 You have to think past the pageantry of the political. I mean, this idea that our institutions are somehow even connected to what's happening. People, they can see and sense that the president isn't really the leader of the country. He's just some kind of ceremonial installation connected to a pseudo-reality. It's further and further away from what's actually happening. The federal government is trying a new tactic in its fight to shut down the DIY gun movement and Defense Distributed, the Austin Texas-based company founded by the Second and First Amendment activist and provocateur Cody Wilson. But Wilson says he's been preparing and that this latest attack will only backfire. His counter-move will continue to test the limits of how far the federal government will go in restricting what Americans do in the privacy of their own homes. Founded in 2012, Defense Distributed sells programmable milling machines that can be used to make unregistered firearms. In 2013, the State Department ordered Wilson to take plans for his first 3D printed gun, the Liberator, off his website. Wilson sued on First Amendment grounds, but this led to a 2018 settlement with the feds, a media firestorm, and finally, a 2021 9th Circuit Court injunction against states trying to ban sharing of the files. Now the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, better known as the ATF, has drafted a 100-page administrative rule changing the definition of a firearm to encompass weapon parts kits designed to or which may readily be assembled, completed, converted, or restored. If the rule is adopted in the coming weeks, it means the federal government will require gun part kits sold on the internet by Defense Distributed and its competitors to bear the same serial numbers as do fully manufactured firearms, which has the potential to put the entire industry out of business. So how is Wilson responding? Meet the 0% receiver. Anything on its way to being a gun is now considered a gun, so say I, Uncle Joe. And this would be smart, you would think, if you're a wine mom or a lawyer who now controls the ATF. You know, this is Gabby Gifford's grand achievement to end kit guns in the mail, but that's just it. This was only a reaction to kit guns in the mail. Our equipment, our software, 3D printing and CNC milling can take raw materials, blocks of metal, things in their primordial state, and take them from nothing and turn them into guns. Wilson and his team tweaked the code to the latest model of the Ghost Gunner. It used to be the customers would purchase partially fabricated lower receivers using the Ghost Gunner to finish the job of turning them into functional gun parts. Wilson said that Defense Distributed is the only DIY gun company pivoting in the face of this new regulation, so the real impact of the law will be to drive out his competitors. With this rule that Biden's pursuing, he's giving us, though the nation's premier Ghost Gun Company, I would say a monopoly of the market. According to federal law, after a Ghost Gunner makes a homemade gun out of a block of aluminum, the weapon does not need to be registered with the federal government. Without the next logical step that they're going to say, well, once you make a homemade gun, you have to get it registered. What happens then? So registration of farms would take an act of Congress. And so, by the way, would most of the regulations of manufacturing farms, this should have taken an act of Congress. Joe Biden knows he wants to stop Ghost Guns. He never had the power. He never took the power. He didn't have the congressional majorities to deliver him a new act of Congress. He's tried. He's at hearings. Look at Blumenthal and Menendez, these guys. They really want it. They don't have it. And you can see how the next year or two is going to go. He's going to get even less of that power, less of that mandate. So they threw 100 pages at kit guns in the mail, and they're going to congratulate themselves. They're going to say, hey, we did it, you know? No, all they did was make us right, the 3D printers, the CNC millers. Now we're the only way to do it. In the wake of the January 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Homeland Security has turned its focus to homegrown domestic terrorism, or the most urgent terrorism threat the United States faces today, according to the White House. In justifying its forthcoming rule, the ATF cites an uptick in the number of homemade guns recovered at crime scenes, and the agency sees unregistered firearms as a growing national security threat. Is there a danger that the DIY gun movement is going to explode into terrorism or fuel terrorism? Look, there's an irony here. And the state and its agents don't necessarily mean it, and they even enjoy this irony. But the homeland security threat, I would say, from their perspective becomes even greater when you pass these regs because more people will take the exclusively private route that we are now offering. Wilson says that the regulation will mean that more DIY gunsmiths are buying blocks of aluminum instead of gun kits, the sales of which can be more easily surveilled by law enforcement. Does that bother our national security strategists and our anti-white supremacists, you know, legions? No, because they'll just say, well, now, a year from now, making a gun is, of course, the surest sign that you're some kind of domestic terrorist or something. So they enjoy this. The problem is, you know, we enjoy it too. Sorry, it'll be dark, right? People are going to make guns. They're going to choose gun privacy. They're going to choose ways to acquire weapons outside of government oversight. Last time I spoke with you, I got a lot of flak, basically, from people. And one reason is people have been accusing you of being either a fascist or, you know, sympathetic to the alt-rights or the far-right, and that your project is really about funneling guns to these groups that want to stage some sort of right-wing coup of the American government. Why are you distributing these guns? What is the purpose of this? Well, look, I'll yield this, and it's in our filings for years. Our perspective has always been global. Okay, our perspective has always been international and through the internet. And of course, there's no level of control that I can affect that makes sure that only the right wing gets access to this equipment. You know, when we saw the chas and some of these street protests of the left, we saw our patches, our come-and-take-it patches, printed guns and things like that. You know, we have no control about this. If the question is one of, well, what's your personal intent or why, you know, why are you sympathetic with the right, simply because the right is the only, the post-political right or however you want to call it, the post-left, you know, these are the only people actually attempting to quote-unquote resist this accumulation of centralized power, control, all the methods of what Schmidt would call depoliticization. I'm interested in the political. I'm interested in something beyond liberal capitalism and this just crushing, you know, accumulation of bureaucratic control ruled by wine moms and lawyers. The right wing is the only credible artistic aesthetic in America. The only movement even trying to think beyond these things and trying to work with new technologies and techniques. I saw a speech that you gave that was posted on your channel called Post Politics. Your goal as a post-political figure is not to give these people the hallmarks of a captive mind. In a speech that Wilson recently gave at a conference and he posted on his website and YouTube channel, he encourages the audience to focus less on engaging in electoral politics or debate and persuasion and more on maintaining