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Despite His Criminal Record, Cody Wilson Is Back In The 3D-Printed Gun Business
Cody Wilson, the self-described anarchist and figurehead of the 3D-printed gun movement, led investigators on an international manhunt last year before being arrested and charged with having sex with a minor. In August, he struck a deal with Travis County prosecutors, pleading guilty to a lesser charge of injury to a child, which is a felony.
He received seven years of probation and is now a registered sex offender, banned from being within 500 feet of playgrounds, schools and any other “child safety zone.” He can no longer carry a handgun in public and, under federal law, he is barred from buying and selling weapons at gun stores.
Despite that, Wilson says he is getting back to the business of 3D-printed guns. And according to interviews with state and federal authorities, there’s nothing standing in his way.
Wilson’s return coincides with the upcoming release of the Ghost Gunner 3, the latest iteration of a controversial gun-manufacturing machine produced by Defense Distributed, the company Wilson founded in 2012. The product is advertised to be bigger and faster, and its promoters boast that it can produce parts for AK-47 rifles. The machine is the latest product to capitalize on the growing trend of homemade weapons, which can be acquired without a background check.
Right after his arrest, Wilson announced he would step down as Defense Distributed’s CEO. Late last month, he told the Washington Free Beacon his criminal history isn’t enough for anyone to stop him from returning. He said he is “definitely not a prohibited person” in Travis County, which has faced criticism for its lax approach to sexual assault prosecutions. For Wilson, this means he can own guns and even run a business that sells guns – despite admitting guilt to a felony.
Wilson confirmed that’s how he views his status, saying it's consistent with what his probation officer told him. He declined to offer further comment.
Turns out, he may be right. Wilson’s plea deal – known as a deferred adjudication – is more or less a frozen indictment.
If he meets the court’s terms in full, the felony charge is wiped. And while on probation, the state doesn’t view Wilson as a prohibited person.
“The answer right now appears to be that [the deal] does count as a deferred and is not a hard conviction,” Assistant District Attorney Joe Frederick said. “And if that is the case, then he would be able to maintain possession or ownership of [a] firearm.”
In other words, though Wilson shouldn’t be able to pass a background check, he is free and clear to own a gun under state law, if he owned it before the plea deal. And because he can own a gun, Frederick said, he can also run a firearms business.
Under federal law, however, Wilson’s status is murkier, he said.
“If he's on probation and he somehow registers new firearms or somehow gets new guns or, you know, purchases a new gun as part of his business, that could violate his probation and that'd be a gray area,” Frederick said.
Wilson clarified that he didn't surrender any of his firearms as part of his plea deal, despite reporting to the contrary, and he said he wouldn't necessarily have to purchase a firearm to run his company.
According to the Texas Secretary of State, Wilson is currently listed as the director of Ghost Gunner Inc., an offshoot of Defense Distributed that manufactures the so-called mills that print gun components from design files available online. Wilson confirmed he directs Ghost Gunner.
However, Wilson is not officially on board at Defense Distributed, the company he started as a UT Austin law student and that partly sparked the DIY, 3D-printed firearms movement. State records show Paloma Heindorff, who has carried Wilson’s mantle since his resignation, is still the director of Defense Distributed.
Credit Ilana Panich-Linsman / KUT
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KUT
Defense Distributed manufactures 3D printers designed to produce firearm parts.The firm made international news in 2013 when it designed the Liberator, the first completely 3D-printed gun, and subsequently released the designs for at-home gun-makers to re-create across the world. The Department of State ordered the company to take down the files, citing international arms trafficking laws.
Wilson and Defense Distributed sued the State Department, claiming it was violating his First Amendment rights. The Trump administration negotiated a settlement clearing the way for Defense Distributed to drop 10 additional gun blueprints before a restraining order was issued.
Defense Distributed – and the future of 3D-printed guns overall – is far from secure. Last week, a federal judge reversed the settlement after Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued, arguing it was illegal.
“It is baffling that the Trump Administration continued to work so hard to allow domestic abusers, felons and terrorists access to untraceable, undetectable 3D-printed guns,” Ferguson said in a press release.
Defense Distributed is appealing the decision.
According to a Nov. 6 email blast, Defense Distributed has sold more than 500 copies of the Ghost Gunner 3. It expects to start shipping the machines in January. Wilson said the company would continue to develop new products and maintains that his legal status allows him to be involved in its operations.
