Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Even if we are ultimately successful in passing new gun legislation, it may prove completely useless in the face of new technology.

Courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

The world's first 3D-printed gun, called "the Liberator," was successfully fired in Texas this weekend, according to Fox News. 

Defense Distributed, an Austin, Texas-based company led by 24-year-old law student Cody Wilson and several others that market 3D printed firearms and firearm components, or “Wiki Weapons,” on Thursday posted a new video online showing a plastic gun being fired. A blueprint file is expected to be available for download today. 

"I recognize that this tool might be used to harm people," Wilson said, according to Fox News. "That’s what it is -- it’s a gun. But I don’t think that’s a reason to not put it out there. I think that liberty in the end is a better interest."

"Liberty in the end is a better interest."

The liberty to do what exactly? Find a way to get your hands on weapons that cannot be traced by the government?

Exactly what type of person would fear the government knowing that they have weapons?

Certainly NOT somebody who should have those weapons, that much is clear.

You know the Tsarnaev brothers were able to terrorize an entire city with materials they learned how to make by surfing the internet. Just imagine how much more damage they could have caused if many of those bomb making components could have been printed off of a 3-D printer and assembled in their house along with assault weapons to fend off law enforcement?

As much as I love technology, and dislike government intrusion, I think this is definitely something that the government needs to take a long hard look at.

34 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:54 AM

    Texas... what a surprise.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous3:22 AM

    Cody Willaims is not for liberty, he is for his own personal profit. He seems to lack an ethical or moral internal guide. Amoral people like him fail to think about the consequences of what they do. Wait, upon consideration, he must know right from wrong because he is already building his argument that liberty trumps the public good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cody Williams is only demonstrating the pinnacle of capitalistic and Republican values.

      Make a lot of money.

      He's a creative entrepreneur dontchaknow. Just think of all the jobs he's going to create with his new toy.

      I think high school graduates should strongly consider a career in undertaking.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous3:44 AM

    I will bet we get legislation against home made gun making very quickly. The NRA will be all for this bill....after all, they do represent the gun makers. They will not stand for it. Maybe we could get that in the new background check bill and it will pass.

    Tennessee Blue

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't read the comments till I posted mine. You and I are definitely on the same page. It could be a blessing in disguise.

      Delete
    2. Like a law is going to prevent criminals from making their own 3D guns. If you outlaw the public from making their own guns, then only criminals will have them.

      Right, LaPierre?

      Delete
  4. fromthediagonal4:15 AM

    Liberty to do WHAT?!?!
    Kill in the name of Kommerce.
    Oh, the obscenity of it all.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am tired of the co-opting of the terms "liberty" and "freedom" by angry, bigoted, misogynistic, sexually insecure misanthropes.

    With freedom and liberty come responsibilities and obligations. With the benefits of civilization come the responsibilities and obligations to society.

    What these horrible "people" have is the emotional and intellectual development of a toddler screaming no, no, no, and mine, mine, mine, and drumming their heels on the floor in the grocery store shrieking that they want it right now.

    Time to take this country back from these animals.

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  6. Anonymous5:08 AM

    I can't wait to hear what Cody Williams has to say for himself when a guy with a felony domestic violence conviction makes this gun and kills his wife.

    Freeeeedummmbbbbb!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll be waiting for the gangs to buy their own printer, then leave these guns at the scenes of their drive bys.

      Delete
    2. I'm terrified that someone will kill our President with one of these.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous5:12 AM

    Early in the day Harry Reid tried, once again, to pursue “regular order” and appoint Senate negotiators to iron out major budget differences with reluctant House Republicans in a conference committee. That request went unaddressed for hours, until near close of business when Ted Cruz showed up to register an official objection. More precisely he said he’d be fine with going to conference, so long as Dems agreed in advance to make it make it effectively impossible to use the budget process to increase either taxes or the debt limit.

    Like saying ‘surrender now, then we’ll be happy to fight.’

    Reid of course laughed the idea off as “ridiculous.” He actually called Cruz a bully.

    But more on that later.

    The best part actually came at the end of the exchange when a visibly annoyed Cruz tried to stick up for himself, in contravention of the rules of Senate debate, and Reid shut him down.

