurance company.
Second, the fact that the aforementioned murderer was caught, convicted and died in prison illustrates the fallacious nature of the arguments about the books lethality. I have a copy, it's fantasy.
We're facing the threat of such a regime right now.
Cody Wilson was threatened with incarceration for sharing information that he obtained legally and belonged to him.
He's not selling trade secrets. He's not releasing classified government files. He was allowing people to download design documents that he created and for which he owned the IP. He was providing information for people to do something that was completely legal in the jurisdiction in which he was located.
It isn't a dichotomy, but it is like a person trying to support their weight on the floor. The straighter they stand, the long they can keep the position. Have them lean far enough over and it is near inevitable that they will eventually crash to the ground. If you have them plank a few inches off the ground, you could probably hold your breath longer than it takes for them to hit the ground.
(I think I need a better analogy here, but it'll take me some time to come up with one.)
Repressive governments killed more people during the 20th century than all of the serial killers in history. We have far more to fear from governments than from individual psychopaths.
This does not occur in a legal vacuum; for example Hit Man: A technical manual for independent contractors is an incredibly detailed description on how to commit a murder, hide the body etc, and was found to be used as a manual in a triple murder. It was found to not be protected under the first amendment (although it never reached the supreme court).
First, there was no such finding about the book. Just because the first judge to hear a motion to dismiss on first amendment grounds refuses to grant it doesn't mean that the book was found to not be protected. The case was settled by Paladin Press's insurance company.
Second, the fact that the aforementioned murderer was caught, convicted and died in prison illustrates the fallacious nature of the arguments about the books lethality. I have a copy, it's fantasy.