Hi, it’s Wirb here. You might know me from writing the Homebuild History series here on 3DGunBuilder, naming the Lo-Point pistol, naming and marketing the MOD-9 PCC, and doing many other less notable things in the world of Guncad.
Today’s article is something substantially different, and it came to fruition after I recently read something that apparently passes for news on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation site. Before I get into this, let me remind everyone that this ABC is admittedly, and proudly, Australian government funded, as opposed to the Disney-owned media behemoth we know and love.
The article is, as you can expect, a typical anti-gun piece. However, it contains a substantial number of things that are, in my opinion, better responded to in a proper article analysis. The comments, opinions, and observations seen here in this article are my own. Quotes from the article will be made, then responded to. Simple enough for anyone to follow along with, right?
Article Analysis
The lethal FGC-9 semi-automatic weapon can fire up to 30 rounds without needing to be reloaded and is the most popular 3D-printed gun in Australia, based on seizures in every state and territory over the past 12 months.
Gee, I can’t imagine why the most easily self-manufactured 9mm homemade gun would be popular. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you don’t need a whole factory to make them in quantity like the Owen gun. A note, by the way – the anti-gun views of the current Australian government and media would’ve taken Evelyn Owen, one of the greatest Australian innovators, and thrown him in jail for his .22 SMG prototype rather than develop it into arguably the best 9mm submachine gun of World War II.
Yes, I’m going to be referring back to this a lot.
Police say the gun, branded under the name ”F*** Gun Control”, is increasingly being found in the hands of organised crime groups, extremists and teenagers around the world.
One of these things is not like the other. Last I checked, teenagers were never a threat to society, otherwise post-natal abortion would be legal up to age 18.
That’s more a testament to the guy who shot Shinzo Abe’s ability to make an effective crude pipe gun and less to how advanced the FGC-9 is. It also points out that if someone wants to do something bad, they will regardless of laws – of which Japanese gun law is some of the most stringent on Earth. Another note: as of this article, the FGC-9 has never so much as wounded, let alone killed, any world leader, whether dictator or democrat.
At the Australian Federal Police forensics headquarters in Canberra, the ballistics team manufactured their own FGC-9 to show 7.30 how advanced and dangerous 3D-printed guns had become.
A gun is completely unable of harming an individual without human intervention, with very, very few exceptions. Basically, as long as you buy reputable things, aren’t stupid in handling them, and don’t buy something like a Bryco Model 38, you’ll be fine.
“Its characteristics, in terms of muzzle velocity and penetration, are comparable to other firearms if it’s manufactured effectively,” the AFP’s forensics co-ordinator, Michael Taylor, said.
This is a vague statement. Comparable to other pistol caliber carbines? Maybe, albeit early ECM barrels had less effective rifling than factory-made models and thus lower muzzle velocity with the same barrel length. Compared to intermediate caliber rifles and full rifles? That would be a lie – or perhaps misinformation at best. This will likely not be the first time we see this in the article.
It is illegal to make a 3D-printed firearm in Australia โ and the possession of a digital blueprint to create one is an offence in some states.
Those convicted in NSW of possessing a blueprint face a sentence of up to 14 years in jail.
The punishment is even greater in Tasmania, with the potential of up to 21 years in jail.
Yes, and this is why those states are stupid. A reminder that Australia is the same country that made it illegal to import (and without a permit or letter, illegal to own in NSW, Victoria, Northern Territory, and Tasmania) the Generation 1 Megatron Transformers toy, and all reissues and developments of it.
The AFP has blueprints and Dr Taylor detailed a section which showed the sketch for the lower receiver of a 3D gun called the Urutau.
As appreciative as I am of the Urutau, having worked with Carioca on undisclosed projects, this seems irrelevant when Urutaus aren’t being produced en masse by any Australian, ganger or otherwise. Additionally, they aren’t the FGC-9. CAD files are also not technically “blueprints” – that would fall under “technical drawings.”
