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

theguardian.com

81–90 of 125 posts

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

#81
post #73
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Err... the movie shows what happens when the government forces people to shoot the bad guys. When there are two governments (The Korean War), brothers end up shooting at each other.

To be sure, there were two governments in the US Civil War as well. I'd say it's a pretty rare situation where a unified government turns citizens against each other with guns. Maybe The Great Leap Forward and the like, but even that was maybe more prosecutorial.

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

#82
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…

The only thing that really matters is (1) and if your revolution requires military defections to succeed then you didn't need amateur firearms to begin with.

Unless you believe a bunch of randoms with rifles are a match for a professionally trained army equipped with the latest tech. In which case I think Iraq may wish to disagree with you.

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

#83
post #77

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 underst…

I run a small Makerspace, I see a teenage boy come in the door every month or so, eye the printers, and ask if they can print a gun .... that gives me a good chance to explain that making your own hand gun is illegal and that using a printer doesn't change that.

> making your own hand gun is illegal

If true, that's extremely surprising to me as a US citizen.

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

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't, but look at the instructions on a pack of ketchup some time and bask in the glory of the LCD. "Set up a jig" is alien babble to a huge number of people, for whom, "Press print" would not be.

That's what the internet is for.

Heh... sure. That, and blowing yourself up because the Navy Seal teaching you to make C4 was actually a 14 year old. The internet is a very YMMV experience, often that variance has to do with what you put into it. If the only people who can overcome a law are those smart and resourceful enough to learn how to mill their own guns, yet still criminally inclined, I'd say you've minimized your problem nicely.

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

#85
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a small Makerspace, I see a teenage boy come in the door every month or so, eye the printers, and ask if they can print a gun .... that gives me a good chance to explain that making your own hand gun is illegal and that using a printer doesn't change that.

> making your own hand gun is illegal If true, that's extremely surprising to me as a US citizen.

Please don't make the assumption that many seem to do that US law or the US constitution applies everywhere on the planet

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

#86
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 a straw-man to nitpick only the worst-case scenario - a full-on civil war against a nuke-wielding government.

Syria is an on-going example of people involved in limited engagements with a somewhat modern government, defending themselves with small arms. They don't need to be ideal to be better than nothing.

Even in Syria, a large part of the armed forces refused to fight their own people. I imagine in America it would be a greater percentage, and you'd only be facing limited local insurrectionists. And it'd be enough to hold out for help, rather than battle them to a stand-still ala Rambo.

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

#87
post #24
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the 2A states "arms" and not "firearms".

Right. If you ignore some 200 years of jurisprudence, you might have a point.

Well yeah, if it wasn't constitutional it should be ignored.

The courts can't make something constitutional.

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

#88
post #26
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.

Eh, all of those incidents are examples of dubious "He shot first!" claims on both sides. I don't think drones are going to make the government look any better.

Errr, the government in both those cases admits to shooting first, to kill these groups' dogs. At Ruby Ridge, Weaver's son and friend were just behind the dog, at Waco, well, we know one BATF agent climbing a ladder had a negligent discharge and shot a guy underneath him, who did not survive. Contagious fire from the BATF agents after the guy who got shot shouted out is more likely than most other explanations, especially when you note how the government was very certain to destroy everything that might have indicated they shot first and shot the most (the vehicles in the back drop, the front door, the whole complex for that matter). And we know they lied about the denouement, for the Texas Rangers found and inventoried a relatively incendiary "tear gas" round they swore up and down that they never used.

And as I might comment elsewhere, drone operators have to sleep sometime, somewhere, and depend on a huge logistics tail; the US has never fought without a pretty secure rear, certainly not after the War of 1812 (threat of invasion from Canada).

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

#89
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.

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…

Just my opinion, but they do "well" against Americans (Russian, whoever else is foolish enough to weigh in) because the war is asymmetric. They have no issue killing civilians or causing any collateral damage. The US must instead try and precisely get them and only them - and while drone mistakes happen (and they might or might not be mistakes), the US largely has to operate under a completely different and restricted rules of engagement compared with their enemy. The enemy instead folds into the civilian population, making the war extremely challenging.

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

#90
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…

That's because a lot of us don't want to let anyone know exactly when we'll take up arms, especially the more they have to lose and the more covert they might want to be about it.

Me, I have a number of declared lines in the sand, the first and most obvious is required registration of all firearms. Although the kinds of enemy of the state I'd become is not so obvious, e.g. I won't start wacking government officials. On the other hand, other people [censored by dang, but please don't open that door].

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