WEBVTT - Printing a Gun 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.040 Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from how 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:16.160 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.079 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren, And today we wanted 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.040 to talk about a kind of controversial subject, something that 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.680 hit the news in early May of the idea of 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:30.160 using three D printers to print handguns, because someone's gone 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.879 and done that crazy thing, and to talk about what 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.000 the ramifications are, what the what, what was actually the gun? 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.239 And uh? And why are people concerned? And what are 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.000 the various things we need to take into account. But 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.120 before we get into all of that, I think it 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.239 benefits us to talk a little bit about three D 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.040 printing in general, just in case you aren't familiar with 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.519 the concept. Right and now, Jonathan and Chris did an 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.160 episode on three D printing way back in two thou nine. Yeah, 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:59.640 that was shortly after printing itself was invented. Um before that, 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.480 we just communicated by banging rocks together. No one was 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:07.160 alive then, yeah, well there was no no life. We 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:09.880 were alive, but anyway, no, no, no, no, no. We 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:11.800 did an episode on three D printing back in two 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:13.440 thousand nine, which was funny because at that point I 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.959 had never actually seen one in person. Now we have 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:18.760 one in the ophant, we have one in the office. Now. Yeah, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.040 we actually have a three D printer here that's very 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.160 very tiny and we can only print small stuff with it. 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.880 But it's mostly green because we haven't changed out the plastic. 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.160 But what three D printers do. They print stuff in 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.680 three dimensions and they it's called additive manufacturing, yes, and 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.800 it's this is different from subtractive manufacturing. Subtractive would be 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.720 where you take a hunk of stuff and carve away 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.240 all the stuff you don't want. It's Michael Angelo's David exactly. Yeah, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.320 you're you're you cut away everything that doesn't look like David. Right. 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.200 That's that's the sculpt sculpting point of view. You know, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.680 to sculpt an elephant, you cut all the stuff away 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.680 that doesn't look like an elephant. But that's very wasteful. 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:57.920 It means that all that material you cut away you 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.760 potentially waste. By using editor of manufacturing, you're printing material. 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.320 In most cases, in consumer cases at any rate, plastics 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.840 in very thin layers uh in in in a predetermined 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:13.320 design exactly, and these layers can be a micron thick 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.720 or thinner if you've got very precise three D printing technology, 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.799 and you do this layer by layer by layer until 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.360 finally you have a full object. And it's doing this 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.760 with plastic and a binding agents so that the plastic 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.960 sticks together properly. Otherwise it would just fall apart and 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.800 crumble in your hands. But not not so useful. Useful. 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:35.520 It would be very pretty until you try to pick 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.640 it up. But the but the finished product winds up 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:42.200 being a single piece of plastic in this case. Yeah, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.720 and we've got other there are other types of three 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.880 D printers out there. They're not for consumers that can 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.040 print in other materials. And we expect then the future 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:51.560 we're going to be able to do things like print 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.720 and metal, even to the point where we can print 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.120 circuit boards or human organs. Human organs using biological material 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.520 we can print it maybe glass, anything that would allow 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.280 you to print using a liquid. Uh, it would it 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.160 would all be potentially possible using this method. If you're 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.160 interested in that. We uh. In our other show, Forward Thinking, 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.520 we talked a little bit about that, So so look 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:14.880 that one up if you want to. Yeah, it's a 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:16.480 lot of fun. That was one of the earliest episodes 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.960 I had a lot of fun talking about that. So 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.200 what's the big deal with three D printing? Well, it's 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:26.560 it's an incredibly disruptive technology. Uh. And I don't necessarily 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:28.919 mean that in a negative way, but it does mean 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.799 that three D printers have the potential to really shake 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.600 up the way the world works in many ways, like 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.360 manufacturing and distribution in particular would be very much affected 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.360 by three D printers. If you get to the point 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.840 where a three D printer is within the purchasing range 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.640 of your average computer user, then that computer user can 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.520 go out by a three D printer, bring it home 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.040 by the materials you need to be able to build whatever, 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.720 and then you can start constructing stuff out of your home. 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:00.120 You could download plans from the internet and build things. 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.880 And those things could be furniture, it could be toys, 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.640 it could be tools. Uh. And so that means that 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.880 you've got these manufacturers out there who design and build 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.600 stuff that suddenly have to worry about, well, is there 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.200 going to even be a market for my stuff anymore? 