Cody Wilson Thwarts Another Attempt To Stop Ghost Guns

The ATF is expected to adopt a new rule requiring that the metal parts hobbyists used to manufacture their DIY weapons be registered as legal firearms. So Cody Wilson made those parts unnecessary.

Full text, links, and credits: https://reason.com/video/2022/01/12/cody-wilson-thwarts-another-attempt-to-stop-ghost-guns/
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CORRECTION: The original version of this article stated that the Ghost Gunner sells for $500. The deposit is $500, and the final sales price is $2,500 before shipping. The text has been updated to correct the error.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is expected to adopt a new rule in the coming weeks with the potential to undermine the DIY gun industry: It will require that the metal parts that hobbyists used to manufacture their so-called ghost guns be registered as legal firearms.

Cody Wilson, the founder of the Austin-based Defense Distributed and a prominent figure in the DIY gun movement, has been planning a countermove that he says will allow his customers to circumvent the new rule: The company has modified its home milling machine so that users no longer need to load it with the partially fabricated metal parts subject to the new rule.

Instead, they'll be able start from scratch with a solid block of aluminum.

The newest version of the Ghost Gunner, a milling machine that's roughly the size of home printers, will now be able to "take raw materials…in their primordial state…and turn them into guns," Wilson tells Reason. Blocks of aluminum will not be subject to the new regulation.

It's not the first time the federal government has tried to undermine Wilson's business. In 2013, the State Department ordered him to take down plans posted to his website for his first 3D-printed gun, the Liberator. Wilson sued on First Amendment grounds, which led to a 2018 settlement with federal government, a media firestorm, and a 9th Circuit Court injunction against states trying to ban sharing of the files in 2021.

The new 100-page administrative rule issued by the ATF, which was published to the Federal Register in May 2021 for public review, will change the definition of a firearm to encompass "weapon parts kits…designed to or which may readily be assembled, completed, converted, or restored."

If adopted, it will mean that the federal government will require gun part kits sold online to bear the same serial numbers as do fully manufactured firearms, which could put most companies in the space out of business because customers won't want to deal with the bureaucratic hurdles of registering their parts.

Wilson says that Defense Distributed is the only DIY gun company pivoting in the face of the upcoming rule, so its real impact will be to drive his competitors off the market. Biden is "giving us, the nation's premier ghost gun company, a monopoly of the market," Wilson says.

CORRECTION: The original version of this article stated that the Ghost Gunner sells for $500. The deposit is $500, and the final sales price is $2,500 before shipping. The text has been updated to correct the error.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller; camera by John Osterhoudt; additional footage by Mark McDaniel; intro graphics by Regan Taylor; additional graphics by Nodehaus.

Photos: Karen Ducey/ZUMA Press/Newscom