Frederick, the assistant district attorney, cautioned that while he is on probation, Wilson’s ongoing involvement with homemade guns could put him at risk for additional legal trouble.
“I mean, he can make any argument you want, you know? It's America. Whether or not it withstands legal scrutiny is something different," he said. “He's on the cusp of something that could go one way or the other, and he should probably tread very carefully.”
This story was reported jointly with The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom reporting on guns in America.
Cody Wilson Leaves Defense Distributed, But 3-D Printed Guns Roll On
For over half a decade, Cody Wilson has been a hooked thorn in the side of anyone who advocates even the most minimal form of gun control. More than any person else on the planet, the creator of the world's first 3-D printed gun has advanced the dangerous idea that with digital DIY tools, anyone can make a deadly weapon at home. Now with Wilson removed from that fight, the community of DIY gunmakers he inspired (along with the anarchist gun-making machine that formed around him for years) has no intention of slowing down.
On Tuesday, Defense Distributed announced in an Austin press conference that Wilson has resigned from his role as director of the company, which he founded in 2012 to promote the advance and spread of 3-D printable guns. Wilson faces charges of sexual assault of a minor, stemming from an incident earlier this year in which he allegedly had sex with a 16-year-old girl he met online. Wilson was released on $150,000 bail Monday. But Defense Distributed's new director, Paloma Heindorff, said at Tuesday's event that neither the company Wilson built nor the legal battles he has waged will change in his absence.
"I am extremely proud to say that over the past few days, the entire team at Defense Distributed have recommitted to enabling the sharing and publication of CAD and 3-D printing files," Heindorff told reporters. In the wake of Wilson's arrest in Taiwan, she added, "We didn’t miss a beat. No one blinked."
'Proceeding apace'
Defense Distributed's staff has refused to remark on Wilson's criminal case, and Wilson himself didn't respond to WIRED's request for comment.
But at Tuesday's press event, Heindorff and Josh Blackman, a lawyer for Defense Distributed, emphasized that not only are Defense Distributed's sales of gunmaking tools unaffected, but also that the company will continue its battles with a group of attorneys general from more than a dozen states, who have sued Defense Distributed and the State Department to reverse a legal win that would allow the gun rights group and others to post digital blueprints for firearms online.
In June, those attorneys general won an injunction against Defense Distributed that has, for now, frozen its plan to digitize as many gun designs as possible and post the models on a repository called Defcad, intended as a library of files for DIY gunsmiths. But Wilson didn't personally fund those legal conflicts, Defense Distributed says, nor did he serve by name as the plaintiff in the case against the State Department that resulted in May's landmark settlement. "The case is proceeding apace, as it was before," Defense Distributed's lawyer Blackman told the media.
Defense Distributed's adversaries in the gun control movement haven't claimed victory over Wilson's exit either. In a statement to WIRED, the copresidents of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which also sought a court injunction against Defcad last May, write that the legal fight continues. “Cody Wilson was the face of Defense Distributed and 3-D printed guns, but we doubt that his movement will die with his resignation. The Pandora’s box has been opened, and it will not go away with Wilson," their statement says. "Because of his actions, 3-D printed guns now pose a danger all over the world, from the United States to Europe to Taiwan. The next Cody Wilson is merely waiting in the wings, and we will continue to do everything in our power to combat this threat until it is no more.”
Meanwhile, Defense Distributed continues its other core project undeterred: selling a milling machine called the "Ghost Gunner", capable of carving gun components out of aluminum in anyone's workshop or garage.
The company has sold 6,000 of those $1,675 tools since it started selling them in 2014, netting millions that have helped to fund its legal efforts and allowed it to expand to around 20 employees. In her press conference, Heindorff said the company has received orders for 1,500 more of those machines it has yet to ship.
When WIRED visited Defense Distributed's Austin headquarters in June, most of the company's employees were working on that Ghost Gunner assembly line, building the desktop milling machines, packing them, or manning phones for sales and customer support. "Everything that was happening last week is still happening this week," says John Sullivan, an engineering consultant at Defense Distributed and Wilson's first hire there. "We've had one deposit canceled. Did our revenue drop at all? The answer is no."
