US State Department Halts 3-D Gun Production

Three days ago, in an article that looked at the convergence of 3-D printing and the 2nd Amendment, we presented "the Liberator" - the world's first fully 3-D printed firearm.

The name was aptly chosen because courtesy of its creator, 25-year old UofT law student Cody Wilson, and his non-profit group Defense Distributed, its online blueprint and assembly instructions liberated "anyone to be able to download and print a gun with no serial number, in the privacy of their garage" in effect completely circumventing any gun control/distribution laws, background checks and other regulatory hurdles of an increasingly authoritarian government.

In fact, we were counting the number of days before some US Federal agency would come knocking on Cody Wilson's door and involved that other key Amendment - the First, by either "disappearing him" or politely enforcing a permanent Cease and Desist of all production, including, of course, the removal of all online "liberating" blueprints. We didn't have long to wait - it took just one week. Read more >>

100,000 People Now Printing Out Their Own Handguns

Downloaders have successfully acquired at least 100,000 schematics for Defense Distributed's printable 3D handgun over the course of two days.

By comparison, the first episode of Game of Thrones clocked in at a million downloads per day.
Andy Greenberg of Forbes reports that company owner Cody Wilson teamed up with controversial Kim Dotcom to upload the gun's print plans to the website Mega.

Predictably, Greenberg notes, Americans have surged into the lead for the country with the most downloads, in front of Spain, Brazil, Germany and the U.K. And the plans are spreading. Read more >>