Gentlemen, I wanted to share the above broadcast on a relatively new technology. The interview is by Glenn Beck of Cody Wilson who has developed a means whereby one can make their own weapon with a 3-D plastic rendering device. The plans can be downloaded and according to him, you simply press “print” on your machine and it renders the actual gun from hard plastic.
I’m a gun enthusiast but not a technician. I have a colleague who was the head of a major gun manufacturer and he told me some years ago he was approached by a gun designer who presented the first plastic gun. They tested it and indeed it fired. Then my colleague had asked the designer to place it in the freezer for a few hours. After about 4 hours he took it out and struck it with a hammer and the weapon cracked and fragmented. Perhaps now they have advanced polymers to withstand more extreme temperatures. I also think there has to be some other components made of metal and some kind of additional know-how is required to get a fully functional weapon. That plus one has to wonder how long a life it would have and no doubt it could not stand up against the life of a classic AK-47, or any other gun made of metal.
So it is more than a matter of simply pushing the “print” button on a 3D printer and out pops a ready combat pistol or rifle. It is worth noting however, that evolving technology is making it easier for the average person to manufacture a weapon. And for a quick, short McCivil war, being able to make a defense mechanism in a pinch is a very convenient thing. Just imagine 50 years from now how much easier it will be to make a gun in the home from scratch, assuming you have all the specs. The issue of patents and intellectual property also came into question with regards to this way of making firearms. This is very much the same issues that the record and movie industries have to deal with.
There other items addressed were the things that the interviewee stated. In the video at 4:50, time-marker Wilson states “We see liberty under threat, we see sovereignty under threat” which was followed by radio silence. For Beck’s sake he could not respond to Wilson’s remark because although there is supposedly the freedom of speech in America, to actually state something that would either advocate violence or suggest supporting the undoing of government would mean the cancellation of his show and an American gulag for him to rot in for a while. Again Beck was very reserved at at 6:31 when Wilson then stated “Process is not the way to preserve liberty.”
In the final analysis it is people that determine the peace of their society. On one hand, lunatics can get a gun and wreak havoc, but on the other hand if the general populous in Hitler Germany had access to weapons I still think the holocaust would have happened, but the average person would have had a much better chance to either escape or fight back. It’s interesting that consumer friendly technologies are becoming a mitigating factor in the gun control issue, as well as changing the theater in society’s struggle between freedom vs. chaos.
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