Pushing boundaries
But Wilson was more than a kind of business manager for Defense Distributed's mission of universal, no-limits gun access. He also served as its central innovator and provocateur.
Since 2012, he has led the group to repeatedly push the legal and technical envelope of homemade guns—from the first fully 3-D printed gun known as the Liberator, and the Ghost Gunner's ability to create untraceable metal firearms, to the ongoing legal fight to let anyone publish gun files online. With every new advance in that brazenly controversial mission, Wilson also served as frontman and agitprop artist, creating highly produced YouTube videos and offering slick, erudite interviews to promote each new hyperlibertarian innovation.
Without Wilson, Defense Distributed's Sullivan admits, the company's ideological marketing will be tough to replicate. But he insists its message will still get out. "The public agitation, we’ll change how it's done, but it will still happen," he says. "The technology speaks for itself."
Deadly number: what the inventor of the world's first 3D gun is fighting for
Radical libertarian Cody Wilson 3D printed a full-fledged model of a pistol and was the first to test an innovative weapon.
What threatens the world with his invention?
Order. One…two…” On the count of “three”, a gunshot shakes the peaceful Texas landscape. Tall, blond-haired engineer John has just pulled the end of a 6-meter yellow rope that has pulled the trigger for the world's first 3D printed gun. Bullet from 9 caliber ammunitionx17 mm flies into thickets of low dense bushes.
"First off!" shouts John, who asked me not to publish his full name. He hurries to check the weapon, mounted on an aluminum frame. But the tester is ahead of Cody Wilson, a tall, bristly man in a polo shirt and a baseball cap. John just pulled the trigger, while 25-year-old Wilson is the father and mastermind behind the breakthrough project. He spent more than a year perfecting his brainchild, which he named the Liberator after the cheap single-shot pistols of the Second World War. The "ancestor" of the innovative weapon was developed by the Allies specifically for dropping large batches from the air in the territory of occupied France.
In contrast to the steel "original", the Wilson pistol is almost entirely made of thermoplastic: 15 of the 16 parts of the weapon are made of this material. They are all printed on a used $8,000 Stratasys Dimension industrial 3D printer. The developer made an exception for the striker, which was used as an ordinary nail.
Wilson leans over the gun and carefully examines the barrel. It took four hours to print the largest part. After the shot, both the barrel and the body of the pistol appear intact. After a few more seconds of visual analysis, the inventor states: “I think we did it.” There is a hint of skepticism in his voice.
In August 2012, Wilson, a University of Texas student and radical libertarian anarchist, cobbled together Defense Distributed, a non-profit organization in Austin, to develop a 3D weapon project available to anyone. Digital drawings of the pistol, which the creator called the Wiki Weapon in the drafts, can be found on the net and downloaded by every Internet user.
This not only calls into question the existing parameters of the regulation of the arms market, but also exacerbates the conflict between the state and supporters of a free society. “You can print a deadly device. Sounds scary, but that's our goal. Wherever there is a computer and the Internet, users will have access to weapons,” explains Wilson.
On May 1, 2013, he assembled the Liberator parts for the first time and agreed to have a Forbes photographer capture the components on camera. A day later, the pistol passed its first marksmanship test at a private property about an hour from Austin. I was also asked not to disclose the exact coordinates of the improvised training ground.
The verdict is this thing works. The pistol fired a standard 9x17 cartridge without any visible technical flaws. True, the first misfire also happened: the striker did not hit the primer and instead of a shot, only a dull thud was heard.
So far, weapon technology only allows the use of cartridges of a certain caliber.
When Wilson tried to load a 5.7x28 mm caliber into the pistol, when the trigger was pressed, the Liberator simply blew up. So the debut tests of the invention ended “lethally”.
On the way home, Wilson did not look overly satisfied with the results of the tests, despite the relative success of the event. He preferred to focus on problems. The inventor himself set a deadline for himself by which he would have to bring to mind the drawings for the Internet. “I'm not quite happy yet,” he said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
The most important Wiki Weapon test was a few days away. The "moment of truth" for the project in Wilson's understanding was to be a shot from the hand. After the prototype was torn to pieces before our eyes, this prospect looked really frightening.
When we published photos of the Liberator on Friday on the Forbes website, a real political battle unfolded around the project.
