The rise of 3D-printed guns could provoke a new era of ‘untraceable’ weapons — and gun reform advocates are scrambling to figure out what to do. (NOTE: This video was originally posted on our Facebook page on 7/26/2018)
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It just got a lot easier 3D print guns.
Cody Wilson, gun rights activist and founder of Defense Distributed, ushered in a new era of gun making in 2013 when he published a printable blueprint of a weapon called The Liberator, a functional single-shot pistol that was mostly made out of plastic. Within 48 hours, the blueprint had been downloaded more than 100,000 times.
But, within that time, Obama’s State Department ordered Wilson to take the blueprint down, alleging it violated international firearm trade regulation. But Wilson said that the order violated his right to free speech and that he wasn’t facilitating firearm exports — he was just posting code — something that would be protected by the First Amendment.
The belief led to home and other plaintiffs to file a lawsuit in 2015 against the state department, which was quietly settled in 2018. In the settlement, the government agreed to waive its prior restraint against Wilson won, thus allowed him and others to freely publish blueprints for 3D printed weapons. Now, Wilson says he wants his website to become the Wikipedia of downloadable weapons.
Gun reform advocates have their work cut out for them with this issue, because there are no real regulations in place regarding who can download the blueprints. This means that dangerous people, people with mental instabilities, and people who plan to do physical harm with the weapons can currently do so.
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