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.000 Or do I do I change my business models? So 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.600 instead of selling stuff, I start selling plans for stuff. Right, 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.560 you start worrying a lot more about the intellectual copyright 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:26.960 of of the shape of a table, which is kind 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.520 of crazy, right, Like, you're no longer thinking I need 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.760 to make sure no one shoplifts this thing. You're thinking, 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.200 I need to make sure no one builds a plan 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.400 that allows them to to print the same as this thing. Right. So, 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.360 there are a lot of intellectual property concerns that come 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.400 up because of three D printing, and some of them 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:46.919 are concerns that we never would have thought about before, 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.400 like how do you copyright a table? You know, but 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.480 that's a thing now. So one of the other questions 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.320 that came up pretty early on when three D printers 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:00.279 were starting to become uh, something that the general public 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.760 was becoming aware of was what happens when someone prints 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.120 a weapon using one of these things. And for a 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:07.719 long time, a lot of people are going like, oh, 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.680 that's years off, we don't need to worry about it. Yeah. 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:12.840 Maybe back in two thousand nine Chris and I were 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.880 saying that, but two thirteen, hey, we're years off now 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:19.760 and someone has done that. Ye as of as of 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.440 May four, Star Wars Day, Star Wars Day, it was 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.599 what a what a bummer? Yeah, that's a nice choice 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.000 of words. There, Lauren, I could see you like going 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.280 through your list. What word am I going to use? Uh? 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.680 Excellent choice. I agree. So we have a fellow by 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.680 the name of Cody Wilson who describes himself as a 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:47.880 co founder and chief evangelist of a group called Defense Distributed. 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.320 Very clever. Yeah, it's a nonprofit organization. Yeah, And he 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:57.200 he designed a gun that could be created using a 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.320 three D printer and a common naw uh from a 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:06.200 hardware store. And the gun is has sixteen pieces total, 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.520 one of those pieces being the nail. The other fifteen 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.840 are all printed by a three D printer, a consumer grade. 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.680 I think he got it for eight thousand bucks on eBay. Yeah, 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.279 it was the Stratusist Dimension s ST three D printer, 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.880 which you could probably buy for a round ten thousand dollars. 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.560 He got a secondhand for eight thousand. And we'll get 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.800 more into the whole story of Stratisis and and it's 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.440 involvement in this, because it's an interesting part of the story, 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.159 but we'll save that for a bit later. So he 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.760 printed out these fifteen pieces. He got the nail to 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.640 be the sixteenth piece. The nail acted as the firing pin. 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.040 Now this is the part of a gun that strikes 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:50.120 the primer on cartridge so that it ignites, and then 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.400 the gases from the cartridge are what propelled the bullet 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.320 out of the barrel of the gun. Now it doesn't 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.560 technically need to be metal but um, but the kind 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.600 of plastic that they use is just a little bit 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.919 too off to to strike it without deforming. Right. So 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.120 essentially what would happen is the instead of igniting the gas, 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.760 the firing pin was just sort of bending. So instead 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.400 of using that, he decided to use a nail uh 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.480 and uh and putting it all together. He wasn't even 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.520 sure if it was going to hold together or not, 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.600 but he assembled the gun using the pieces that he 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:26.320 had designed um. And he strapped it up to a 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.080 pole as I recall, and an aluminum a little bit 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.680 of scaffolding I think, okay, and uh, And he tied 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.600 a string to it and instead as far away as possible, right, 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.560 and used the string to pull the trigger uh and 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:43.080 had a successful test. It actually fired the bullet uh 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.480 and was and it remained intact. Um. That's one of 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:48.080 the things that was a big concern was that if 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.320 you have a gun that's essentially made out of plastic, 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.400 would it be able to withstand the the forces that 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.080 a gun experiences when you fire a bullet, And in 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.840 the case of this one, it seemed to do that. 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:06.520 And he also eventually tested it by firing it by hand. Um, 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.240 you know, it took some took some working up to 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.880 get to that part, right right. Yeah, during the initial test, 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.800 I believe they had a couple of successful firings. But um, 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.440 but then it it misfired, um, due to a misalignment issue. 