For months, a debate has raged in the media and on Capitol Hill about whether or not society (and the law) should allow 3D printed guns.
But listen to Cody Wilson speak for a few minutes, and you can't help but come away feeling that the national discussion is moot: 3D printed firearms are inevitable. Deal with it.
Today at the Inside 3D Printing conferencehere, Wilson, the founder and director of Defense Distributed, argued passionately for an environment in which people can use 3D printers to make their own guns. It's not that he doesn't recognize -- or care -- that there's some likelihood of increased gun violence in such a world.
Rather, as an anarchist and someone who clearly appreciates that 3D printers are a technology that expressly enable individual creation and freedom, he thinks it's absurd to try to stop people from using the increasingly popular -- and accessible -- tech to do whatever they want with it.
To date, Wilson has become one of the most visible poster boys for the 3D printed gun movement. During his talk today, he explained the many steps he and others have gone through in their attempts to create a functioning firearm. And he scoffed at an "expert" having told the conference's attendees earlier in the day that 3D printed guns aren't yet "real." "No, it's here today," Wilson said, explaining that he and others had successfully fired 11 rounds through a 3D-printed gun barrel not long ago. And another leader in the space, Michael "Haveblue" Guslick, has said he successfully fired 100 rounds from an AR15 outfitted with what he called a 3D printed lower receiver.
There's no denying that Wilson and those who support him are at odds with the establishment. On the 3D printing side of things, he faces resistance from those like Avi Reichental, the CEO of 3D Systems, the world's-largest maker of 3D printers. Yesterday, in his keynote address to the Inside 3D Printing conference, Reichental acknowledged that the technology could "empower" "the unintended," such as guns, and added that "legislators have a responsibility to grasp (this), and to make sure the legal and political infrastructure keeps up."
But perhaps unwittingly, Reichental also made Wilson's point -- that 3D printed weapons probably can't be avoided -- for him, noting that the technology "doesn't care if it prints the simplest or more complex geometry." Or, one can extrapolate, a coffee cup or an assault rifle.
Clearly, there's a huge amount of interest in the topic. Wilson said that to date, files available via Defcad, Defense Distributed's own digital repository, have been downloaded more than 800,000 times. Whether any significant number of the people who wanted the 3D models that would be used to print gun components have the capability to actually do so seems besides the point. The interest is definitely there, despite efforts to blunt it.
Those efforts, of course, haven't come solely from outside the 3D printing industry. Defense Distributed originally had a printing agreement with Stratasys, but the manufacturer subsequently canceled it. Then, MakerBot's Thingiverse hosting service booted all the 3D printed gun files, forcing Wilson to start Defcad.
But despite efforts by politicians like Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), the author of a bill that would ban 3D printed guns under a provision that prohibits any firearm that could defeat an airport security system, there's little that can be done to keep people -- especially those who care deeply about what they feel is their constitutional right to possess a gun -- from utilizing this democratizing technology to do just that.
Yet, Wilson doesn't think there's really any reason the establishment should worry. "No one's going to print out a thousand guns and start a revolution," he said. "I really believe that."
But he also thinks that 3D printing technology needs to be left alone by regulators so that those who want to can do whatever it is they like. "I think if you can't print a gun," Wilson said, "then [the technology is] nothing I'm interested in working with."
There are those, of course, who couldn't care less what Wilson is interested in, but that sentiment may not matter. Sooner or later, like it or not, 3D printed guns will be a reality. Will that mean more people have firearms? It's hard to say. Legislators may find ways to enact restrictions, and the technology itself is still very young -- at least from a consumer perspective. But if one thing Wilson said today has to be listened to, it's that 3D printed guns are a reality. They may still be rudimentary, but they'll get better. There's simply no way to stop it.
据cnet网站4月23日报道，几个月来，美国媒体以及国会一直在辩论是否应该允许3D打印枪支。但科迪·威尔逊一席话，却让人顿觉这场全国性争论毫无意义，因为3D打印枪支不可避免。如何应对才是第一要务。
在3D打印会议上，“Defense Distributed”公司创始人威尔逊坚决主张人们可以用3D打印机制造自己的枪支。但是，这并非意味着他没有意识到（或者并不关心）这可能会导致枪支暴力事件增加。
相反，作为一个无政府主义者，威尔逊十分赞赏3D打印能够给个人带来创造力和自由。他认为，试图阻止人们自由使用日益流行的3D打印技术是可笑的。
目前为止，威尔逊已经成为“3D打印枪支运 动”最主要的代言人之一。在讲话中，他解释到，要制造一支功能完备的枪需要许多步骤。当天早些时候，有位专家告诉与会人员，“真正的3D打印枪支”尚未出 世。就此，威尔森嘲笑道“你错了，今天就已经有了。”他接着解释，自己和其他人在不久前已成功使用3D打印枪管发射了11发子弹。而且，3D打印枪支的另 一位领军人物迈克尔·格斯林克也说，他用一支装有3D打印的下机匣的AR15步枪成功发射了100发子弹。
不可否认，威尔森面临世界上最大3D打印机生厂商3D Systems公司总裁赖兴塔尔（Reichental）等人的抵制。赖兴塔尔表示，立法者有责任保证法律和政治框架跟上形势。
但或许在不经意间，赖兴塔尔也暗合了威尔森的观点，即3D打印武器可能无法避免。按他的说法，这项技术“并不关心它打印的东西是简单的还是复杂的”。也就是说，人们既然可以打印咖啡杯，也就能够打印突击步枪。
显然，公众对这一话题有着浓厚的兴趣。威尔 森说，至今为止，由“Defense Distributed”公司建立的数字化资源库Defcad上的可获取文件已被下载80余万次。这说明，对于那些想要3D模型的人群来说，他们是否能够 打印出枪支组件已不是重点。人们的兴趣是显而易见的，尽管有各种力量在试图削弱它。
当然，试图阻挠3D打印枪支的力量不单来自 3D打印行业之外。“Defense Distributed””起初和3D打印机制造商Stratasys签署了一项打印协议，但随后又被Stratasys取消了。接着，3D打印机制造商 MakerBot公司设立的Thingiverse平台也删除了所有枪支打印文件，这迫使威尔森建立了Defcad资源库。
政治家们也试图阻止，如纽约众议员史蒂夫•伊斯雷尔，他撰写了一项禁止3D打印枪支的法案，该法案基于一项条款，即禁止任何可能破坏机场安全系统的武器。但尽管如此，也很难阻止人们使用这项“民主的技术”制造枪支，尤其是对那些深信持枪是宪法赋予他们的权利的人。
然而，威尔逊并不认为这有任何实实在在值得担心的。他说：“不会有谁去打印上千枪支，然后发动革命。”
但他也认为，监管部门不应干涉3D打印技术，以便人们按自己的意愿使用。“我想，如果连枪都打印不了，那我对这项技术的研究将没有任何兴趣。”
当然，有些人可能根本不关心威尔逊的兴趣， 可这并不重要。无论喜不喜欢，3D打印枪支迟早会成为现实。那这会意味着更多人持有枪支吗？这很难说。立法者也许会找到限制的方法，再者，这项技术本身还 很年轻——至少从消费者的角度看是这样。但是，如果说威尔逊说的话有值得听的地方，那就是3D打印枪支已经成为现实。它们也许还很简陋，但以后将变得更 好。因为它已经势不可挡。