“Alright. One…two…”
Before “three” arrives, a shot reverberates across the overcast central Texas landscape. A tall, sandy blond engineer named John has just pulled a twenty-foot length of yellow string tied to a trigger, which has successfully fired the world’s first entirely 3D-printed gun for the very first time, rocketing a .380 caliber bullet into a berm of dirt and prairie brush.
“Fuckin’ A!” yells John, who has asked me not to publish his full name. He hurries over to examine the firearm bolted to an aluminum frame. But the first to get there is Cody Wilson, a square-jawed and stubbled 25 year-old in a polo shirt and baseball cap. John may have pulled the trigger, but the gun is Wilson’s brainchild. He’s spent more than a year dreaming of its creation, and dubbed it “the Liberator” in an homage to the cheap, one-shot pistols designed to be air-dropped by the Allies over France during its Nazi occupation in World War II.
Unlike the original, steel Liberator, though, Wilson’s weapon is almost entirely plastic: Fifteen of its 16 pieces have been created inside an $8,000 second-hand Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer, a machine that lays down threads of melted polymer that add up to precisely-shaped solid objects just as easily as a traditional printer lays ink on a page. The only non-printed piece is a common hardware store nail used as its firing pin.
Wilson crouches over the gun and pulls out the barrel, which was printed over the course of four hours earlier the same morning. Despite the explosion that just occurred inside of it, both the barrel and the body of the gun seem entirely unscathed.
Wilson scrutinizes his creation for a few more seconds, then stands up again. “I think we did it,” he says, a little incredulous.
Last August, Wilson, a law student at the University of Texas and a radical libertarian and anarchist, announced the creation of an Austin-based non-profit group called Defense Distributed, with the intention of creating a firearm anyone could fabricate using only a 3D printer. The digital blueprints for that so-called Wiki Weapon, as Wilson imagined it, could be uploaded to the Web and downloaded by anyone, anywhere in the world, hamstringing attempts at gun control and blurring the line between firearm regulation and information censorship. “You can print a lethal device. It’s kind of scary, but that’s what we’re aiming to show,” Wilson told me at the time. “Anywhere there’s a computer and an Internet connection, there would be the promise of a gun.”
The Latest Bing News on:
3D-Printed Gun
- Charges after man loads gun outside Whitewater Walmart, enters store, according to criminal complainton March 3, 2021 at 10:30 am
A man with a stolen gun reportedly "racked a round" of bullets outside of the Whitewater Walmart before he entered, then flashed a correctional officers while was in ...
- AG Tong Joins Fight Against Company's 3D-Printed Gun Fileson March 1, 2021 at 2:41 pm
"The dangers of 3D printed ghost guns are not theoretical ... "Here in Connecticut, we have some of the strongest gun safety laws on the books — we banned ghost guns in 2019 — but these ...
- Maine gun numbers tell a stark story. New caucus committed to changing them.on February 28, 2021 at 7:18 am
Gun deaths in Maine increased 45 percent from 2010 to 2019, a vastly higher rate than the 17 percent increase nationwide during the same time period. In 2019, Maine’s firearm mo ...
- Nessel joins coalition arguing for right to enforce state laws against 3D-printed gun companyon February 27, 2021 at 6:17 am
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of attorneys general in fighting a lawsuit that seeks to stop states from enforcing their laws against a company ...
- AG Nessel in support of states’ right to enforce laws against 3D-printed gun fileson February 26, 2021 at 12:52 pm
State officials cannot protect their residents from violations of their own state’s laws by such entities without being able to send cease and desist letters out of state.
- State AGs fight lawsuit blocking enforcement of laws block 3D-printed gunson February 25, 2021 at 3:54 pm
The reckless dissemination of these 3D-printed gun files online could mean that these firearms end up in the hands of dangerous individuals and we must do everything we can to make sure that doesn ...
- 'Ghost Gun' Bans Are Doomed from the Starton February 24, 2021 at 1:02 pm
The DIY firearms movement specifically evolved to put personal armaments beyond the reach of the government.
- What's your opinion on 3d printed guns?on February 18, 2021 at 5:38 am
Democratic politicians seem to be very afraid of them, but just like they are with real guns, they know very little about them. There's ...
The Latest Google Headlines on:
3D-Printed Gun
The Latest Bing News on:
3D-printed firearms
- Charges after man loads gun outside Whitewater Walmart, enters store, according to criminal complainton March 3, 2021 at 10:30 am
A man with a stolen gun reportedly "racked a round" of bullets outside of the Whitewater Walmart before he entered, then flashed a correctional officers while was in ...
- Making A Gun Without A 3D Printeron March 1, 2021 at 4:01 pm
Around four years ago the world was up in arms over the first gun to be 3D printed. The hype was largely due to the fact that most people don’t understand how easy it is to build a gun without a ...
- AG Tong Joins Fight Against Company's 3D-Printed Gun Fileson March 1, 2021 at 2:41 pm
"The dangers of 3D printed ghost guns are not theoretical. These unregistered, untraceable weapons have already been seized on the streets of Hartford and Waterbury," Attorney General Tong said.
- Man admits to smuggling gun from Malaysia to 'scare' rival gang memberson February 28, 2021 at 11:45 pm
SINGAPORE - Unhappy with members of another gang, a secret society member here bought a gun in Malaysia for about $1,400 and smuggled it back to Singapore as he wanted to use it to "scare" them.
- Maine gun numbers tell a stark story. New caucus committed to changing them.on February 28, 2021 at 7:18 am
Gun deaths in Maine increased 45 percent from 2010 to 2019, a vastly higher rate than the 17 percent increase nationwide during the same time period. In 2019, Maine’s firearm mo ...
- Nessel joins coalition arguing for right to enforce state laws against 3D-printed gun companyon February 27, 2021 at 6:17 am
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of attorneys general in fighting a lawsuit that seeks to stop states from enforcing their laws against a company ...
- Dana Nessel joins anti ‘ghost gun’ coalitionon February 26, 2021 at 1:13 pm
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of attorneys general that aims to fight a lawsuit that seeks to stop states from enforcing anti-ghost gun laws.
- AG Nessel in support of states’ right to enforce laws against 3D-printed gun fileson February 26, 2021 at 12:52 pm
State officials cannot protect their residents from violations of their own state’s laws by such entities without being able to send cease and desist letters out of state.
- State AGs fight lawsuit blocking enforcement of laws block 3D-printed gunson February 25, 2021 at 3:53 pm
Defense Distributed has disseminated internet files that give individuals the ability to manufacture unregistered and untraceable 3D-printed firearms.
- 'Ghost Gun' Bans Are Doomed from the Starton February 24, 2021 at 1:02 pm
The DIY firearms movement specifically evolved to put personal armaments beyond the reach of the government.