“These are high-powered weapons,” the head of NSW Police’s Drug and Firearms Squad, Detective Superintendent John Watson, told 7.30.
“We’ve seen incidents overseas with armed active offenders. We’ve already had a Port Arthur. We do not want another.”
Comparatively, no, they aren’t “high-powered weapons.” The kinetic energy of a 9mm bullet from a pistol barrel (around 480-730 joules) is miniscule compared to even archaic rifle bullets (2,290 joules in the case of the ancient .577 Snider cartridge). This is again either a lie, willful ignorance, or misinformation.
As for the reference to the Port Arthur Massacre, which was responsible for a whopping 5% of Australia’s 686 homicides and related offenses in 1996 – the number of homicides and related offenses was higher almost every year afterwards until 2003, despite there being no mass shootings. If there had been an equivalent shooting every year from 2004 to the present, the yearly rate of homicides and related offenses would still be less than it was from 1996 to 2003. This speaks more to a general decrease in fatal crime than it does to the success of anti-gun legislation passing parliament and violating the fundamental rights of Australian citizens.
Last month, WA Police executed a search warrant in Perth’s north and uncovered 21 privately made 3D-printed guns.
A week later, NSW Police seized a 3D printer, 3D-printed firearm parts and approximately 10,000 rounds of ammunition on the state’s south coast.
That really is child’s play.
“We’ve seen evidence of organised crime offering for sale and selling particular [3D-printed] guns,” Superintendent Watson said.
“People with mental health issues, people living at home, people with access to firearms, they were either involved with or were licensed firearms holders โฆ they were acting unlawfully and making their own firearms.”
The former’s just, to paraphrase London mayor Sadiq Khan, part and parcel of living in a big country. Criminals run guns in order to have guns they can use to commit crime. They’ve been doing it for centuries. Some of the original Australian settlers were probably sent to Australia for gunrunning. If anything, this sounds like a national pastime. Also, what do “people living at home” and “people with access to firearms” have to do with the former? I also don’t see how being “involved with or [being] licensed firearms holders” changes one’s ability to make a gun or not. ECMing steel tube and printing plastic doesn’t need a license to know how to do. Besides, ammunition falls off trucks regularly enough.
The issue is so urgent that every law enforcement agency around the country recently gathered with FBI representatives, legal academics and tech experts in Melbourne to discuss the increasing threat of 3D guns in the community under the national task force Operation Athena, which targets the trafficking and use of illicit firearms.
Maybe they should focus more on the threat of crime itself. So long as guns aren’t being used to rob people, murder people, injure people, or destroy property that doesn’t belong to people, society gains nothing by these schmucks taking a gun out of circulation that has not caused direct harm to another person.
“We don’t want 3D-printed weapons to become unmanageable,” Superintendent Watson said.
“It is critical for us all to talk, for us to get a clear understanding of the landscape and to make sure that we are doing everything we can to continue to put the controls in place that we need.”
You don’t need controls. You need to not bother people who aren’t going to cause harm and bother people who are actually victimizing your fellow citizens. Come on – you have a surveillance state that pries so deeply into everyone’s lives, your own citizens are raising concerns about it. It’s not that difficult for you to find out who the actual criminals are making these things with malevolent intent, right? Additionally, the citizenry doesn’t really have a reason to “talk” if you look at them with a contemptuous “we know better” attitude.
Did Australia help shut down 3D gun maker? – Spoiler: No
In 2013, American Cody Wilson created “The Liberator” โ widely regarded as one of the first 3D-printed firearms in the world.
Cody Wilson did not create the Liberator. A member of his team at Defense Distributed did. This is common knowledge in the Guncad community.
His mission was to make blueprints for his gun available for anyone to create one using a 3D printer at home; the design file was downloaded about 100,000 times before it was taken down.
This is technically a lie by omission – within literal days of the files being removed for the Liberator on DEFCAD, they had already been reuploaded to ThePirateBay and countless other online locations. They were also added to the budding FOSSCAD repo, which remained and remains untouched and unmolested despite being very much out of date. They were never “taken down” to the point of being unavailable for whoever wanted to find them.