Instead of debating the most promising 3D printing technology, the debaters focused on the terrorist potential of Wilson's invention. Congressman Steve Israel responded to the news from Defense Distributed with a legislative initiative to expand the Undetectable Firearm Act, which prohibits the circulation of firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors. “Security departments, document checks and market regulation will do little to help us if criminals get the functionality to print plastic guns at home and smuggle them through frames,” the congressman said in a statement. Israel was supported by Senator Charles Schumer: "A terrorist, a mentally ill person or an adherent of radical ideas now has everything to equip a small arms factory in his garage."
Israel and Schumer are not the first opponents of Wilson's project. Back in August, the Defense Distributed fundraising campaign was curtailed by the administration of the crowdsourcing portal Indiegogo due to the odious nature of the startup.
In October, 3D printer maker Stratasys confiscated a model leased by Wilson's team after learning of the lease's purpose. Twice inventors were kicked out of workshops where they worked on weapon designs. As a result, they had to huddle in a closet with an area of 3.5 square meters. m in a workshop on the southern outskirts of Austin. And this is without taking into account the fact that most of the space was taken up by a 3D printer resembling a modern refrigerator in size.
However, each new obstacle only spurred Wilson's enthusiasm. He raised funds for the implementation of the project using the digital currency Bitcoin, in which 99% of the assets of Defense Distributed are accumulated today. In March, the group received a federal license to manufacture weapons. The framed document now hangs on the wall of the miniature workshop. The inventor circumvented the dilemma with the Stealth Weapons Act by implanting a 170-gram steel cube into the case of the Liberator.
A non-functional part does not burden the owner of the gun too much, and at the same time allows the metal detector to fix it. Wilson installed the $400 frame right at the entrance to the workshop. “Our strategy is to fully comply with all the requirements of the law,” he says (however, no one can give guarantees that users of Wilson’s instructions will also be able to install a metal die in their “liberators”).
The success of the first tests of the pistol will also silence the critics of the technical solution chosen by the inventor. Many skeptics have argued that plastic weapons will not withstand the pressure and temperature of cartridge case release and will deform or explode when fired. But Defense Distributed figured out how to solve a difficult problem. After testing at the test site, Wilson showed me a video in which a printed plastic barrel, mounted on a conventional body, fires ten rounds of 9 rounds in a row.x17 and only breaks on the eleventh lap.
The inventor admits that he himself does not fully understand how such an effect became possible. An important role could be played by the decision to first lower the barrel into a vessel with acetone. The chemical treatment of the weapon makes the terrain smoother and avoids additional friction. The printer model used by Defense Distributed also allows printing at 75 degrees Celsius. Stratasys' patented thermal technology gives the Liberator greater mechanical strength.
The goal of Defense Distributed is to adapt the technology to more affordable printer models, like Makerbot's $2200 Replicator and the even cheaper RepRap, built by enthusiasts and using free software. In case of damage to the barrel, Wilson has a way out: his pistol uses a removable barrel that can be changed within a few seconds.
The author of a deadly project does not care too much about the discussions around his invention.
Last year's Massachusetts Sandy Hook massacre, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza single-handedly shot 12 children and 6 adults, only hastened Wilson's initiatives to circumvent federal gun bans. While Congress vetoed magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds, Defense Distributed introduced a 3D-printed 30-round magazine for AR-15 and Kalashnikov semi-automatic rifles. In March, Wilson and his associates posted a video on YouTube in which they proudly showed off a printed AR-15 receiver with a potential of several hundred shots. It is the turnover of receivers that is limited by American laws. It turns out that, using the advice of Defense Distributed, any owner of a 3D printer received instructions on how to get around the bans. All other parts of the rifle are easy to order by mail.
The figure of Wilson in connection with the growing arsenal of his inventions is increasingly criticized. Many opponents focus on the enthusiasm of the leader of the group, which today brings together about 15 volunteers - designers and engineers - around the world.
The ambitious libertarian has already received a dozen death threats, and often anonymous spiteful critics promise to shoot the demiurge of a 3D weapon from his own brainchild. Wired magazine even included Wilson in the list of the 15 most dangerous people in the world. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence labeled the inventor as an "ardent rebel" and advocate for anti-state violence. “This guy is actually sending the message ‘print your own guns and be prepared to kill civil servants,’” organization spokesman Ladd Everitt was categorical. “The fact that we still don’t talk about it in those terms even after the Boston bombing is unimaginable.”