    Watch:

    http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/05/harry_reid_smacks_down_schoolyard_bully_ted_cruz_b.php?ref=fpb

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous6:13 AM

    Harry Reid Calls Ted Cruz A 'Schoolyard Bully' On The Senate Floor

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) shot down an objection from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) Monday, calling him a "schoolyard bully" for trying to insert instructions into Senate budget negotiations that would prohibit raising taxes or the debt ceiling.

    "My friend from Texas is like a schoolyard bully," Reid said. "He pushes everybody around and is losing, and instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him but changes the rules. That way no one wins except the bully who tries to indicate to people he has won. We’re asking Republicans to play by the rules and let us go to conference."

    "I object too, but what my friend suggests is fairly ridiculous if you want the truth -- before we go to conference determine what you do and not do in the conference, that's not how we do things around here," he continued.

    Cruz responded, "I wasn't aware we were in a schoolyard."

    "There's either an objection or no objection," Reid shot back. "We've had enough of reserving the right to object."

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/harry-reid-ted-cruz_n_3228861.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. If one of my friends or family were maimed or murdered by one of these weapons because the assailant was able to bypass a background check or other regulation I'd have NO compunction about tracking down this scum and killing him. Removing him from the human gene pool would be a cause for celebration.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous6:33 AM

    On his Comedy Central show last night, Stephen Colbert mocked conservative theories about an impending federal ammunitions buyout by pretending the threat was real and that he needed to stock up immediately.

    In a segment entitled “Stephen Colbert’s Batshit Serious,” the host faux-descended into paranoia as he listened to various conservative talk radio hosts and news outlets analyze a report that the Department of Homeland Security intended to purchase up to 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.

    Despite the “buyout theories” being debunked, Colbert said, that doesn’t stop folks like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin from seeing the news as a sign that the government is prepping for a battle with its own citizens. “The government is buying up ammo so that following the economic collapse, they can outgun the American people,” Colbert parroted. “And they need it. ‘Cause right now all they’ve got are tanks, airplanes, helicopters, Predator drones, nuclear missiles and laser cannons. But, if I get my hands on a box of shotgun shells, it is go time, Uncle Fatty.”

    The threat of Obama buying up ammunition to make guns useless won’t be the end of this sort of strategic maneuvering, Colbert theorized.

    “If Obama can’t take our guns, he’ll make sure you can’t put anything in them,” he said. “After that, he’s gonna come after Rush [Limbaugh] by buying up all the hookers and canned frosting.”

    Watch the segment below, via Comedy Central:


    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/colbert-after-obama-comes-for-guns-hes-going-after-limbaugh-by-taking-hookers-and-canned-frosting/

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous6:38 AM

    Jon Stewart Tears Apart NRA’s False Choice Between Freedom And ‘Obama-Sponsored Government Mom Rape’

    Jon Stewart opened Monday night’s edition of The Daily Show by looking back at the weekend’s NRA convention and its not-so-singular focus on guns. With Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and others in attendance, Stewart realized, “this is the same lineup, with the same laundry list of conservative grievances, that we saw at CPAC a month and a half ago.”

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-stewart-tears-apart-nras-false-choice-between-freedom-and-obama-sponsored-government-mom-rape/

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous6:38 AM

    O’Donnell Excoriates Wayne LaPierre For Using Boston Bombing To Push Guns On ‘Relentlessly Ignorant’ NRA

    “How many Bostonians wish they had a gun two weeks ago?” That’s the question Wayne LaPierre asked during his NRA convention speech on Saturday. And it was a question that drew the sharp rebuke of MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who used his “Rewrite” segment to dismantle the inherent argument within it.

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/odonnell-excoriates-wayne-lapierre-for-using-boston-bombing-to-push-guns-on-relentlessly-ignorant-nra/

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  13. Anonymous6:56 AM

    The gun literally looks like a toy.

    And, anyone can build the gun without the piece that allows metal detectors to pick it up.

    I guess we all know why Cody Williams is currently a law student.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous7:28 AM

    I heard about this technology on a radio show several months ago; later I saw a TV clip about it and was chilled to the bone.

