Defense Distributed ... by Mail

Cody Wilson (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Cody Wilson was told by a federal judge in Seattle on Monday that he and his company, Defense Distrib­uted, can no longer provide free downloads of instructions to 3-D print or otherwise DIY manufacture guns and parts of guns. So, on Tuesday, the arms enthusiast and capital-F Freedom Fighter decided to put said instructions up for sale. Now, if you go to the DD website (www.defcad.com), you can pay to have instructions for assembling a number of guns and accessories delivered by mail to your home. The cost associated with each "purchase" is voluntary – DD recommends a price, but shoppers are welcome to reduce that, even to $0. The judge, responding to a motion for injunction filed by nearly two dozen state attorneys general, ruled that Wilson and DD cannot publish the blueprints until the case has been resolved; this constitutes their brand of workaround. Wilson announced the news at a press conference at the Fairmont hotel on Tuesday. "The point I'm here to make is, this judge's order stopping us from simply giving things away was only an authorization that we could sell it, that we could mail it, that we could email it, that we could provide it by secure transfer," he said. "I will be doing all of those things now."