Wilson dismisses suspicions of a desire to organize a rebellion. He sees the global goal of his activity in demonstrating the advantages of technology over the desire of the state to regulate the circulation of weapons. Ultimately, people must realize the helplessness and uselessness of the authorities in their current form.
“We need to inspire the population to build their own independent space. The government will increasingly find itself overboard in private life and babble there: “Hey, wait a minute,” the inventor argues. “This is the beginning of a new order on the ruins of the old order.”
He does not deny that the 3D weapon could potentially be used for assassination or political violence: “I understand that the device can harm people. But listen, we are talking about weapons. I just don't think that's a strong enough reason to abandon our developments. Freedom is what really matters in this case.”
Wilson likes to think of his "Liberator" in the discourse of the history of the "ancestor" of the pistol. In the 1940s, American craftsmen created elementary weapons that were massively dropped from the air on the territories of the countries occupied by the Nazis. Partly in the plans of the allies at that time there was an idea not so much to arm the resistance as to demoralize the occupiers, to force them to be more careful.
The ideologue of Defense Distributed hopes to do the same trick with modern state machines: “Then the enemy just watched the weapons drop from the air. Our possibilities are even wider. We have internet."
On a hot Sunday afternoon, Wilson returns to the Texas test site where he tested the Liberator prototype a couple of days ago. None of the Defense Distributed associates joined their leader this time, even engineer John left for a meeting of National Rifle Association activists in Houston at a historic moment. But next to the founder of the group is his father Dennis Wilson, a lawyer from Little Rock, who decided to become the only witness to the triumph of his son - the first ever shot from a 3D handgun.
The inventor spent the last couple of days refining the Liberator's systems and printing out new barrel and body to adjust the striker and minimize the threat of a second explosion. At the most crucial moment, Wilson becomes as focused as possible.
His father asks how far it is from here to the nearest hospital: it turns out 45 minutes by car. We're learning how to apply a tourniquet in case things go wrong. “You guys want me to completely lose my nerves,” the protagonist of the day jokes in response.
Gradually conversations recede into the background. Wilson opens the case with the printed parts and collects them, then loads the gun and puts earplugs in his ears. He holds his breath, aims, fires, and exhales sharply in relief.
“Awesome,” says Dennis. “Congratulations, son.”
Wilson feels much better. First of all, he shakes hands with his father, the shooter has no injuries. Then he studies the pistol, which passed the test with a single blot in the form of a crack on the firing pin.
For a few seconds, Wilson feels speechless. He hides his emotions behind sunglasses. Finally, he utters the phrase that first came to his mind: “Well, it seems that some changes are coming here.
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Printer
02 October 2012 was confiscated from a student who printed 3D weapons 22:22
Startup Wiki Weapons Project, working on the printing of military weapons on 3D printers, has encountered difficulties. The creator of the project, Cody Wilson, was deprived of a device leased from Strasys. The owner of the 3D printer stated that such activity is illegal.
Startup Wiki Weapons Project, which is working on printing military weapons on 3D printers, has encountered difficulties. The creator of the project, Cody Wilson, was deprived of a device leased from Strasys. The owner of the 3D printer stated that such activity is illegal.
"It's our company policy. We don't make our printers available for illegal use," Strasys told Wilson. However, the creator of the project himself (who, by the way, is a law student at the University of Texas at Austin) is sure that he did not violate any laws.
"They just came and took it away without listening to what I was saying. I didn't even have time to take the printer out of the box!" Wilson is outraged. The head of the startup rented the machine in early September after he was able to raise $20,000 of investment online. He wanted to spend these funds not only on the development of pistol printing technology, but also on the creation of an Internet platform that would allow everyone to exchange 3D weapon schematics.
According to Wilson's idea, thanks to his project, any user of a 3D printer could download blueprints from the Web and print almost any type of firearm, Wired reports. Before Strasys took the device from the student, the Wiki Weapon project was already preparing to print its first 3D gun.
Less than a week after receiving the printer, Wilson received a letter from the company demanding that the machine be returned to her. The creator of the project said in response that the printing of weapons at home does not violate federal law, since home production that is not intended to be sold is allowed.