Wilson describes himself as a defence contractor for the public.
I mean… this is true that he describes himself that way. In practice, he isn’t – Defense Distributed has developed zero firearms of their own from scratch since the Liberator (their own DEFCAD repo showcases this) and has focused more on developing multipurpose desktop CNC systems through their “GhostGunner” brand than they have on firearms development. Most any individual designer has done more “defense contract work (sic) for the public” than Cody has as of late in the last decade. From a functional standpoint, it’s one of the biggest criticisms against Cody and DD in the Guncad community.
Wilson’s company bills itself as “the world’s largest 3D gun repository” and he is an outspoken critic of gun control.
Eh… the Print2a repo has practically everything he does and more. Matter of opinion, I guess. Also point to him for what it’s worth – I can’t think of anything he’s said publicly that’s pro-gun control, at least.
“Politics, government and these things, the question of state, are questions of the monopolisation of the means of force and violence. I’m an advocate for distributing the means of force and violence for its political ramifications,” Wilson told 7.30.
I think he needs to be a bit clearer. No one obviously wants guns to end up in the hands of gangs. That said, given that you cannot trust law enforcement to protect you while being victimized by a weapon-armed criminal (in the US at least, and probably Australia too), you are better off having access to your own means of protection equal to if not superior to what the criminal can access.
He says the only way anyone in Australia can print a gun is “if you don’t ask permission”. He is aware of the illegality.
True. To quote Why Your Life Sucks: And What You Can Do About It by Alan Cohen, “Laws and police do not stop people who do not want to be ruled by them; criminals are doing what they want to do anyway (a former car thief told me that ‘locks are for honest people’).”
Wilson said he believed the Australian government lobbied US agencies to have his website shut down completely.
Well, let’s take a look at how well that went.
“It was explained to me through export control law firms and officials who at that time worked in the Bureau of Military Affairs and Department State that Australia was pressuring both the National Security Council of the Obama administration and State Department directly to find a way to take my website down or make it inaccessible to residents of Australia,” he said.
Well, they sure did a poor job of that.
“We took The Liberator down two days after we put it up, at the request of the US State Department, and we know they were pressured by other governments, and it remained down officially for some years.”
At least he implies that it was still available through other means. Of course, in the end, he put it back up on DEFCAD.
The AFP said it was not “in a position to discuss” whether it had tried to take Mr Wilson’s website down, but confirmed it was “looking at all opportunities and mechanisms” to manage gun control.
As we’ve already established, you really, really can’t do that, at least not insofar as what this article is about. Even banning guns wholesale in Australia wouldn’t change this.
In 2018, Wilson and his company Defense Distributed won the right to publish their blueprints. However, he says he is still facing several lawsuits brought against him by separate US states.
They’ll fail, in due time. The cases will go to the Supreme Court, who will rule rightly that this is a violation of the Second Amendment. Usual thoroughfare.
“I don’t think I’ve ever won against a state in court, but you can make that defeat take a long time and you can use your resources to create interesting alternatives to the quote-unquote defeat. That’s kind of what I’m in the business of doing,” he said.
Even when a state ‘wins,’ they don’t win. The files aren’t actually made unavailable to state residents, who can still get them through any and every possible source. Odysee comes to mind.
In 2018 he also stepped down as director of Defense Distributed, after he was charged with an offence involving a minor. He pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony and was put on probation.
And there we go, the reason they even brought Cody Wilson on board as the “devil’s advocate” for Guncad: because he has dirt on him that they can use. And not just any dirt, but sex crimes, the sort of crime no reasonable person can ignore. This is a regular media occurrence and a reason why Cody regularly appears in articles as a “prominent figure” in Guncad when he’s no such thing anymore. Regardless of whether he says anything rational or silly about Guncad, associating the entire movement of open-source firearms design with a sex offender taints it as a whole in the eyes of average people because of how niche it is – as opposed to when someone who works for multiple major film studios does it.
