In October 2012, I pitched a story to my editors at The New York Times about Cody Wilson, a law student at the University of Texas, who was in the process of building a completely functional printed gun using the seminal 3-D printer. After some back-and-forth with Wilson over e-mail, the Times sent a photographer to his office to document him, and his gun design. But in the midst of the photo shoot, the photo editor for the Times called me to tell me there was a problem. “What is it?” I remember asking, worried that maybe Wilson didn’t want to be photographed for the story. But it turned out, it was the opposite. Wilson was so worried about what he would look like in the photo, that he kept changing his outfit and refusing to pose for the camera. The photographer was unsure what to do. After some wrangling, Wilson eventually settled on a blue shirt, untucked, with khakis, where he sat at his desk, a rendering of his 3-D-printed gun on the laptop screen behind him. A couple of days later, I got an e-mail from Wilson, that read: “My mom is asking when I might appear in the Times. What should I tell her?” It seemed Wilson wasn’t as concerned with what the story said about a weapon that could be printed at home and pass through metal detectors unnoticed, as he was about seeing himself in The New York Times.

Wilson, and people like him who are using technology to push the boundaries of the Constitution, often tout the Amendment that best fits the reason they should be able to do the things they do, without any reprisal. For example, Wilson has recently been making the argument that 3-D-printed firearms should actually be protected under both the Second and the First amendments. His disputation is that code is speech. And while a judge banned Wilson from posting his gun designs online, it’s too late to stuff the code back in the bottle—the blueprints are there for all to see. At this point, for Wilson, it’s just about winning the argument. The point he wanted to make has already been made. A similar megalomania is evident in Alex Jones, who has made a vile career out of destroying the lives of parents who lost their children during the Sandy Hook massacre, and who is using the First Amendment to justify his bizarre and evil conspiracy theories, too. Like Wilson, he seems to care more about his personal brand than the toxic side effects of what he’s selling. Neither seems to recognize that technology has turned their political hobbyhorse into a legitimate danger.

The central problem, of course, is not Jones and Wilson, who clearly have ideals they believe in, which we can agree or disagree with. It’s that the U.S. Constitution, which was written over 230 years ago, could never have foreseen the way people with these ideas and ideals would attempt to distort the original intent of the Constitution to fit their arguments today. I’ve been writing about technology for decades, and have seen things intended for one use be twisted for a very different purpose. The first time I saw a 3-D printer, for instance, it never occurred to me that someone would use it to offer gun blueprints to children and felons online, and then cite the First Amendment as their justification. (On the contrary, I thought it would be fun to make my own wall hooks.) I can’t imagine that James Madison, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton would have had the foresight to imagine that would happen, either.

The Internet is clearly changing the world at speeds that are unimaginable—so much so that, for someone like me, who inhales news like most people do air, it’s hard to keep track of what’s happening and how each new technology could end up being used in ways that were never intended. But I’ve also come to the realization as of late, that the United States Constitution is being used in ways that the people who invented it likely never intended, either. Maybe, we’re coming to a crossroads where it’s time to rethink how we decide what technology can and can’t do, and not use a 230-year-old codex as our arbiter. And perhaps, in a way, that’s for the best. It’s long past time that Congress uses its authority to place certain limitations on the technologies that are reshaping society, from social media to autonomous vehicles and yes, even 3-D printers. But it’s also incumbent on engineers in Silicon Valley to work with superannuated lawmakers to translate their good intentions in good faith. If not, the tech industry may find itself vulnerable to regulations against which the Constitution provides no guidance, either.