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3D Printed Gun Maker Cody Wilson Defends Open Source Freedom
Lucas123 (935744) writes "Cody Wilson, the 26-year-old former law school student who published plans for printing 3D guns online, disputed claims by universities and government agencies that his thermoplastic gun design is unsafe. Wilson claims the agencies that tested the guns did not build them to spec. In a Q&A with Computerworld, he also addressed why he's continuing to press regulatory agencies to allow him to offer the plans again for upload after being ordered to take them down, saying it's less about the Second Amendment and more about the implications of open source and the digital age. "If you want to talk about rights, what does it mean to respect a civil liberty or civil right? Well, it means you understand there are social costs in having that right; that's why it deserves protection in the first place," he said. Wilson is also planning to release other gun-related project, though not necessarily a CAD design."
A first gen product using revolutionary technology and people are whining about it being unsafe? It's like complaining that the Model T didn't have airbags.
I think they are missing the point entirely. 3D printing will only become more sophisticated, using stronger materials and will be faster. People will be able to manufacture devices that are currently controlled or are so specialized that it hasn't occurred to the Feds to control them.
This is not about a plastic guns, this is about a paradigm shift that is no less momentous than VHS and later MP3s.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Look people, this is NOT a 2A issue, this is a 1A issue. When does censorship stop? Why can't gun plans be published?
What if after some future election it became illegal to publish plans for IUD contra-ceptives without a licence after some person posts plans for a 3D printed one. Then for a research physician to get published in a medical journal he'd need permission from the government. How about that? How is that different?
How would you feel about needing to obtain a goverenemt license to publish anything about crytographic code? Where would that stop? Could you teach your kids how to make a Ceasar cipher, or would you go to jail for that under a national security gag-order.
He is publishing plans. This is a 1A issue.
Disagree. The US got the first amendment right. And you got the second amendment wrong.
Owning a firearm has nothing to do with essential personal freedoms or rights of the individual to exist in a free state. The only justification for it is to protect oneself from infringement on said freedoms, but that can just as easily be done through strong laws and a properly functioning government.
Again, I would point to the US as the prime example of why the second amendment does absolutely nothing to help you secure any of your primary freedoms, since they are being violated ALL THE TIME by your government, but I don't see anyone successfully taking up arms against them.. and I find the concept that citizens with a few guns could hold their own against the american military-industrial complex a bit of a farce to begin with.
All the second amendment gets your country is the highest per-capita gun violence rate in the western world. It hasn't gotten you anything else.
Seriously? For the most part, someone who is not a convicted felon or diagnosed as suffering from mental illness can buy a gun in a gun shop. The others can (illegally, but apparently with some ease) buy a gun at a gun fair.
Here's an NRA guide by state
Not really. Go ahead and have an aneurysm when you read this.
It's legal to post 3D print files of firearms. That's fully legal and permitted under the First and Second Amendments.
It's illegal to export them internationally without State Department permission, due to The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Constitution grants the US government nearly unlimited control of the borders of the United States, and that include limits on goods going in or out of the country.
Source: I did export control in the aerospace industry. Plenty of 100% fully legal domestic stuff is illegal to send internationally without a permit. Fun example? L3 FLIR cameras made in Canada are illegal to transport back into Canada. Or notch a tailpipe to fit in a HMMWV, it becomes a defense article.
Crime continues to rise and you think America is getting better? Why not address the violence culture instead of their tools? Oh, that's right... It's because you feel it infringes on your rights to live in a culture who makes sport and entertainment of violence.
FBI Statistical data disagrees with you (FBI Violent Crime Table). I realize the mainstream media has brainwashed a large number of people out there to believe the sky is falling on this issue, but it's really not.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The second amendment was written by people who had just violently expelled a tyrannical government. The only plausible explanation is that they intended for the "militia", meaning all able bodied males, to be able to violently expel the government they were creating when it turned tyrannical.
Guns are tools, used for entertainment, sport, self defense... as soon as someone uses one to violate your rights, you can go ahead and execute them, as far as I'm concerned. But get rid of the person that violated your rights... "things" don't violate your rights, only other people do.
Taken to the logical extreme, the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument says any sort of gun control is illogical. Fully automatic AK-47s don't kill people, people kill people! Browning .50 caliber machine guns don't kill people, people kill people! Hand grenades don't kill people, people kill people! A plutonium implosion weapon doesn't kill people, people kill people! Ownership of a nuclear bomb doesn't violate people's rights, so we shouldn't restrict ownership of fissile material. Of course, if someone were to detonate a 20 kiloton weapon in a school and kill all the schoolchildren, and incinerate everyone for miles around, well should throw the book at them. But let's not get all crazy and talk about putting restrictions on enriched uranium. The fissile material, explosive lenses and triggers are just a tool, it's what people decide to do with it that matters, right?
The reason that argument sounds insane because it IS insane. Except for failed states like Somalia and Afghanistan, EVERY state accepts some limitations on the kinds of weapons that people can carry, the only difference is that some states apply more restrictions than others. The U.S. gun control laws are far more lax than in the UK, Australia, or Canada, but we have them- you can't just buy a machine gun. This always seems to get forgotten in discussions about gun control: gun control is already in existence, the only question is whether we need less, more, or to keep things the same. The US, UK, Australia and Canada all agree that some weapons are too dangerous to let people run around with, we just disagree about where to draw the line. Given that the US has an endless series of mass killings, and the other countries don't, it's not hard to see who made the right call.
This is just someone who wants attention. Guns with plastic barrels are junk, worse even than low-end Saturday Night Specials. You can get a cheap gun for under $100 in the US. (Yes, the Raven is a crappy gun, but it's still better than anything made on an extruder-type 3D printer.)
This is not the cutting edge of weapons design. Guns with aimbots. are the cutting edge. Right now, they're expensive, around $10K, but they will get cheaper.