My Dinner with Cody Wilson: "I'm Looking Forward to Jail" | The Truth About GunsThe Truth About Guns

My Dinner with Cody Wilson: "I'm Looking Forward to Jail" | The Truth About GunsThe Truth About Guns:

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Earlier this week I had the pleasure of taking Cody Wilson, mastermind behindDefense Distributed and the Liberator firearm, out to dinner. Well, technically Robert took him out to dinner and I tagged along. But since Robert is otherwise occupied and can’t post at the moment, I get to write the story the way I want. Anyway, while we’ve already interviewed Cody Wilson about the nature of his work and his beliefs (we liked him before he was cool) it was nice to get an update on how he’s doing since he became one of the most feared and hated people to gun control advocates. And let me say that anyone who can make Chuck Schumer brown his pants is a friend in my book . . .

The first thing we wanted to know is if he’s worried about a possible stretch as a guest of the the federal government in one of their high security greybar hotels. Cody’s response: “I’m looking forward to it. It’ll give me time to catch up on my reading.”

As far as he’s concerned, the government might get him on any number of technicalities. Cody started listing the ways that Uncle Sam could justify putting him away, almost as if they were badges of honor — thumbing his nose at their attempts to control the proliferation of firearms. It fits well with the “crypto-anarchist” persona that he’s developed as his efforts with 3D printing have progressed.

Robert was concerned that Cody didn’t have a lawyer already on speed dial in the event of his arrest. We started spit-balling lawyers that might be interested in taking his case, and Cody wasn’t too impressed with any of them. Alan Gottleib was definitely a no-go. “Didn’t he support that Toomey-Manchin background check bill? No, f*** him.”

As the appetizers were being served we started talking about the gun itself, the Liberator, and its technical specifications. At the moment, the only working model is a smoothbore .380 caliber version that technically falls under the “Any Other Weapon” category of U.S. firearms law. Cody says there’s an alternate version available with rifling, but that the rifling would either not survive the first shot or the added pressure would split the barrel. He says he hasn’t tried yet, but based on his experience it won’t be effective. Translation: it won’t work with rifling.

We asked about shotgun shells, and apparently they’ve already tried — and failed. “There’s something about the rapidly expanding cartridge” that Cody says splits the barrel whenever they fire it. Either that, or the plastic wadding gets caught on the side of the barrel and obstructs it.

But the gun isn’t what the members of the mainstream media he’s talked to are most interested in discussing. They want to hear about the implications of the technology, and Cody says that’s exactly the way he wants it. “They all accept the premise,” he says, “that now that the gun is out there nothing can take it back. And that’s the way he wants it portrayed, as if it’s an unstoppable force that governments can’t control. That it has happened, and all there is to do now is watch the aftermath. Can’t stop the signal . . .

“I’ve talked to people who have walked into hacker spaces and seen a row of printers all printing Liberator parts,” Cody said as his roasted chicken dish was being placed in front of him. Hacker spaces are collaborative locations where exceedingly nerdy people get together, pool their money to buy equipment and space and experiment with technology, usually including 3D printers. Hacker spaces have popped up in cities across the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., London, Helsinki and Lisbon.

Cody says that there are even Liberators being printed in China right now, which is the reason that there’s a Simplified Chinese version of the “readme” (instruction) file in the download package. “I’m actually meeting a girl later tonight to translate it better.”

“The next big thing is getting a picture of one of these things printed out in another country,” Cody says. He says that he isn’t actively enticing people to break the law in other countries, but according to him a picture of a fully assembled Liberator in the middle of London isn’t far off. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if such a picture leaks out after he finishes his final exams this weekend.

As for his own future, Cody says that he’ll keep refining the design, but doesn’t want to stay in the limelight. Robert kept offering suggestions as to how to increase his profile and get more publicity for the project, but Cody says that he’s happy to melt back into the background once the furor dies down. But while the spotlight is still on him and his plastic fantastic, he seems to be having tons of fun debating the talking heads. Well, most of them. “I still have to decide if I want to go on Colbert,” he mentioned with some trepidation.

Doug the moderate...

