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, |
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, |
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.
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:
Figures.
(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