(Photo: MakerBot)

After the events in Newtown, the gun control debate has taken on a new urgency. Suddenly 3D-printed firearms look a lot less like a thought-provoking experiment and more like a danger to the public--and Makerbot wants nothing to do with that.

CNET reports that just yesterday, it was possible to get the blueprints for the lower receiver of an AR15 semiautomatic rifle on Makerbot's wiki Thingiverse. Today, there's nothing but this listing where the downloads used to be. It's part of a wider crackdown across the site on 3D-printed weapon parts.

A spokesperson pointed CNET towards the site's Terms of Service:

Thingiverse's Terms of Service state that users agree not to use Thingiverse "to collect, upload, transmit, display, or distribute any User Content (ii) that...promotes illegal activities or contributes to the creation of weapons, illegal materials or is otherwise objectionable."

The company's attorney made no bones about the fact that last week's tragedy was the impetus for sweep of the site for offenders. He told CNET:

"We have always had the discretion to take action for policy violations. Recent events served as the impetus here to take immediate action (and there were several) and reiterate or emphasize the site's focus on creative empowerment for products that have a positive impact."

To his point, you can still download plans for a business card gun, space pirate cosmo gun prop or semiautomatic rubber band gun.

The clock, developed by Thingiverse users, is on the sophisticated side of the thousands of designs in the Thingiverse, but it gives us a glimpse at the full power of the Makerbot. The creation myth goes like this: Mathieu Glachant, a.k.a. Thingiverse user Syvwlch, created a 3D model for an escapement—the part that activates the clock’s pendulum and makes it tick—and posted it on Thingiverse. But he didn't have a MakerBot to print it. 

"Glachant’s fellow Thingiverse users saw his design and got excited about the possibility of creating an entire working clock that could be printed on a MakerBot," a MakerBot rep wrote in an email to Betabeat. "Thingiverse users from around the world started making various elements of the clock, sharing them online, and collaborating to design the remaining parts."

Then in January, the startup invited local members of the Thingiverse, including Mr. Glachant, to the MakerBot hacker den for a "Clock-a-Thon," during which the gears and the rest of the parts of the clock were designed and printed. (Some parts are non-printable, such as the laser cut wooden shelf.)

So basically, the clock went from a fixation with escapements to a crowdsourced design, to a hackathon, to a clock that looks like it came from IKEA. We're starting to see what this 3D printing revolution can do. Won't be long now before the Thingiverse denizens code up a Rolex and add that shit to the Pirate Bay.