He has since been reappointed as director and believes everyone has a right to build a gun. The AFP doesn’t agree.
Last I checked, the AFP didn’t have authoritarian, almost godly power to influence the actions and thoughts of every living and breathing Australian, so their agreement or disagreement really is of no consequence. But hey, everyone has the right to be wrong.
“My view is that the ideology is not consistent with Australian values. The Australian community does not want illicit firearms flooding the streets,” Dr Taylor said.
If anything, considering your entire nation was founded by people who were anti-authority, it absolutely would be consistent with Australian values. So far as what the Australian community wants, Dr. Taylor in no way as an individual represents them, rightfully or wrongfully. Again, no one proactively encourages gangs or terrorists to get guns, but this does not justify targeting hobbyists and innovators. Dr. Taylor’s mindset would’ve been responsible for the deaths of Australian soldiers during World War II, who would’ve been equipped with miserable pieces of scrap like the Austen that failed to function as opposed to reliable weapons like the Owen gun. To a degree, it’s also responsible for why Australia’s army is mostly reliant on small arms, munitions, vehicles, and aircraft developed by non-Australian firms – which harms the domestic economy as well.
Despite the lack of gun-related deaths in Australia and the high number in the US, where ABC USA reports that as of September more than 11,000 people have died this year due to guns, he attacked Australia for having strong legislation.
I could repeat every breakdown of why gun crime in America is as it is. I could point out that gun crime has increased both raw and per capita as gun laws have become more restrictive. I could point out gun crime is primarily an issue in cities with police forces that are not allowed to be proactive in responding to the rise of broader crime. But I’d rather not in this case. No need to beat a dead horse.
‘Made in the bedroom’ – hey, so were we!
Despite Wilson’s comments, the dangers are real. The number of 3D guns seized in Australia has increased in the past year.
And how many of them were seized in the commission of a crime?
3D printers have become commonplace in schools, universities and even workplaces and the guns themselves can be attractive to children.
You do realize that no school, university, or workplace is going to let someone 3D print a gun using their hardware, right? A publicly visible firearm being printed is the most obvious red flag ever. The only way someone could get away with it is with the tacit approval of whoever manages the machines, and you’re getting into criminal conspiracy territory there. So far as the guns being attractive to children, I don’t recall any kid wanting a submachine gun that looked like it was made by the Nerf company. They want something that looks cool.
Any colour plastic can be used โ pink, purple and even Hello Kitty-branded pistols are possible.
I mean, yes, but these are typically made for the fun of it. Just ask the guy who made the real-life Nintendo Zapper, or the guy who made the Nerf FGC-9. No one makes a Hello Kitty pistol because it’s the best carry gun ever. This isn’t a video game where the silliest items have the best stats.
All of these issues are major concerns for law enforcement.
“Ten or 15 years ago, I think it’s fair to say that 3D-printed firearms were more looked at as being novice or a niche,” Superintendent Watson said.
They’re still novice or niche. If they weren’t, you’d see suppliers of parts kits at SHOT Show actively promoting their sale by the shooting community. While there are companies that have appeared at SHOT, and which have used 3D printing for prototyping purposes (Vanguard Arms in South Carolina comes to mind), 3D printed guns themselves are not mainstream in the marketplace.
“We’ve had matters where people have been making firearms parts, either in their bedroom, in their lounge room or in rooms that are, for all intents and purposes, in a family home, yet nothing was ever reported to us.”
That’s probably because the public doesn’t trust you. And after going to the middle of nowhere using horses and helicopters to arrest people who were out and about during COVID, not to mention raiding the headquarters of the very media outlet letting you talk right now back in June 2019, why would they? The irony shouldn’t be lost on anyone. Focus more on rebuilding trust with the people, not on giving them further reasons to distrust you.