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.880 And uh yeah yeah. Now they point out that the 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.520 gun that as it's designed, you could actually remove the 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.480 barrel and replace it with a new barrel. So uh, 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.080 if there were parts that were that would break down, 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.480 you could actually replace those parts just by printing out 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:40.120 new ones. But the gun itself wouldn't last for more 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.000 than a few shots. In fact, one expert I saw 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.120 said that, in his opinion, if you were using the 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.720 best kind of plastic possible, you might be able to 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.320 get between ten and twenty shots. Before it just was 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.720 an unusable machine. Yeah, although, yeah, it is designed so 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.160 that you can snap parts in and out right, so 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.600 you just replace the ones that are not working anymore, 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.400 and then you could continue to fire, and it's supposed 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:10.280 to be relatively quickly to switch those parts out too. Uh. Well, 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.920 what Wilson also did was he ended up uploading the 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:19.000 design to Mega, which is kim dot COM's file sharing 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.280 It's really like a locker service where you can store files. 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.679 They're encrypted so that no one can see what it 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.120 is that you are doing. Um. He uploaded that and 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.000 made it freely available to anyone who wanted to get 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:34.360 hold of this. Within two days, ten thousand people had 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.439 downloaded it, and as of the recording of this podcast, 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:42.240 we're recording this on May nine. Forbes reported this morning 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.679 that it had been downloaded more than one hundred thousand times. Now, 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.160 keep in mind, not everyone who downloaded that has access 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:51.840 to a three D printer. All Right, I'm sure that 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:53.600 a lot of that is curiosity. There has been so 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:55.480 much buzz about it on the Internet that I'm sure 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:57.319 that a lot of people were just looking at it 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.160 because they could. Yeah, I'm sure there's a percentage of that. 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.439 That's just the press that we need to have access 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.160 to this so we can take a look at it. 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.600 But uh, and if you're curious about what kind of 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.240 bullet it fired, it was a thirty eight caliber bullet. 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:16.160 Uh and uh he they I've read that they've designed 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:17.760 the gun in such a way that you could change 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.960 out the chamber and barrel, which you could fire different 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.640 caliber bullets depending upon which ones you were using. But 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.360 thirty eight was what they used for their tests. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.800 they're for their successful tests. According to a Forbes Andy Greenberg, 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:31.720 who was on the scene for some of these tests 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.320 and has a couple of really great articles that we 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.400 did drawn extensively for for this podcast. Um, they switched 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.920 the barrel out for a rifle cartridge that made the 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.600 entire thing explode into trapnel. Now what was the name 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:48.360 of this gun? They're calling it the Liberator? Yeah, this 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.320 this might be something that history buffs recognized from World 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.520 War Two. Um. During World War Two, the Allies, specifically 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.360 the United States, I believe, Yeah, they manufactured these one 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.800 shot forty five. There were one shot pistols, meaning that 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.200 you could fire them once and then that's it. It's 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:06.760 just not designed to shoot more than one time. And 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:09.920 the whole the whole purpose of this was to drop 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:14.679 these forty five behind enemy lines and occupied territories occupied France, 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:18.080 right the idea being that that the French population would 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.000 suddenly have access to weapons, but you can only fire 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.400 at once. It really wasn't a practical weapon. In fact, 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.320 I don't think that the Allies ever considered it to 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.800 be something that would allow a real tied to turn. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.360 It was more of an attempt to demoralize the Access 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:37.920 powers rather than to actually foment some form of revolution. 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.280 And propaganda was was a really interesting technology that was 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.120 used in World War Two. Yeah, so this is one 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.160 of those examples of propaganda that don't doesn't involve like 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.520 a song or a poster or a movie. It was 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:50.400 actually an act, and in this case, it was an 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:56.080 act of distributing uh, weapons of limited use to an 0:11:56.080 --> 0:12:00.400 occupied country. And from what I understand, and it doesn't 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.280 look like it doesn't look like all of them or 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.959 even most of them were ever actually distributed. It was 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.199 a little bit of contention about whether or not they 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.720 were and to whom and when and how many, but 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.839 and from why I understand most of them without every 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.200 But anyway, Wilson apparently wanted to to take that name, 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.440 and uh, it kind of goes along with his philosophy. 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.920 But his philosophy is interesting We will cover that in 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.120 this episode, but I think we're going to save that 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:33.880 for the end because it's it's pretty it's pretty dynamic. