Cody Wilson Wants To Help You Make a Gun

An anonymous reader writes In 2013 Cody Wilson posted online the design files needed to 3D print weapons. The files were downloaded at least 100,000 times before the U.S. State Department ordered him to take them down. Last fall he reemerged with a new project, the Ghost Gunner--a relatively small and affordable CNC milling machine that could easily manufacture the lower receiver of an AR-15. It was a different approach toward the same goal of multiplying the number of firearms in the world. But are we really facing a world where backyard bunker-builders are manufacturing their own gun components? Reporter Andrew Zaleski visited Wilson to check on the status of his project. What he found was a man in the throes of small-business hell. As Wilson puts it, "It's like the nightmare of a startup with the added complication that no one will allow you to do it anyway."

Comments

I'm mad at him

[Gnaythan1]

He's taking a machine capable of making just about anything, and using it to make the one thing that just might make people want to regulate it. He's deliberately drumming up fear over something that people should be celebrating it's existence. I wish he would just use a lathe to make his gun parts rather than 3d printers or cnc milling machines. I'd make a thousand, a hundred thousand useful things with this cnc machine before I ever considered making a gun. It's like newspaper was just invented and he's running up to the palace and pointing out to the king that how this new thing can be used to draw pictures of the queen naked..

Re:M-16?

[Registered Coward v2]

I built my 2 AR-15 rifles, this stuff isn't rocket science - but it's probably a little to advanced for any liberal journalist.

I find it curious that people want to make gun ownership a liberal vs. conservative issue. I know many liberals who either own guns or have no problem with guns. Personally, I appreciate a well made weapon and enjoy target shooting with a fine weapon. I also realize the importance of securing a weapon so that it doen't used in an inappropriate manner and believ the 2cd is a god amendment. A gun is a tool to be used properly and not some replacement for a functional penis. To me, owning a gun and supporting liberal ideals is not an existential contradiction, nor requires some bullshit rational to justify such a position. It's simply a choice I have aright to make. Some like to point to Switzerland as an example of why gun ownership doesn't mean guns are bad yet ignore the many liberal concepts the Swiss also embrace, such as universal healthcare or safe free abortions. To argue one point while ignoring the other is an existential conridiction to my admitly simple mind. YMMV. HAND.

Worse than approval is doing it right.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I understand the paperwork isn't bad. But then there's the fee and waiting to get approved. Someone told me it took a long time to get the approval.

It's far beyond that. You DON'T want to get the BATF annoyed with you. (And few things annoy them more than trying to get around their regulations.)

They have a track record of boobytrapping the paperwork and geting people jailed for typos and minor slipups. Honest errors, misunderstanding of details of what you're supposed to do, missing a deadline, etc. Also stuff where THEY made the error but YOU can't prove it.

They'll also just keep grinding you in court, even if you actually are legal, once they start in on you. They'll keep it up until you're broke and have to fold. They have a conviction percentage rate in the high 90s.

Long felony sentences in federal prisons (and NOT the "country club" kind). They love to do things like giving you a count per round of ammunition or whatever, and run them consectutive, too. The federal prisons have no "time off for X" or probation: You serve the whole sentence. If you survive to get out, much of a lifetime later, you have lost your civil rights, including voting and owning or even handling guns (and you jepoardize any gun-owning friends or relatives by living with them or just being in their presence).

Look it up on the web. Lots of horror stories out there. The number of people in federal prison for gun paperwork "crimes" is staggering.

If you want to do this, keep it legal and keep a low profile. Really build it in your state. Really never take it out of state. Really never sell it. (I shudder to think how one handles inheritance of such a gun ...) To do otherwise is to open the giant economy can of worms.

Making your own AR-15 and trying find a way to sell, give, or trade it is an effective way to find yourself "living in interesting times and coming to the attention of people in high places".