Reason Asks Question on 3D Printed Guns That Needs to Be Asked

There’s something about 3D printing technology that just fascinates me. It’s not anything particularly complicated when you think about it. It heats up plastic and lays it down in precise patterns using what is basically CNC technology that we’ve had for decades. Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but the basic concept isn’t super complicated.

It just took a while for someone to not just develop it, but to make it cheaply enough that you can get one off of Amazon.

Then we started getting 3D-printed guns, and things got interesting. Now, in looking at the community behind these guys, the folks at Reason get into a lot of stuff, but they start off with a bit that hits on the most important question about these firearms.

The 3D-printed gun movement has survived the downfall of its charismatic founder, a major defeat at the Supreme Court, and involvement in one of the most talked-about crimes of last year.

Meanwhile, the guns have gotten good. Really good. Today’s hobbyist gun makers are creating better and better weapons that are easier and easier to make, including some with wildly creative designs.

There’s anger and passionate disagreement about strategy, law, copyright, and leadership. The movement’s critics are scathing: Lizzie, who met her husband Spezz through an online 3D-gun printing forum, calls movement founder Cody Wilson “a thief, a federal informant, and a pedophile.” Spezz says “most of the cool stuff he does he just steals from other people.” Wilson, for his part, is dismissive: “If you have evidence, present your evidence.”

But in the meantime, this technology is fundamentally undermining the power of the state to control our access to firearms. And what I can’t figure out is why more people aren’t talking about it.

Is gun control finally dead?

A lot of the piece is the drama between Cody Wilson and people like Lizzie and Spezz, which I’m not interested in talking about. I know Cody, I don’t know the other two. I also know there are accusations going all over this community about who is doing what with whom and why. It’s kind of tiresome, to be honest.

But that question at the end, that’s the question. That’s the question.

Is gun control finally dead?

Obviously, anti-gunners would argue that it’s not. That’s why 16 states have banned so-called ghost guns. They actually think they can stop the practice by just throwing more legislation into the mix. It doesn’t work, though, because like the man said in the movie, “You can’t stop the signal.”

The files are out there, and while some states are trying to stop those by issuing bans for even possessing the files, it’s not going to stop anyone who wants to build guns from building guns.

Basically, the idea that gun control works isn’t going to go away.

The hope of that idea ever being realized, though, is as dead as Cesar Chavez and his legacy. Gun control isn’t going to stop a damn soul. Banning these firearms won’t stop anyone.

And I look forward to the day when guns like these are used to liberate a people from oppression, because that day is coming.

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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