intellectual independence, political sovereignty and creating things that constrain power in the real world. Your goal is to not get captured. Is that where you are thinking of yourself these days as post-political and if so like what does that mean really? Look you could, you could say that. I mean the the number one motto on the internet right now about our state of politics is that it's essentially fake and gay. This isn't real and not just that it's not performative but it's like somehow cringe-worthy and connected to a pseudo reality that's further and further away from what's actually happening and I'll show you this with this rule. I mean these people will high-five themselves like well we solved kit guns and gun crime in America right and they'll all just like parade this hundred page solution as some type of you know new era of peace or something and but what did they actually do right they established a new new coordinates for for the technical and how we will make guns because of course we'll continue to make them and they made me some kind of profit right now you can only 3d print and cnc mail receivers well god damn I didn't think I'd be right literally five years later you know that this is the only way you're going to get it done privately you see like this is these are two complete camps these these people maybe don't even realize just how starkly they've diverged from what's actually happening a world of people making guns straight from the internet you have to think past the pageantry of the political and I don't just mean tv I mean this idea that our institutions are somehow even connected to what's happening they they seem to be like the president himself if not dead surely dying zombies are they even aware of what's happening the president is a great emblem of the political and I just want to think man I just want to live and and imagine what living would be and I suppose at this point that means to notice and to to think past the political so if that is the case that there's this sort of institutional zombie dumb and it offers up these opportunities how would you suggest people that are in that mindset act what like what should they do to move forward you know outside the realm of printing their own 3d guns I think the culture has had time to adjust to 3d printer guns at this point you know it's the thing you can do it's a joke it's a punchline same thing with bitcoin everybody's fascinated everybody's involved on some level or curious none of that was true 10 years ago people thought this stuff was science fiction or just like you know somehow a scam and I'm not saying that there aren't scam elements but even during COVID in the election of Biden this is really helpful people are like huh I can I can see and sense mainstream people like they can see and sense that the president isn't isn't really the leader of the country he's just some kind of ceremonial installation and this drives a deep anxiety even if it's not completely conscious pursuing this anxiety and understanding how to actually do literally anything to manufacture something to be in charge of your own finances right these are deeply post political activities now and so I would I would simply say maintain a firm commitment to what is actually happening and how that actually happens and don't just get mad at the ceremonial political figures you are on TV meant to somehow just absorb that anger and dissuade you from investigating what the actual mechanics of your country and your time are a federal ban on DIY guns may be a non-starter in congress but that's not the case at the state and local level defense distributed is suing new jersey's attorney general and a texas court for his attempts to ban the distribution of gun files and multiple cities in california have banned the sale and distribution of ghost guns the state's governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a law modeled on texas's new abortion law that would deputize private citizens to pursue lawsuits against individuals who distribute ghost gun kits do i support texas abortion law i knew it was a bad idea because it's going to weaponize the courts even further and push us into this strange civil war territory at the same time i'm not afraid of that either okay Newsom's going to say well you can't sell ghost gun kits into into california we'll find what we sell will never be a ghost gun kit you understand but we'll always be selling something we'll always be giving you the ways to do it so maybe this knocks out the low-hanging players and you know what's left of so-called ghost gun world but just as the texas law has all these strange constructions and loopholes so the california law will too in this forest and this proliferating forest of competing laws and ways that allow people to sue you i have the commitment like the the the certainty that it will be somehow easier to give you the raw materials to make a firearm where does that commitment or certainty come from there's a world of things that are not guns there's a world of things that are not gun parts we will give you the technology to turn these things into guns and gun parts kody wilson has had personal legal troubles as well that caused him to temporarily step back from his role at defense distributed in 2018 he was indicted for paying for sex with a 16-year-old girl he met through a dating site though his legal team at the time argued he wasn't aware she was a minor who had lied about her age to create a profile on the site he ended up pleading guilty to a third-degree felony charge was sentenced to seven years probation and had to register as a sex offender for that period people who are supportive of the ideas you're putting out there say well still you're not the guy that should be out there as the face of this or a spokesman because of your legal problems that should forever you know make you kind of slink back into the shadows what do you say to that i haven't personally seen this criticism but you can't choose your messenger you know so sorry it had to be me i was waiting for other people to do it and in some respects a lot of the movement has risen up to the challenge there's a ton of people doing 3d work right now and i don't you know i don't presume to be a spokesperson for everything happening in the movement which i clearly you know fathered at the same time when we when we have a technical innovation i'm going to show the way i'm not just going to wait for you to figure it out or to commercialize it so you can't choose your messenger and maybe in a couple years people change your mind wilson says that a lesson he came away with from his prior fight with the federal government is that politicians and regulators care most about how they are perceived and that they will back down quietly as long as those challenging their authority are careful not to publicly embarrass them too much the state department agency previously responsible for regulating those files gave up its legal fights which enabled wilson to make the online library of gun files def cad once again available regulation shifted to a division of the department of commerce which allows def cad to host but not generate or sell the files they literally just wrote how we did def cad into their regulations so there's this process of accommodation happening where power never admits that it loses but it does have to tactically retreat and that is also i think why we have to continue and insisting and pushing this way because of these tactical retreats they show more and more that power is essentially impotent in these places it knows it as long as you don't embarrass it too much it will make these adjustments and so i hope then that what we've done will i think be another example of okay you know try again