"
Legal encapsulation is not effectively possible," declares
Cody Wilson of
Defense Distributed, makers of the world's first gun made via
3D printing technology. "So it's fun to kind of challenge the state to greater and greater levels of its own hyper-statism."
Last year,
Wilson and crew unveiled
The Liberator, a plastic pistol they created on a
3D printer that fired a shot heard around the world. Then they put the 3D-printing files (or CADs) up on the
Internet for free. To folks interested in cutting-edge technology and decentralized experiments in living,
Wilson's gun symbolized an age of uncontrollable freedom. To lawmakers, it symbolized a threat that moved faster than, well, a speeding bullet.
The State Department, in fact, shut down Defense Distributed's ability to disseminate the gun files on the Internet, claiming the nonprofit was violating federal rules about exporting munitions.
A self-declared crypto-anarchist, the 26-year-old Wilson is fighting the situation in court—and relishing every minute of his battle with the government.
While he's aggressively challenging restrictions on
3D-printed guns, Wilson is also working on an innovative
Bitcoin project called
Dark Wallet, which would further anonymize financial transactions on the Web, and a book intended to inspire a new generation of digital libertarians.
Reason TV's
Todd Krainin sat down with Wilson at the
SXSW festival in
Austin, Texas.
About 28 minutes.
Produced by Todd Krainin. Cameras by
Paul Detrick and
Alexis Garcia.
Among the topics covered (with approximate time):
How the
State Department is shutting down Wilson's
3-D printable gun business (3:58)
What it's like to be surveilled by the
Department of Homeland Security (8:50)
What is the
Liberator 3-D printed gun? (
11:00)
How printable guns will change the dynamic of political power. (14:30)
Will this challenge to the state lead to more personal freedom? (16:15)
How does the Internet break down the politics of gun control? (17:35)
What is Dark Wallet? And what's wrong with Bitcoin? (19:30)
What's Wilson's new book about? (25:25)
Read Brian Doherty's profile of Wilson and Defense Distributed from the
December 2013 issue of Reason.
http://reason.com/archives/
2013/11/12/the-unstoppable-plastic-gun
- published: 18 Apr 2014
- views: 315810