What could go wrong, seems like such a great idea, why not put a synthetic cell factory and an uncensored/abliterated open model into the hands of every Columbine high school teen in a trenchcoat.

What a contribution!

Jokes aside, if you support gun control you should think very seriously about if you believe a company like this should be legally allowed to do what it's doing. I personally do not.

"Synthetic cell factory" seems a hyperbole, because what they make are not living cells, so there is no danger of their proliferation.

What they make performs a small part of the functions of a living cell, i.e. they make assemblages of nucleic acids and enzymes that synthesize proteins.

This is the actual definition of the PURE systems that they fabricate:

"PURE (Protein synthesis Using Recombinant Elements) is a fully reconstituted, cell‑free protein synthesis system containing only purified, recombinant components for transcription and translation, with no cellular lysate contaminants."

So their factory is better described as a factory of "synthetic non-cells", not as a factory of "synthetic cells".

Guns appeal to a very basic, dumb, violent side of ourselves. A college student being proficient and diligent enough to do experiment with synthetic biology doesn't sound like someone violent. Reckless, yes, but not very violent.

I've worked in this field for many years. It's unfortunate that fears of AI have tarnished the field of synthetic cells so dramatically and yet so ignorantly. It's somewhat akin to believing we should ban charcoal because it is used to make (black) gunpowder, which is equally ridiculous