3D打印槍支勢不可擋 如何應對成難題

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.據cnet網站4月23日報道，幾個月來，美國媒體以及國會一直在辯論是否應該允許3D打印槍支。但科迪·威爾遜一席話，卻讓人頓覺這場全國性爭論毫無意義，因爲3D打印槍支不可避免。如何應對纔是第一要務。

在3D打印會議上，“Defense Distributed”公司創始人威爾遜堅決主張人們可以用3D打印機制造自己的槍支。但是，這並非意味着他沒有意識到（或者並不關心）這可能會導致槍支暴力事件增加。

相反，作爲一個無政府主義者，威爾遜十分讚賞3D打印能夠給個人帶來創造力和自由。他認爲，試圖阻止人們自由使用日益流行的3D打印技術是可笑的。

目前爲止，威爾遜已經成爲“3D打印槍支運動”最主要的代言人之一。在講話中，他解釋到，要製造一支功能完備的槍需要許多步驟。當天早些時候，有位專家告訴與會人員，“真正的3D打印槍支”尚未出世。就此，威爾森嘲笑道“你錯了，今天就已經有了。”他接着解釋，自己和其他人在不久前已成功使用3D打印槍管發射了11發子彈。而且，3D打印槍支的另一位領軍人物邁克爾·格斯林克也說，他用一支裝有3D打印的下機匣的AR15步槍成功發射了100發子彈。

不可否認，威爾森面臨世界上最大3D打印機生廠商3D Systems公司總裁賴興塔爾（Reichental）等人的抵制。賴興塔爾表示，立法者有責任保證法律和政治框架跟上形勢。

但或許在不經意間，賴興塔爾也暗合了威爾森的觀點，即3D打印武器可能無法避免。按他的說法，這項技術“並不關心它打印的東西是簡單的還是複雜的”。也就是說，人們既然可以打印咖啡杯，也就能夠打印突擊步槍。

顯然，公衆對這一話題有着濃厚的興趣。威爾森說，至今爲止，由“Defense Distributed”公司建立的數字化資源庫Defcad上的可獲取文件已被下載80餘萬次。這說明，對於那些想要3D模型的人羣來說，他們是否能夠打印出槍支組件已不是重點。人們的興趣是顯而易見的，儘管有各種力量在試圖削弱它。

當然，試圖阻撓3D打印槍支的力量不單來自3D打印行業之外。“Defense Distributed””起初和3D打印機制造商Stratasys簽署了一項打印協議，但隨後又被Stratasys取消了。接着，3D打印機制造商MakerBot公司設立的Thingiverse平臺也刪除了所有槍支打印文件，這迫使威爾森建立了Defcad資源庫。

政治家們也試圖阻止，如紐約衆議員史蒂夫•伊斯雷爾，他撰寫了一項禁止3D打印槍支的法案，該法案基於一項條款，即禁止任何可能破壞機場安全系統的武器。但儘管如此，也很難阻止人們使用這項“民主的技術”製造槍支，尤其是對那些深信持槍是憲法賦予他們的權利的人。

然而，威爾遜並不認爲這有任何實實在在值得擔心的。他說：“不會有誰去打印上千槍支，然後發動革命。”

但他也認爲，監管部門不應干涉3D打印技術，以便人們按自己的意願使用。“我想，如果連槍都打印不了，那我對這項技術的研究將沒有任何興趣。”

當然，有些人可能根本不關心威爾遜的興趣，可這並不重要。無論喜不喜歡，3D打印槍支遲早會成爲現實。那這會意味着更多人持有槍支嗎？這很難說。立法者也許會找到限制的方法，再者，這項技術本身還很年輕——至少從消費者的角度看是這樣。但是，如果說威爾遜說的話有值得聽的地方，那就是3D打印槍支已經成爲現實。它們也許還很簡陋，但以後將變得更好。因爲它已經勢不可擋。