A thread about 3D printed guns, and why you shouldn’t believe the hype. They won’t save us from government tyranny, and they won’t make our country’s gun violence problem much worse than it already is. Because they suck.
Cody Wilson and his supporters have an exalted opinion of his place in history, telling the world that he is ushering in a New Age - the Age of the Downloadable Gun. Yesterday his lawyer compared Wilson’s code to the Pentagon Papers. Heady stuff. nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/…
The legal battle over whether or not Defense Distributed can post code for its printable guns (for the moment the answer is no) has generated fantastic press for Wilson and his brand, obviously. It’s been a real coup.
But it’s also been useful to gun control groups and Democratic politicians trying to fundraise, and engage and recruit followers. And of course its been an appealing and marketable media story. These critics agree with Wilson’s claims to importance. bradycampaign.org/press-room/fol…
"Downloadable Guns are a Threat to Every Single Person in This Country" read a headline yesterday. There’s a convergence of interest here: everyone involved with the story has an incentive to blow it out of proportion. The alarmism is as overblown as Wilson’s anarcho-messianism.
That’s because plastic printed guns are far less reliable, far more dangerous to the user, far less deadly to the target, and more costly than the vast majority of guns currently on the market.
The “Liberator” holds a single bullet. Its barrel has no rifling. And it is only safe to use if printed with a high-end (read: expensive) 3D printer. Media stories about "anyone with a printer" making these guns have it wrong. all3dp.com/3d-printed-gun…
More to the point, Americans are the least likely people in the world to want these crappy guns. This country is drowning in quality firearms. In the United States there are more privately-held guns than there are people. smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs…
Given the breathless coverage so far, it’s likely that the plans will be downloaded millions of times once they’re available online. (And one way or another they’ll eventually be made available online). Most media will blow this way out of proportion, too. Code isn’t a gun.
People who want firearms for protection or sport won’t be printing their guns, because it is and will continue to be easier and cheaper to legally purchase better guns.
Americans who dread government power and feel compelled to prepare for insurgency or civil war might be paranoid (let's hope so). But they won’t be crazy enough to confront the state with flimsy printed guns when they can legally stockpile quality firearms.
Criminals who use guns as tools have too much at stake to trust printed guns, when they can (and do) easily acquire arms on the grey or black market without any sort of background check. theconversation.com/how-dangerous-…
Few criminals will think that the un-traceability of printed guns offsets their deficiencies, especially when the large majority of guns used in crime are already obtained informally and our national tracing system is comically limited by our own govt. thetrace.org/2016/07/how-a-…
Printed guns will take lives and be used in crimes, and those tragic events will generate headlines. But the numbers will be a drop in our ocean of gun violence.
That mainly leaves hobbyists intrigued by the technical achievement and ideologues & preppers waiting for gun confiscation. How they'll hold off against a tyrannical authoritarian government & the most powerful military in world history with printed guns, that's unclear.
If the choice is b/t a printed gun and a quality gun, it’s no contest. But if its b/t a printed gun and no gun, that’s different. So while this technology won’t change much in the US, it could matter in places with meaningful barriers to civilian gun ownership. 
The potential consequences in other countries isn’t something we’re hearing much about right now. As is so often the case in our national argument about guns, neither side seems very interested in the often profound ways our decisions about guns effect the rest of the world. END.
