Save us from 25 year old glibertarians with big brains and little vision. Defense Distributed successfully test-fired their 3D printed, nearly all plastic gun this week.
It took some amount of nerve to actually fire it by hand since an earlier string pulled test with a higher caliber bullet exploded the whole damn gun. We should qualify that the gun does have one non-plastic component, "a common hardware store nail used as its firing pin." It also incorporates a strip of non-functional metal somewhere in the body in order to render it detectable to security gates.
The owner of Defense Distributed Cody Wilson is a self-described American crypto-anarchist, free-market anarchist, and law student. He's going to post the schematics on his website for free. Clearly he's not stupid and understands the gun can be built without the metal detector strip allowing it to be carried past any security device. That doesn't concern him:
It took some amount of nerve to actually fire it by hand since an earlier string pulled test with a higher caliber bullet exploded the whole damn gun. We should qualify that the gun does have one non-plastic component, "a common hardware store nail used as its firing pin." It also incorporates a strip of non-functional metal somewhere in the body in order to render it detectable to security gates.
The owner of Defense Distributed Cody Wilson is a self-described American crypto-anarchist, free-market anarchist, and law student. He's going to post the schematics on his website for free. Clearly he's not stupid and understands the gun can be built without the metal detector strip allowing it to be carried past any security device. That doesn't concern him:
But Wilson denies advocating any sort of violent revolt in America. Instead, he argues that his goal is to demonstrate how technology can circumvent laws until governments simply become irrelevant. “This is about enabling individuals to create their own sovereign space…The government will increasingly be on the sidelines, saying ‘hey, wait,’” says Wilson. “It’s about creating the new order in the crumbling shell of the old order.”Because nothing shouts freedom louder than providing the means for any homicidal maniac to produce a gun that can be carried undetected into any building. Ought to be very popular with disgruntled ex-husbands and crackpot sovereign citizens with visions of Wolverines dancing in their heads. What's even crazier is, the government gave him a license to be a certified firearm manufacturer.
Wilson doesn’t deny that his gun could be used for murder or political violence. “I recognize that this tool might be used to harm people. That’s what it is: It’s a gun,” he says. “But I don’t think that’s a reason to not put it out there. I think that liberty in the end is a better interest.”
