Government Tells Texas Man To Remove 3-D Gun Internet Blueprint
DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - The government doesn't want the blueprints of it available calling it a case of national security. Others say concerns about the 3-D gun are overblown.
University of Texas law student Cody Wilson, 25, is the first to make an entire printed 3-D gun. Within two days of firing his gun and uploading the video to the internet, more than a hundred thousand people went to his website to download the blueprint.
Wilson calls his gun "The Liberator." He made it with an 8-thousand dollar plastic printer and software he gave away for free, until the federal government told him to take it off the internet.
"There are states all over the world, outside the United States, that say we are a gun control state. You can't own a firearm. That's not true anymore," said Wilson.
As a former police officer who now runs a security company, David Boehm says he worries printed guns will be used by criminals.
"We are talking about a firearm that can be made every couple of minutes that's untraceable, undetectable, and that can be thrown away and we would have no idea where it came from or where it belong to," said Boehm.
But professor Meghan Ryan at the Dedman SMU law school says what Wilson is doing, as of now, is legal.
"What our laws currently address just won't reach this type of technology," said Ryan.
That could soon change. This week, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer called for legislation to ban the printing 3-D guns.
"Now anyone - a terrorist, someone who is mentally ill, a spousal abuser, a felon can essentially open a gun factory in their garage," said Schumer.
Wilson does not agree. "I recognize that it's a tool that might be used to harm other people. It's what it is. It's a gun. But I don't think that's a reason to not do it or a reason to not put it out there."
While Wilson used an 8-thousand dollar printer to build his gun, others have used a less-expensive 13-hundred dollar 3-D printer to make gun parts.
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