    This is so wrong. If there are laws against relatively harmless things like jaywalking, or playing loud music after 10pm, why aren't there laws against stuff like making this kind of destructive technology so easily available?

    From what I've heard about it, one doesn't even need gobs of money to acquire the appropriate technology to do this. This is so scary... I remember thinking as I watched this, "So what good will gun laws do then?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can see the gangs right now, saving their drug money to get their very own 3D printer. Then they can make all the untraceable guns they want.

      Not to mention the terrorists. I can see them going beyond guns and making their own bomb parts.

      Delete
  15. Just wait, the NRA is going to blow a gasket over this. We all know they are the lobbyist for the gun manufactures.

    The gun folks are not going to take kind to this, so now key the music for the republicans to start hollering because their bitch mom who they take orders from is going rabid.

    Now this guy that came up with this can use the same shit we have been listening to from the NRA on the NRA. I wish I could see the NRA and the big manufactures right now I bet they are popping blood pressure pills and eating antacids.

    I agree this is not a good thing on the gun but it actually might be a blessing in disguise.

    ReplyDelete
  16. The liberty to take a gun on a plane or into a courthouse because detectors can't spot it?

    Gee, I don't think so.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous11:19 AM

    Adult Not-So-Supervision: 3 Year-Old And 7 Year-Old Killed In Vastly Different Gun Incidents

    ...There’s a cold-hearted argument to be made that if a parent is willing to assume the risk on behalf of their own child, then they ought to be able to do so. Set aside, for a moment, the question of whether this is even fair to those children, or the fact that the risk isn’t just to their own children. What if those parents don’t understand the risks, either? Everyone thinks their own guns are safe, until they aren’t.

    One parent who, apparently, didn’t understand the risks was Dr. Charles Bizilj, whose 8 year-old son, Christopher, shot and killed himself at a machine gun shoot in 2008. At the trial of Edward Fleury, the former police chief who organized the event, jurors were shown video of the shooting. In the following (very difficult-to-watch) news report, an edited version of that video is shown, which stops short of the fatal shot. Christopher Bizilj‘s father is shooting the video, while a 15 year-old instructor supervises the child. They’re at a firing range, and the instructor has both hands on Christopher, and the result is still tragic:

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/adult-not-so-supervision-3-year-old-and-7-year-old-killed-in-vastly-different-gun-incidents/

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous11:26 AM

    More:

    Dr. Charles Bizilj stood 10 feet behind his son this weekend at a "Machine Gun Shoot" in Westfield, where the third grader aimed an Uzi at a pumpkin in the distance.

    As Bizilj reached for his camera, the boy clutched the gun in his arms and squeezed the trigger. The Uzi flipped backwards and 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj fatally shot himself in the head.

    “It was all a blur,” Dr. Charles Bizilj said this afternoon in a telephone interview. “I’m still in the grieving process.”

    Christopher was accompanied by a trained professional as he held the 9-mm Micro Uzi machine gun at the Westfield Sportsman's Club Sunday afternoon, but Bizilj said he doesn’t think the shooting guide was holding the weapon as his son pressed the trigger.

    “This accident was truly a mystery to me,” he said. “This is a horrible event, a horrible travesty, and I really don’t know why it happened. I don’t think it’s relevant that he wasn’t holding the weapon.”

    He said his son, a third grader who loved to hike and bike, had experience firing handguns and rifles. But he said this was the first time he had fired an automatic weapon.

    "I gave permission for him to fire the Uzi,” Bizilj said. “I watched several other children and adults use it. It’s a small weapon, and Christopher was comfortable with guns. There were larger machine guns with much more recoil, and we avoided those.”

    http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/10/police_identify_6.html

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:31 PM

      Stupid and entirely unavoidable. This father (is he an MD???) failed his son. My daughter is just about this poor boy's age. She cut herself with scissors a couple months ago so badly, she almost needed stitches. Anyone who would trust an 8 year old with a deadly weapon of this magnitude and killing power...I have no words.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:32 PM

      I just read that this happened a couple years ago and that Bizij and his wife divorced over the incident. Bizij claims the gun malfunctioned (I guess guns DO kill people after all).

      Delete
    3. Anonymous8:34 AM

      Four months after his 8-year-old son Christopher Bizilj died a ghastly death at a machine gun exposition, Dr. Charles D. Bizilj reduced his grief to writing.

