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What do we want? GUN CONTROL! When do we want it? NOW… or after I make my 3D pistol.
Starting August 1st a template for working, 3D printed guns will be available to the masses. The first printed gun was fired five years ago by its creator Cody Wilson, the founder of a nonprofit called Defense Distributed. Defense Distributed is an organization that’s fighting to remove barriers from making guns at home and giving citizens the power to protect themselves. Wired named Wilson the 14th most dangerous person in the world in 2015 and more recently in 2017 was named one of the most dangerous people on the internet. Wilson has plans to release instructions to create AR-10 and AR-15 types of firearms in the future giving people the blueprint to safety or violence depending on their motives of owning a gun.
In 2013 Wilson posted a printing manual for a single shot pistol called “The Liberator” which received over 100,000 downloads before the Federal Government ordered him to remove the 3D gun instructions from the web. Think about that. 100,000 people could potentially print plastic and metal versions of guns that are untraceable, unregistered and unregulated. With each school shooting and mass terrorist threat, the call for gun control grows stronger and louder but Wilson makes a point that, “Gun control can never die because it lives in the heart of men. Gun control is undead and we just keep killing it and it just keeps coming back,” As a citizen who has no desire to own a gun but wants to see change in how elected officials handle gun violence, it’s easy to make the snap decision that guns are bad and we need to do everything in our power to keep them out of the hands of the wrong people but as 3D gun hobbyists like Wilson are showing us, if someone wants to own a firearm they’ll get one. Whether it’s buying one illegally or printing one using a 3D printer or milling machine, it’s getting harder to control who can buy one but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to prevent these horrific incidents involving guns from happening on a bigger level.
We need to look beyond gun control and ask ourselves why certain people in our society are committing these violent acts in the first place. Some are willing to lose their lives and end as many lives in the process for many reasons. Some stem from mental issues or pure hate for others that are different from them. Other shootings happen by police officers who are thirsty for power and are willing to play God to make sure segments of the population fear and obey them.
People want to make the gun control issue so black and white but when you see all of these shootings happening around the country; some shootings that are taking the lives of children who haven’t spent more than seven years on this earth, you have to wonder does the government even want things to get better? Living in this era it’s easy for the conspiracist to come out of any sane person because we see people seemingly fighting for this idea of safe cities, living wages and a status quo that will never be feasible with the way the country is ran. 3D printed guns give some people the security of knowing that if this country ever becomes a police state country, those gun wielding citizens would have the power to fight back. Maybe I’ve seen too many Purge sequels but this country will either evolve to be a more inclusive, sustainable and safe place for all or it will be destroyed by the people who got to indulge in one of the privileged countries in the world. 3D printed guns isn’t our biggest issue to tackle, the reason why people feel like they need to go out of their way to make untraceable handguns is the real issue I want to hear more about.
Article By: Marcel Jeremiah
