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Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

theguardian.com

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Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#41

Post by Mizza »

To be honest, though Cody Wilson was responsible for the initial organization of the movement, he is largely irrelevant now, and the DIY gun community has pretty much disavowed him and moved over to FOSSCAD.org // https://twitter.com/fosscad and IRC.

To show the difference in the developments, compare the single-shot Liberator featured in this article to the revolving Washbear designs by FOSSCAD: https://imgur.com/a/M1A0P/layout/horizontal#0 or the semi-auto Shuty MP-1v4 https://twitter.com/fosscad/status/718190339090059265

Cody is more of a political agitator and propagandist, whereas the FOSSCAD community are typically much more gun-enthusiast/engineer-y - although they share similar political opinions, their motivations seem to be much technical/recreational rather than political.

Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#42

Post by ethbro »

kiba wrote: post #3
TheLarch wrote: post #2

With the advancement of technology it's harder and harder to sympathize with the idea that firearms in the US could effectively combat governmental tyranny. Situations such as Ruby Ridge and Waco could be handled by drones now. It's hard to believe that there is a principle at play here deeper than a simple love of guns.

Cryptography scared authoritarians and chicken little more than guns.

Can't tell if you're being ironic or not, but in case you're not: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_...

Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#43

Post by mindcrime »

pjc50 wrote: post #21
jonstokes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you're right. See, for instance, the way that the West totally put down the Taliban in Afghanistan and pacified the entire country, which is now peaceful to this day. The Taliban were just a bunch of illiterate goat herders with AKs, so there's no way they could stand up to the America's more technologically advanced army, plus the drones. And then look at Iraq, and Syria, and all of the other insurgencies invo…

Surely the big lesson from the middle East is that guns can deliver violent chaos or despotic centralism but not peaceful stability?

Surely the big lesson from the middle East is that guns can deliver violent chaos or despotic centralism but not peaceful stability?

Guns, in and of themselves, don't deliver anything. They're tools, that's it. Whether or not the people of the Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan find peaceful stability or not depends on a whole laundry list of variables.

Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#44

Post by mikeash »

jonstokes wrote: post #17
anoonmoose wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's enough evidence to say that we necessarily couldn't crush those insurgencies with drones. As far as I can tell, the US has (reasonably, humanely)[1] pulled its punches considerably over the last fifteen years. [1] to the extent that any war can have these descriptors slapped on them. War is hell, The US has done inhumane stuff, I don't think they did as much as for example I think they did in Vi…

Then you're left to argue that the US military has pulled its punches on the Taliban, but they're really gonna take the gloves off if they get turned against their fellow citizens. Good luck with that.

The whole scenario is predicated on some horrible tyrant taking control of the US. Why wouldn't the gloves come off in that case?

Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#45

Post by rhizome »

kiba wrote: post #5
jonstokes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you're right. See, for instance, the way that the West totally put down the Taliban in Afghanistan and pacified the entire country, which is now peaceful to this day. The Taliban were just a bunch of illiterate goat herders with AKs, so there's no way they could stand up to the America's more technologically advanced army, plus the drones. And then look at Iraq, and Syria, and all of the other insurgencies invo…

In case of unbearable government tyranny, the civilians are going to have an insurgency against their own fathers, sons, and brothers?

You may be interested in the Korean movie, "Tae Guk Gi," which illustrates exactly what you're talking about and occurred during your parents' or grandparents' lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taegukgi_(film)

Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#46

Post by mindcrime »

TheLarch wrote: post #2

With the advancement of technology it's harder and harder to sympathize with the idea that firearms in the US could effectively combat governmental tyranny. Situations such as Ruby Ridge and Waco could be handled by drones now. It's hard to believe that there is a principle at play here deeper than a simple love of guns.

it's harder and harder to sympathize with the idea that firearms in the US could effectively combat governmental tyranny.

People keep trotting out this argument, and it remains just as wrong. "Regular" firearms by themselves probably aren't enough to resist the US government, but that isn't the point. Firearms are just one tool out of many that would be in play if an actual armed revolution broke out. And what people gloss over are factors like:

1. Military units that defect to the "rebellion". Now the rebellion has tanks, airplanes, drones, etc.

2. IEDs and other improvised munitions which are capable of doing more damage that just, say, an AK-47.

3. The idea that "quantity is its own quality". Enough people, armed with AR-15's or AK-47's can constitute a formidable force just through sheer numbers.

Anyway, nobody is out there pretending that they are going to overthrow a hypothetical "tyrannical US government" using nothing but light weapons. But that doesn't mean that those light weapons aren't still important.

Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#48

Post by Mizza »

Aelinsaar wrote: post #16
bifrost wrote: post #6

IMHO this whole movement is out there to point out how ridiculous some legislation is. Pretty much anyone with a brain can make a deadly weapon with time and materials. They even make guns in prisons, so of course someone could 3d print the serialized parts of a gun. In certain types of guns those 3d printed parts are only minorly structual so they don't receive that much force, you could even conceivably hand carve…

You can make a knife from a sharpened spoon, but you can do a lot more damage, more reliably, to more people, with a real sword. For now (although not forever) you're not going to 3D print an AR-15 Lower.

Not only can you already print a lower, you can print a bolt-together lower than can be printed on a commercial Makerbot or similar.

Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42zpwpmGOvc

and another of it being test-fired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TXz9kb83yc

Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#49

Post by fudged71 »

It's really interesting when I tell people that I'm in the 3D printing industry and their first reaction is to tell me someone 3D printed a gun. So many people know about it now, and I don't think it's a bad thing either. It gets people thinking about what complex things can be created with this technology. I believe the story has been an overall positive educational tool for the industry and the mainstream's understanding.

Re: Cody Wilson, the man who wants Americans to 3D print their own guns

#50

Post by RyJones »

jonstokes wrote: post #15
danharaj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well guns don't do anything on their own, people do. Organizations of people overthrow governments. I think access to violence is important for the success of such organizations as the past has shown. I think your examples of the governments sieging individuals who refused to bend to its will just demonstrate what kind of resistance fails to threaten the government. The only way to resist a tyrannical government is t…

One of the most interesting things about the gun rights community is how strenuously this exact question of "where do you draw the bright line that, once crossed, you'll rise up?" is avoided. You know how that guy took that video of himself asking anti-abortion protestors, "if abortion is murder, then shouldn't we put women who procure abortions on trial for murder?" and they all just short-circuited, like they'd nev…

I don't disagree with your most of your points, and I would go further: most gun owners are buying fashion items without any intention to use them, ever, in any way.

I suspect there is another reason to consider about reticence to discuss where the line is and what exactly the plan is once crossed: the POR against insurgency is find, fix, and destroy [0] and there has been plenty of domestic [1] practice. Why make yourself an easy target?

So, to your first point that they haven't thought about it meaningfully, I agree. Fashion items.

[0] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/f...

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820/... etc

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