      He published “One Road Out: Heal After the Sudden Loss of a Loved One,” a step-by-step guide to wading through the grieving process. It is dedicated to his son, Christopher, who accidentally shot himself in the head with what his family contends was a malfunctioned 9 mm Micro Uzi , an Israeli-designed submachine gun his father paid to let him experiment with at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club in October 2008.

      The book, which retails on Amazon.com for $24, became fodder for a criminal defense lawyer for former Pelham police chief Edward B. Fleury, who sponsored the annual machine gun shoot, touted as both a lark for gun-lovers and a firearms safety exercise.

      Fleury is on trial for involuntary manslaughter in Hampden Superior Court as a result.

      Charles Bizilj was one of the prosecution’s prime witnesses on Thursday, describing for jurors the hot anticipation he and his two sons had for the family outing that day and the horrible scene which ensued.

      Bizilj testified at times with his eyes closed, conjuring up the mundane images of the day: the sun high in the sky when they left their Ashford, Conn., home to travel to Westfield; the fallen leaves on the ground at the sportsmen’s club; the jacket his 8-year-old wore to the event.

      His ex-wife, Suzanne, sat in the gallery of the courtroom through much of the testimony. The couple divorced over the incident, lawyers familiar with the case confirmed.

      Under questioning by special prosecutor William M. Bennett, the doctor described the instant when his son suffered the fatal wound at his own hand while he was shooting a video from about 10 feet away.

      Charles Bizilj was virtually docile under cross-examination by Fleury’s attorney, Rosemary Curran Scapicchio, who used a lighter touch with the boy’s father than with other witnesses. She nonetheless prodded Bizilj to admit the family had reached a $700,000 out-of-court settlement with the suppliers of the gun and ammunition they leased at the expo, and that he had, in fact, published a book.

      Bennett, however, was quick to invite the father to point out where he intended the settlement money to go.

      Bizilj told jurors that he plans to start a foundation in Christopher’s name with the money, to finance otherwise unattainable adventures for underprivileged children.

      “I want children to be able to do some of the things Chris was able to do in his life,” he testified.

      At the child’s funeral on Oct. 30, 2008, Charles Bizilj told mourners that he and his sons had hiked Alaskan glaciers, mined precious gems in Nevada and learned to request gelato in Italian before Christopher died. The machine gun expo was yet another adventure, but one which went horribly wrong.

      “Christopher lived a lifetime in his short eight years. Susie and I have no regrets,” he said, as he eulogized his son.

      But, the doctor’s own words in his self-published book suggest otherwise.

      “Among trillions of galaxies, on the edge of our Milky Way, rotating around one star on a watery planet with over six billion people, you stand numb and alone following the loss of someone you loved,” the foreword begins...

      http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/01/christopher_bizilj_father_settlement_money.html

      Delete
  19. Anonymous11:44 AM

    Tom Coburn Pushes Gun Amendment On Water Resources Bill

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/tom-coburn-gun-amendment_n_3231172.html

    ReplyDelete
  20. Rachel Maddow has been covering these guys. This is such a disturbing development. Congress needs to get off their butts and do some major legislation/regulation of this technology asap.
    M from MD

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  21. Rachel Maddow has been covering these guys. This is beyond disturbing. The government needs to regulate the hell out of this before someone does something truly terrible.
    M from MD

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous5:43 PM

    Your Kids Are Already Playing With Your Guns

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/your-kids-are-already-playing-with-your-guns/

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anita Winecooler6:41 PM

    I've seen this being discussed before on Rachel and a few other programs awhile back, but I thought there was some way to make them traceable, apparently I was mistaken. I suppose this is another Pandora's box that's been opened. Why can't they find a way to use this for good (prostetics, body organs, etc).
    Why do gun enthusiast's right to "liberty" override everyone else's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anita Winecooler9:44 PM

    Just found this link, it expounds on the plastic gun, and this idiot's "libertarian" in quotes views.

    Lou Dobbs, as usual is an ass. Via Media Matters.

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/05/08/amazing-foxs-dobbs-promotes-plastic-printable-a/193955

    ReplyDelete

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