VIDEO: Tom Sits Down With Cody Wilson and Talks ‘Ghost Guns.’ Kits Are Back

Privately made firearms, more commonly known as “ghost guns,” have been a major topic on the news for quite some time. The Biden administration declared a jihad against them, but there’s only so much they could do.

In fact, that jihad destroyed Polymer80, as they could no longer offer their products.

It also led to the VanDerStok decision that upheld the ATF’s regulations.

Enter Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed.

Cody’s a guy who likes to find the lines and see just how far he can push it. As a pioneer of 3D-printed guns, he also created the Ghost Gunner, which is a desktop CNC machine that turns blocks of metal into firearm receivers.

He seems to have decided to see the Biden-era regulations as a challenge. At the NRA Annual Meeting in Atlanta, I got a chance to sit down with Cody and chat about a new product he has called the G80.

Basically, this frame counts as the receiver, which allows you to print whatever you want as far as a firearm type goes, then move them between different chassis as desired. Also, since it isn’t something done in less than an hour with common tools, it seems to skirt the issues with the Polymer80 kits.

Designed to be modified in the Ghost Gunner, these little buggers can also be made useable with common tools. It just takes a lot longer.

Wilson notes that it also gets past the “I know it when I see it” it thing Justice Neil Gorsuch essentially argued in his majority decision.

Plus, the jig used in this is reusable, which puts it ahead of the Polymer80 all on its own, which some people might ultimately prefer.

Now, should it matter? No.

Also, the Trump administration could change the “ghost gun” rules just as arbitrarily as the Biden administration did. In fact, I hope they do. If that happens, though, I don’t see the G80 being a bust. After all, it’s a different approach.

I’m not trying to review it because all I got to do in Atlanta was handle it. What I like, though, is the innovation. I like it when the industry as a whole looks at the restrictions not so much as guiderails they have to work within, but rubber bands they need to stretch as much as possible to do cool things. Not the greatest metaphor, I know, but I think you get the point.

There shouldn’t be restrictions on our rights, but if they’re going to try, I think we have a duty to push it as far as possible, if for no other reason that to hopefully signal to them that there’s literally nothing they can do that we won’t find a way around it.

I think that’s what Wilson did with the G80. It’s what I hope others do as well.

If the ATF decides that’s too close and they try to shut that down, then we just adjust and keep going.

Our rights matter. Our ability to make guns on our own matters.

In the days of our nation’s founding, buying gun parts to make your own was common. Not everyone made their own barrels, stocks, locks, and so on. They bought those from gunsmiths and put them on their own rifles.

Wilson and others are just providing for that continued tradition.