What could possibly go wrong when 3D firearm blueprints are legal to download?
Jul 27, 2018, 6:32 AM
The Trump administration is being sued for allowing plans for 3D-printed guns to be published online. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File)
(Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File)
Cody Wilson is a gun maker. He argues that it has always been legal to make your own guns.
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He is also a gun evangelist. He has sold thousands of milling machines that let you make your own AR-15 at home – without a serial number.
“And it’s never been a requirement to serialize a gun you manufacture for yourself, for your own use,” he told me back in 2016.
But Cody always wanted to push the envelope, and he just got his wish.
Beginning Aug. 1, Americans will be able to download instructions for making their own guns on a 3D printer.
Printed plastic guns are not only untraceable, but undetectable by your standard metal detector.
And why would Cody think this was necessary? Because it’s the essence of being American.
“It’s pretty self-explanatory. I’m ideologically committed to the Republican ideal of the Second Amendment,” he said.
The Second Amendment states: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
“That’s, you know, without even mincing words that’s the reason that there’s a Second Amendment in the Constitution,” he added.
I should point out that back in 2016 when we spoke, Cody sincerely doubted that his do-it-yourself gun kits would attract too many of the wrong people, such as terrorists. Of course, I should also point out that in the same interview he dismissed the idea that bump stocks might be dangerous.
“There’s been no history of people committing criminal acts with these novelty things like the bump stock,” he told me.
Well, we can’t be right all the time.
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