Your too moderate Doug. The people at the heads of the organizations you represent are for full civilian disarmament. Hillary Clinton and Bloomberg types, New York and California would-be technocrats who have run their home states into the ground economically and social policy wise. They (the radical anti-gun apparatchiks) want to strip the citizens of the means to fight back so when the final days of reckoning occur (4% chance?) there won't be a reversal of the social pyramid. Also I dispute your figures re: death toll. But even if they were accurate, I would argue that certain types of freedom are worth the inherent risk and you should too. Also I think the majority of American citizens are gun owners, cause there is a lot of guns in this country okrrrrr? Also, I argue you don't really understand modern firearms precisely because you endow them with a kind of "half-life before each one kills someone" which is simply not the case at all. Yeah, firearms kill a few people, but even in the aggregate it's not that many persons and certainly nowhere near other socially tolerated forms of death (smoking, obesity, etc) and owning a gun doesn't mean you will have mortality rates similar to someone who is habituated to tobacco or even someone who eats lots of red and processed meats because those people are def. going to get bladder cancer, colon, or pancreatic cancer like what killed Patrick Swayze. True story. (I can provide all the links you need to rigorous scientific study to back up that eating certain forms of food will give you cancer. In the hopes that you will opt out of the factory meat consumption illusion in this country perpetrated to keep you fat, depressed, and unable to resist the fatal demands of predatory individualism in late stage capitalism). As for your hopes of a future where firearms are in decline as a matter of the public's fascination and ability to acquire, defcad.org and defcad.com stand in opposition to such a scenario. Human beings have a natural right to determine the course of their own safety even in opposition to the presumed safety and stability of the herd.

On Background checks...

Increasing background checks is a covert means of denying the franchise a priori, at this point it can not be separated from the radical political agenda that seeks total civilian disarmament which is today the LEADERSHIP of the anti-gun potemkin villages (MAIG, etc). It can not be separated because the means by which this system of expanded background checks is said to be enacted is from the top down, at the "Federal" level, made in the sausage factory of beltway insiders and New York money lenders to close the "iron collars" around the great toiling masses of little people. More reason? It sounds to me like more paternalism, less state's rights, the agenda leading us towards one big dull grey North American Union.

Liberator - Dawn of the Wiki Weapons

Culture War taking toll on Jon Stewart

Good to see the bitterness of the culture war is taking it's toll on a decadent like Jon Stewart. He looks haggard, and his voice is increasingly shrill. He is losing his edge.

It's easy to point out the litany of contradictions and absurd arm chair political claims of Fox News pundits. But if this is true then it is even more so for the absurd and vile nonsense spewed by MSNBC, CNN, and others. Not to mention the dirty secret that the tiger-lily socialists and hipster college crowd liberals are just as much in favor of a police state as the corrupt conservative quarters in this country.

The fact of the matter is both sides have effectively done away with much of the protections and rights afforded in the US constitution. Through some strange twist of fate, the 2A is one of the few or even only remaining amendments that actually means anything by this date, but as we know too well they are working furiously to change that. I myself am not a strict constitutionalist having been turned by the likes of Lysander Spooner, and much to the chagrin of the gun-grabbing pundits.

Jon Stewart cherry picks his own amendments for that matter. In his heart of hearts he hates the idea that "little people" can defend themselves with firearms while rich Hollywood liberal elites like him have to pay for armed security (no fair!). Jon Stewart is a hypocrite in every regard when and where he has spoken about firearms and firearm access in American society.
April 27 at 3:31pm · Like

In response to "Rise of the conservative revolutionaries" by David Sirota

I am simply unconvinced that there is even a subject here waiting in the wings of the title "conservative revolutionaries." Where are these so-called revolutionaries? Are they really so eager to cast aside what remains of their pensions and benefits? I sincerely doubt the tea-party faithful are literally up in arms over the course of current events, although they may possess arms in any event. How does the revolution get started? Is it a bloody revolution? Will there be a party vanguard? Can the author answer any of these questions with specifics?

Rather I think this article serves to cater to the antagonism and left-of-center-brand-fear-mongering needs of a section of the liberal intelligentsia who are content to issue such proclamations of outrage from their arm chairs. Are we to believe that David Sirota is making a serious foray into the realm of revolutionary theory? I do not think the author's claims deserve much attention. Revolutionary theory as applied to the US must take into consideration the different historical (postmodern?) circumstances of our period. The revolution, if there is to be any such mobilization of society at all, must occur a posteriori as a result of a precipitating event, and not as part of a broad base, grass roots mobilization of the population based on specific grievances of political slogans. We do not know what form this precipitating event will take or even if it will occur.

The idea this article presents that white males, and I count myself among their number, would ever rise up against the central government (which is itself the construct and wholly operated subsidiary of white male, inc.) is absurd not least because it presupposes that white males value some thing over convenience which en mass they do not. It should not be forgotten that white males were the first of our species to be pulled through the post modern strainer of nihilism. This process leaves them completely devoid of belief, except what is minimally necessary for them to carry out their day to day tasks in earning a living (animal faith, fear?). In other words, there is no will, there is no spirit of revolution in the US and there never will be. There is, in this country almost universally, only the desire to watch TV and go back to sleep and that is why the US will never have a social revolution as a result of some internal political awakening.

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