Earlier this week after successfully testing his gun “The Liberator,” Cody Wilson, who founded Defense Distributed, has been ordered by the United States State Department to remove the blueprints from the 15-piece plastic gun he placed on his company’s website this week. The gun allows anyone with access to a 3D printer, which uses heated plastic rather than ink, to produce their own gun which could easily escape modern metal detectors in use at courthouses, jails, airports, and anywhere else that has security concerns.
The gun itself in addition to fifteen plastic parts, simply needs one small metal nail for a firing pin and a single .380 bullet. The latter two could easily escape detection. While the move was probably necessary, it is far too late to stop those who are interested in producing The Liberator from obtaining the blueprints. They have already been downloaded over 100,000 and numerous torrent sites as well as upload sites are presently hosting them. The genie is out of the bottle, and no genie comfortably returns to its prison.
“Once people heard what happened, Pirate Bay has exploded. I’m sat here watching it now, seeing the downloads go up and up,” said Cody Wilson.
“It’s a demonstration that technology will allow access to things that governments would otherwise say that you shouldn’t have access to,” Cody Wilson, the leader of Defense Distributed, told The Daily Telegraph.
“Things that there are legitimate demands for will be available,” said Mr Wilson, 25, who is described as a free-market anarchist. “That’s the point we want to make.”
Mr. Wilson is also a law student at the University of Texas. Presumably, he will have ample opportunity to use this degree if he chooses to represent himself in what can only be called the inevitability of a lawsuit.
“Our gun operations were registered with ITAR,” Wilson said referring to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. A convoluted set of regulations that Wilson does not believe he has violated.
“They are stalling, they are going to make this review last as long as they can,” he said. “They are getting a lot of political pressure.” He added that he had taken legal advice about what to do next.
“We’ve also had offers of help from lawyers from all around the country,” he said.
While Wilson used a printer that he had purchased on eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) for $8000, the gun could be manufactured by anyone with access to a 3D printer. 3D printers capable of producing his design can cost as little as $1000.
