Defense Distributed just released a video demonstrating their 3D printed AR-15 lower surviving 600 founds:
In my opinion this video demonstrates two important things: the utility of 3D prints and the fact that gun control is dead. When I said gun control is dead I don’t mean the state is going to stop passing laws, I mean that gun control laws are no longer relevant. Technology that allows an individual to easily construct a firearm in their home is now growing out of its infancy.Once a technology evolves beyond its infancy it cannot be stopped from continuing to grow. It is only a matter of time before all parts of a firearm can be produced on a 3D printer. In all likelihood it will only be a few years until affordable 3D printers capable of working with metal hit the market and enable the construction of parts such as bolts, barrels, and gas tubes.
Ironically gun control was killed by crypto-anarchism:
While it may be easy to paint Wilson [the developer of the lower] as a 2nd Amendment-touting conservative, the 25-year-old second-year law student at the Univeristy of Texas, Austin told Ars on Thursday that he’s actually a “crypto-anarchist.”
I say it’s ironic because crypto-anarchism has been pooh-poohed by statists and many anarchists alike. Criticisms against crypto-anarchism revolved around the claim that it only dealt with cyberspace and was unable to affect the real world. What its critics failed to predict was the fall of the barriers separating cyberspace from the real world. 3D printers, in my opinion, were the tool that destroyed the last major barrier. With the invention of 3D printing it became possible to create real world objects based on designs created and distributed online. Suddenly the fabrication of goods is no longer relegated to a handful of individuals. Anybody with a 3D printer, material to feed the printer, a computer, and an Internet connection can download and fabricate a mind boggling number of goods. As the technology matures it will likely become common for basic goods to be replicated in homes instead of factories.
Social anarchists believed one day a worker revolution would occur. In their imagination they believed workers around the world, who finally became sick and tired of capitalist conditions, would rise up, seize the means of production, and usher in a world free of oppression. Things haven’t worked out that way and, if current technology trends are any indicator, things will not work out that way. The revolution won’t be violent, it won’t involve fighting in the streets, it won’t involved people rising up and overthrowing the governments of the world. What the revolution will involve is the continuous decentralization of power. Technology will continue to evolve in a manner that empowers individuals to separate themselves from their rulers. Powerful corporations who have enjoyed protection from competition through the state’s decrees will lose their power as an ever growing number of people are able to replicate their goods from the safety of their own homes. Enforcing patents and regulations will become impossible. As people begin to fabricate needed goods themselves the large corporations and the state will bring in less wealth. People will no longer be forced to buy goods from politically connected corporations or pay sales tax to the state.
The world is changing in a way that power is becoming more decentralized. Eventually, if technological trends continue, the concept of centralized power will be all but extinct.