Ghost Guns

    Starting tomorrow, August 1, 2018, it will be legal in this country to download the instructions for printing guns in your own home on a 3D printer.
     The blueprints will be available online and need only be downloaded to one's computer; then add the "ink" - a  liquid plastic mixture - to the printer, mouse-click to "print" and, voilà , you'll soon have the snap-together  components of this snappy, minimalist little number known as The Liberator,

...or if you'd prefer a  more embellished model you could print yourself a Baretta M9,

​...or even an AR-15,

...or any of a number of hand guns and rifles, the schematics for which will be available tomorrow for free on the website for Defense Distributed, whose founder, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed gun-rights anarchist named Cody Wilson,

​...recently posted on Twitter  this photo of a grave,

...the significance of which being that acquiring plastic 3-D printed guns requires no background check and the guns are "untraceable, unregulated and unregistered." (1)
     And hence, uncontrollable.
   "Ghost guns," they're called. Anyone will be able to make one. Any criminal, any would-be mass-murderer, any gang in any country, any terrorist or terrorist group. Anyone who, for any reason, wants to be able put a bullet into another person or themselves.

  This is thanks to Cody Wilson, a young man of quite considerable intelligence and ability,

...who has opted to use his God-given gifts to teach the world how to fabricate plastic guns that metal detectors won’t spot and "can be easily broken apart, reassembled, and smuggled onto mass transportation." (2) 

     Apparently Donald Trump just found out about the issue of DIY printable ghost guns and has tweeted that he'll look into it,

...although, as usual, he  he doesn't have the details right. 

     Earth to Donald Trump: It was your administration that last month legalized the online posting of printable gun instructions. Here's he back story:
         Back in 2013 Cody Wilson, then a 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas, started a non-profit company he called Defense Distributed, the purpose of which was to develop digital firearms files, which he did, then posted online his file containing the software for making the Liberator,the printable hand gun he designed. 

      Within a few days the U.S. State Department ordered Cody Wilson to remove the file, which he did, but in the course of the few days it was up the software for making The Liberator was downloaded over 100,000 times.
       Two years later Defense Distributed filed a lawsuit against the State Department. The U.S. State Department under Barack Obama held that the gun instructions could not be posted online as they they posed a national security risk and violated international regulations concerning arms trafficking.
          However Wilson kept up the litigation for years, arguing that his rights to free speech and to bear arms were being violated.
          And though the federal government had been winning the litigation every step of the way, though there was no way the courts were poised to ultimately rule in favor of Defense Distributed, this past June Donald Trump's State Department under Mike Pompeo did an about face and settled with Cody Wilson, not only allowing him to publish his gun blueprints online, but agreeing to pay his $40,000 in legal fees.
            I repeat: The U.S. State Department paid Cody Wilson's $40,000 legal fees for the lawsuit brought by Cody Wilson against the U.S. State Department.
        Yesterday eight states sued the Trump administration for an emergency ban on Defense Distributed posting its the 3-D gun instructions.
            The attorneys general of twenty states have appealed to Secretary of State Pompeo to block the gun plans from appearing online.
            The only response so far has been Donald Trump's tweet:                    

       He's looking into plastic guns being sold to the public. He already spoke to the NRA about it.
       Figures.

References
(1) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/3d-printed-guns-could-soon-pose-challenge-to-regulators

(2) https://gizmodo.com/bad-news-tsa-found-a-3d-printed-gun-in-a-carry-on-1785040682

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/i-made-an-untraceable-ar-15-ghost-gun/

https://www.cnet.com/news/3d-printed-guns-8-states-sue-trump-administration-for-an-emergency-ban/

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/31/us/3d-printed-plastic-guns/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/30/us/pennsylvania-3d-guns-trnd/index.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/07/23/3-d-printing-guns-downloadable-gun-legal-august-1/820032002/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Distributed

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