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.280 It is dynamic. It's intense, is what it is. So yeah, 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.800 a hundred thousand folks around or at least a hundred 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.760 thousand people have downloaded these plans as of the recruding 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.040 this podcast. By the time this publishes, I'm sure that 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.480 number will be way bigger. YEA. Yeah, well, I mean 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.880 it's you could have everyone just lose interest, but I 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.680 don't think that's going to happen with this particular product. So, uh, 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.920 that's that's where the actual logistics are. That's you know 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:02.760 what the state of the gun is. This gun, by 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:04.640 the way, if you ever have if you haven't seen 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.960 a picture of it, it looks really clunky and it 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:09.920 has to be because that plastic has to be pretty 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.559 thick to withstand the pressures. And we'll talk more about 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.520 what those actually are in the in the next section. 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.360 But um, it's not a sleek weapon by any means. 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.400 It is not, no, no, and I mean you know 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.000 the kind of plastics that are that are being used 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:25.640 are Um, it's it's a B S which is a 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.240 chrylum nitrial bet to dyeing styrene um. It's a it's 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.760 a thermoplastic blend. It's used in lots of everyday items 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.520 like like molded tool handles, electric shavers, lego bricks are 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.760 made of this stuff. So wow, And we'll talk a 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.680 little bit about why that causes a concern, you know, 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:45.520 the materials used. But before we really get into the 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.640 concerns and and you know, the philosophy of of Cody 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:53.559 Wilson and other elements and the response that we've seen 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.600 so far, and these are early days when we're recording this, 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.000 I think we need to take a quick break. Oh, 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.640 getting back into the subject at hand. There are a 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.080 lot of concerns that come up with this idea of 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.200 being able to print a gun at home. Some of 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.160 these you might think of as knee jerk responses that 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.319 that don't take everything into account, But I think there 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.000 are some concerns that are you can't just dismiss easily. 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.160 One is that if you're talking about a plastic gun, 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.640 let's say that a plastic gun is being used in 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.080 a crime. Uh, the concern is that you wouldn't really 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.280 be able to trace that gun back. You know, guns 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.160 right now have these grooves that are in the barrels 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.160 so that when you fire the bullet, it makes the 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.520 bullets start to spin, giving it more stability, but it 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.760 also ends up carving uh into the specific pattern. Yeah, 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.360 and so by looking at the pattern, you can identify, 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.040 depending on how what shape the bullets in, you can 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.600 identify the type of firearm that fired that bullet. If 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:55.560 you're talking about a smooth barreled plastic gun, there's no 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:58.360 way of telling. And even if it had some sort 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.240 of grooves in it, you could design those in such 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.880 a way where it's unique to your gun, but without 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.560 anyone being able to tell. But it could be designed. 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:08.760 It could be literally unique to your gun. No one 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.560 would know where to even start looking for that, because 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:13.280 if it's all just a file on your computer, how 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.480 would how would anyone know unless they're already watching you. 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:18.360 I'm not even gonna get into that because I think 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.360 that's what fuels the whole Liberator in the first place. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.240 But the you know, that's that's the concerns that if 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.360 it was used in a crime, it would be very difficult, 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:31.480 if not impossible, to trace back. Uh. They're also undetectable, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:33.720 meaning that if you only have a tiny amount of 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.840 metal in them and you go through a metal detector, 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.080 the metal detector may not it might not pick up 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.880 that mail. Yeah. Now, now, in this case, Cody Wilson 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:45.120 was actually very careful about following the letter, if not 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.120 at all the spirit of the law in the creation 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.680 of this he um uh. He took his company to 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:55.080 the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.440 order to get a federal license to manufacture and distribute firearms, 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:04.400 and furthermore, put a small metal cube at completely non 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.880 functional six ounds metal cube into the gun to make 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:12.000 it detectable by metal detectors. Right, because the US Undetectable 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.920 Firearms Act makes it illegal to manufacture any sort of 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.000 undetectable weapon. Because this this isn't the first time that 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.760 a potentially undetectable weapon has been made. You can. They're 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.040 guns that use ceramic. There are other plastic weapons as 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.040 well that have used molded plastic as opposed to three 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.600 D printed plastic. But uh, that was a big concern. 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.960 So now he followed the rules. Wilson did. His His 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.040 version of the gun, in fact, had that metal in it, 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.800 so it was not undetectable. But here's but nothing saying 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.280 that someone who downloads that would still have the same Yeah, 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.320 follow the same rules. If you download the blueprint and 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:47.480 printed it out yourself, you could be you could just say, well, 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.560 I'm not I'm not going to put the metal slug 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.000 in there, and therefore it is going to be virtually 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.840 undetectable by a metal detector. And however, we should mention 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:56.720 that that those three D scanners that they've put in 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:58.560 a lot of airports would pick the gun up. It 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.080 would be able to recognize it on on your person, right, 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.760 So so if if you're using a three D scanner, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:06.479 it's still going to pick these things up. If you 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.480 are using just metal detectors, it wouldn't. So that that's 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:14.480 raised some security concerns obviously. Um and uh, you know, Wilson, 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.440 I think he took some perverse joy and the fact 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:23.000 that he was following the law while creating something that 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:29.800 is potentially incredibly disruptive. Absolutely, he's are we getting into. 