NY Governor Declares War on Defense Distributed's Cody Wilson

Defense Distributed won a major court case recently. I've also talked with Cody Wilson in the past about a product that was designed to get around at least some of the concerns about so-called ghost guns. The truth of the matter is that Cody is very libertarian, very pro-gun, and very much uninterested in playing nice with the state of New York.

And Gov. Kathy Hochul seems to believe that she can get the best of Wilson.

I mean, that's what she said in what looks a lot like a declaration of war against Wilson and his company.

Cody Wilson, the creator of the first 3D-printed gun, announced a tool last week aimed at skirting a New York law that prevents 3D printers from making firearms — and taunting governor Kathy Hochul in the process. But Hochul isn’t having it.

In this week’s episode of Decoder, Hochul responded to Wilson’s “Hochulization” tool, warning she isn’t going to let it defeat the state’s efforts:

You can tell Cody I will get ahead of him next. I can’t always be on the forefront when I see someone intentionally thwarting a law. It is the law that you cannot have 3D-printed guns in the state of New York. And if you think it’s okay to have someone in their kitchen who may have severe mental health problems who wants to shoot up kids in your school, make a ghost gun at their kitchen table or create a munitions factory where there was none, with no regulations, no background checks, no nothing, and people broadcast that as if it’s a proper thing to do is challenge me on that, then I say go for it. Because you’re trampling in the wrong space.

Wilson said last week that he plans to apply the “Hochulization” technique to his company’s repository of over 200,000 files of gun designs and components, and even intends to open-source it. The tool is designed to get around government-mandated gun file detection systems by changing the hashes on the files so they aren’t flagged as guns, without changing the functionality of the end product.

Wilson isn’t the only person who’s pushed back on calls for gun detection software — the Electronic Frontier Foundation has also voiced concerns about digital surveillance and mandating “censorware” on 3D printers. And earlier this year, a creator in Kentucky highlighted the potential gray areas of 3D printed gun bans with an e-reader case that looks like a gun, but isn’t functional.

Hochul seems to admit that some non-firearms will get caught up in her proposed ban, but seems to think that she and the state of New York will be able to get ahead of Wilson and others in the digital gun space and lock things down.

Which would be adorable if it didn't hint at a disturbing level of tyranny very loudly.

See, the problem with these rules is that those printers may well end up in other states, places that recognize the right of people to make their own guns. Hochul and her fellow travelers want these rules everywhere, anyway, so that's not an issue for them. It's an issue for the rest of us, though, and so "Hochulization" allows people to get around the issue.

And honestly, the right to keep and bear arms implies the right to acquire guns, and building guns is most definitely protected by the Constitution. It was common back in the day, and it's been common enough for years since then. There are no grounds for New York's actions and proposed actions, and so Wilson is understandably pushing back.

If there's an upside here, it's that no matter what Hochul says, a government will never be as agile as a private concern is. That's why communism and socialism suck so badly. Bureaucracies bog everything down, so no matter what they propose to do, Wilson and his crowd will just adjust before a new law can even go into effect.

You're not getting ahead of him unless you take seriously draconian steps.

And if that happens, Hochul better come to enjoy having her head served to her on a platter by the Supreme Court. Metaphorically, of course, because I don't need anyone pretending a common metaphor is actually a threat when it's not.

Unless threatening her with her getting curb stomped in court is the same thing.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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