Along with a rise in detections of 3D-printed guns during police raids, the printers used to manufacture these firearms are also being seized across the country.
3D printers have any number of countless uses aside from making firearms. Not sure how seizing them helps, especially when you can print more 3D printers with 3D printers.
Police say their focus is not on trying to regulate the use of 3D printers and parts but they haven’t ruled it out as a possibility in the future.
Yeah, try doing that and watch as the pushback becomes a hundred times worse. You would set Australia’s maker community back literal decades.
“We would consider openly all options for mitigating illicit firearm crime, but in no way do we want to impede on legitimate industry or Australia’s uptake of novel technology. So any actions taken would have to have a very balanced, balanced approach,” Dr Taylor said.
There really is no balanced approach. Either you allow the necessary items by which a gun can be made, or you don’t, and you handicap your entire society. P.A. Luty proved this back in the 1990s when he built a submachine gun in the United Kingdom using standard metal pieces any British man or woman could get their hands on – and which are functionally impossible to legislate without directly setting back the British way of life. The UK never banned civilians from buying metal and fasteners without a license. The same principle applies here: you will impede on legitimate industry or “Australia’s uptake of novel technology” if you do anything to impinge on ease of access to 3D printers.
“People need to be aware that the decision to manufacture illegally a firearm makes you a criminal, and that’s a key thing.“
Well, is there a way they can manufacture a firearm legally? No? Then what’s the point of distinguishing between illegal and legal manufacture when you’ve made the latter essentially impossible for Australian civilians? I’ll address the latter claim in a moment.
“People need to understand that you’re not a hobbyist, you’re not a tinkerer.”
You literally are, by definition. You are doing the same thing Evelyn Owen did, which led to the creation of arguably the best allied submachine gun, 45,000 of which soldiered on in Australian army service for 29 years until the objectively inferior F1 submachine gun replaced it. The only difference is that the Australian government at the time respected Owen’s tinkering and rewarded him with ยฃ10,000 in royalties and patent rights instead of a ยฃ10,000 fine and a multi-year stay in a prison cell. The lack of respect for martial innovation is something Australia desperately needs to correct.
“By undertaking this kind of activity, you become a criminal, and that’s a key message that I would send.”
Everyone in Australia is a criminal. Your nation’s labyrinthine legal code, which no one who hasn’t practiced law could possibly divine the inner workings of, guarantees that each and every day, every Australian commits a criminal act of some sort. Sure, some are less severe than others, but crime is crime, and any crime one commits can and will be used by the state against someone if they have the opportunity to. The use of tax evasion to jail famed American mob boss Al Capone when his countless other crimes wouldn’t stick comes to mind.
A Conclusion
This particular piece of anti-gun propaganda spoke to me because of how regressive it is, and how plain the contempt for innovation is showcased under the false veneer of public safety – a veneer easily penetrated by the faintest scrutiny. Additionally, the incorporation of Cody Wilson as the article’s defender of the Guncad cause showcases the fact that media organizations such as these cannot be presumed to approach the topic in good faith. Wilson’s inherent presence is used to taint a community that is, to quote one of its most beloved and dearly departed developers, “extremely peaceful,” slanting public opinion inherently against it and attempting to give them no reason to empathize with the targeted subculture in question.
Articles like this are a reason why faith in the media, at least in America, is at an all-time low. Biases and the reflections of the views of people who write these articles are showcased more clearly than an image in a puddle. The media seeks not to allow readers about the subject to make an informed opinion, but desires to stamp it upon them. To those who read this, I would hope that you came away more aware of the actual case of the Guncad movement. To those who commented as part of the article, I would hope you came away understanding the misinformation you have spread, hopefully benignly, and perhaps will look at the group you have helped demonize from a more positive perspective. Maybe one day that shift in perception will discourage the subculture from viewing you with utter contempt and proactively seeking to subvert and/or flagrantly break whatever restrictions you or others seek to put on them.
It probably won’t happen, but well, I can dream, can’t I?
