Reason: Cody Wilson is Destroying the Concept of Gun Control

“Gun control is not dead, gun control is undead,” explains Cody Wilson, the director of Defense Distributed. “We just keep killing it but it keeps coming back.”

Wilson, a crypto-anarchist and serial “troublemaker,” helped launch the age of the digital gun when he published files showing how to make the Liberator, a 3D-printed pistol, in 2013. It set off a panic in the media and in anti-gun political circles, and the State Department demanded Defense Distributed remove the files from their website.

But five years after the Liberator debut, the technological limitations of homemade firearms have started disappearing. The materials are cheaper and better, the machines are more precise, and the software is more advanced. Groups of hobbyist gun printers started gathering in IRC chats and internet forums, and are working together to make their own gun designs. It’s a new reality that hasn’t entirely filtered into public debates over gun control.

“I like the Liberator, it’s fine,” union carpenter and hobbyist gun printer Darren Booth says. “[But] it’s only good for one shot. I thought, ‘what can I do to make it a little better?’”

Booth developed the Shuty AP-9, a semi-automatic, mostly 3D printed, 9mm handgun based on the AR-15 platform.

Booth is a regular of the FOSSCAD group, and the community worked together to create the digital files for the Shuty. “It’s an open community. It’s an open chat,” says Booth. “Anyone can go on there and just ask questions.” Files for the Shuty, as well as other firearm designs, can be easily downloaded from the FOSSCAD repository.

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