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.920 But I think it's fair to say that he took 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.560 some pleasure. And they did. They did install a metal 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:39.800 detector or walk through metal detector in their workshop for 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.800 testing to make sure that that that met those requirements. 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.760 Uh and uh So to get to other concerns, beyond 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:51.040 the fact that you can't trace it, you can't necessarily 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.960 detect it. Um. Another concerns there's there's no background check, 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:59.320 right if you download those plans, there's no control there 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.399 about who gets access to that gun. So in the 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.119 United States, convicts can't you know, people who have been 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.640 convicted of a felony, they can't buy a gun legally 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.000 in the United States. I mean, they could buy it illegally, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.280 but you can't go through any legal means of buying it. Um. 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.520 That's what the whole background check thing is supposed to 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.239 protect against in the United States. So this bypasses it. 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:24.600 If you are able, if you have the means or 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.600 the access to a three D printer, and you have 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.480 a criminal record and you otherwise could not legally buy 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.680 a firearm, you could make one yourself this way. And 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:35.960 that's something that a lot of critics have pointed out, 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:41.600 saying you have just invalidated this whole part of the system. Wilson, 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.760 for his part, not a big fan of gun control, 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.159 that doesn't seem to be very concerned about that so 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.119 much though that in March he released a video of 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.800 UM a three D print aple UM a R fifteen 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.600 lower receiver, which is the part that's regulated. UM. The 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.320 rest of the parts you can purchase without without all 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.920 that much trouble and UM and that hypothetically could lock 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:05.840 into these these other purchasable parts and uh. And thus 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.359 you know, like again bypassed by passing that whole problem, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.160 or what at what he saw as a problem. Uh. 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.160 Other things that you have to keep in mind. Remember 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.000 we were talking about that plastic earlier, about how how 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.119 strong it was, and the type of plastic used and 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.560 the type of printer being used. Uh. Jonathan Rally, who's 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.560 a three D printing expert UM, said in The Guardian 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.000 that that you have to be really careful because not 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.200 everyone out there has access to the same sort of 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.359 three D printers, were the same sort of raw materials 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.320 being used. And just because one printed gun was able 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.639 to withstand the pressure and force that a that this 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.280 that the liberator did in the initial tests, it doesn't 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.920 mean that something that you print using a different kind 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.160 of printer could do the same thing. UM. It may 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:55.119 be that the material you print is weaker than the 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.640 one that that Wilson used, and Wilson. Wilson also did 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.119 treat the plastics after they were printed in order to 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.399 make them stronger, So you could potentially end up with 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.160 a device that could explode in your hand and cause 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:11.000 you huge amounts of damage, if not even kill you 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:13.160 right out, you know, out right. In fact, he said 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.199 that it's far more likely someone will be injured by 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:21.360 a failing weapon before anyone is ever deliberately shot by 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.439 so uh that that was his big concern was not 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.200 only is it something that could potentially, you know, one 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.320 person could potentially used to kill someone else, it's something 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.480 that someone who's just curious about it could end up 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.239 severely injuring themselves because the materials they are using just 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:38.320 can't hold up to the pressures and even even unit 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.680 to unit um uh you know, and any anything that 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.760 you've printed like that could be misaligned, uh, you know, 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.320 on a relatively small scale that you might not be 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.120 able to see from the outside of the right. Yeah, 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:50.920 if you if your printer does not have the same 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.280 level of precision, then that could also be a problem. 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:55.200 Things could not be things might not be in the 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:57.760 right alignment because or if just something glorps into the 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.560 wrong place. That's you know that that could be warping 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.360 is an issue. There's also the problem that there could 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.000 be uh nylon plastic powder within the barrel itself, which 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.320