A working gun…created by a 3D printer. By now, of course, it's old news.
Eight months ago, Cody Wilson–a 25 year old University of Texas law student–set out on a mission: to make the world's first workable hand gun using only a 3D printer—a device that creates solid objects by printing layers and layers of special plastic. Turns out, Wilson succeeded in what one columnist calls the newest “Shot heard 'round the world.”
An article in Forbes points out there isn't a single shred of metal in the whole thing…except for the nail that fires the bullets. The sixteen pieces that make up Wilson's gun, he calls the “Liberator,” are made from ABS plastic. They were created on a 3D printer costing less than two thousand dollars. Those printers, by the way, can currently be had for as little as $800.
If plans for this CAD-based design are made available on the web, who knows what could happen in a world of non-detectable plastic weaponry. So naturally, lawmakers are anxious to…ur…pull the trigger on legislation to outlaw the plastic pistol.
It's ironic. 3D printers have the potential to create so much good. Everything from inexpensive parts for cars and electronics to replacements for human body parts. Yet there stands the solid rock reality of Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”
Something tells me we're about to encounter “desperately wicked” in a few shades darker than we've ever seen it before. It's tempting to hurl blame at the plastic gun's designer. But how then shall we account for…
- Jim Jones and his Kool-Aid that killed 909 back in 1978?
- Or the box cutters that ultimately brought down 3 jetliners and 2 towers on 9-11?
- Or the Boston bomb that murdered three and maimed dozens of others?
A pill, a pressure cooker, a blade, a bomb…or a gun. In a world of evil, a darksome thought in the mind…is as good as a weapon in the hand.