from Hacker News

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

by kfullert on 6/6/16, 4:24 PM with 119 comments

• by Mizza on 6/6/16, 6:02 PM

  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.

• by bifrost on 6/6/16, 5:14 PM

  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 one out of plastic.

  In addition, you could mill your own parts pretty easily, those plans have been available for decades as well.

• by TheLarch on 6/6/16, 5:05 PM

  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.

• by scrollaway on 6/6/16, 5:48 PM

  I heard about this before on a documentary that was recommended on HN, so I'll pass the recommendation on:

  Print the Legend, from 2014, on the story of 3d printing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3557464/

• by fudged71 on 6/6/16, 6:12 PM

  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.

• by serge2k on 6/6/16, 8:51 PM

  > The theory is that for the first time ever, publication to the internet, apart from generating data, amounts to an export of technical data related to defense services.”

  wasn't this the case with crypto 2 decades ago?

  > “No,” says Wilson. “It does not register on my meter. Whatsoever.”

  Seems like this could be phrased better at least.

• by ajmarsh on 6/6/16, 5:47 PM

  ...or you could just go to the hardware store and make a better one.

  http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Zip-Gun

• by whatgoodisaroad on 6/6/16, 5:48 PM

  I'm going to pedantically nitpick the title, but surely "3D" should apply to "print" rather than "guns". Printing 2d guns isn't a big deal.

• by millzlane on 6/6/16, 5:34 PM

  Everyone has a natural right to self defense. But by what means? We understand the laws of sciences like physics and thermodynamics, but we still can't agree on how humans should live. Why is that?