Opposing view: My printable guns respect security norms

Excerpts from Chris Wallace’s interview with Cody Wilson, director of Defense Distributed, on Fox News Sunday:

I’ve put the blueprints for all types of guns, all technical plans, all data, all blueprints, past and present — I put them all online. And that’s the right that I’ve secured. It’s not like I’m somehow only fascinated by the idea of a printable gun. That was just a mere technical demonstration of a much wider possibility of the digital production of firearms, which is in no way precluded by current law.

The First Amendment, without questions, protects this kind of data, lawfully produced. It’s directly related to another protected right of the people, which is their Second Amendment.

It’s been legal in this country since its founding to make a gun for yourself. Well, I’m sorry that you just found that out. You should have made a law, right? You’re Congress, make a law. Make it illegal to make guns in this country. I’d like to see that.

Look, it’s legal to make a gun if you include all requisite amount of metal in it (so that it’s detectable on a magnetometer). This is why I’m not in jail today, right? My printable guns have the amount of metal in it. There are security norms. I respect the norms.

All Americans have the right to share data for making firearms on the internet. This is not controversial. The Hbomb nuclear plans, these are all protected by the First Amendment.

I literally believe in the Second Amendment to the point of that it’s all right and it should be expected that there will be social costs for protecting a right like this.

Why is the people’s right to keep and bear arms in the Bill of Rights? Because we know there are downsides and consequences to allowing free people to own the means of self-defense.

The government has regulated commercial manufacture of arms and interstate commerce, but the government has never regulated the production of firearms that you’re allowed to own. An American, can to this day, right now, make a gun and there’s no requirement to put a serial number on it. Again, I’m sorry that a bunch of politicians woke up to the reality of this just last week, but this is the way it’s always been.