Japanese Man Arrested for Making 3D Printed Gun

Learned via the website Kotaku of some bad news from Japan, the (as far as I know) first arrest of a human being for possessing a plastic weapon made via a 3D printer:

A twenty-seven year old Japanese man was arrested on suspicion of printing and possessing guns. This is the first instance of such an arrest being made in Japan…..

According to ANN News, Yoshitomo Imura allegedly downloaded gun blueprints from a foreign site and then printed the resin guns with his 3D printer. 

Imura had apparently uploaded videos to YouTube in which he fired off what looks to be a 3D printed pistol. Last month, police seized five 3D printed guns from Imura's Kawasaki City home….

It is possible to own guns in Japan, but the country has incredibly strict firearms regulations. 

Cody Wilson, the most prominent American proponent and innovator of 3D printed weaponry, had this to say on his Defense Distributed Blog:

I have often been asked who the first person to be arrested for 3D gun printing would be. My answer was the creative and curious.

Yoshitomo Imura is a person of strong character and virtue under unfavorable circumstances. He expressed with his work only virtue, but this virtue is ostracized by his society. He performed his work in the open, without suspicion, fear or dishonor. That he must harvest persecution and calamity for his creative and intrepid instincts is an indictment of his tame and mediocre society. Yoshitomo Imura is trying to say something profound.- is trying to be profound.

I hope Mr. Imura's attitude to his instincts is not reversed by the tomb-like atmosphere which will now cloud his life.

I profiled Wilson in a feature in the December 2013 Reason.

Reason TV interviewed Wilson more recently:

Comments

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Why is Justin Timberlake pointing a gun at me?

[Tonio]

Shut up. Wilson is hotter than Timberlake.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Good and Evil twins?

[Episiarch]

Somebody's got a crush!

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

Man, you're right. He is WAY hotter than Timberlake.

[Lady Bertrum]

Cody Wilson is hot, isn't he? I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed.

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

I almost never watch videos and use Flashblock so had Tonio not mentioned this I may never have known.

Thank you, Tonio. I'll be in my bunk.

[Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat]

Sheesh, objectify much? This is why there are no libertarian men.

Usually I instinctively dislike men who are younger, more attractive, more successful, more masculine, and more libertarian than me, but Cody Wilson is alright.

[GILMORE]

"Francisco d'Anconia|5.8.14 @ 12:39PM|#

Why is Justin Timberlake pointing a gun Pencil Sharpener at me?"

FTFY

[Tman]

If you think Japan is weird now, wait until the demographic gap finally settles in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan

It will be interesting to see how they handle civil liberties with a whole lot of old people and very few young ones.

[Almanian!]

No one will ever set foot on a lawn, that's fer sure.

[Tman]

HAHA! "Lawns" in Japan.

Hilarious.

A friend of mine just got back from Tokyo and showed me some pictures. It's like someone stacked a few Manhattans next to each other in sprawling fashion. It looks insane large.

[db]

It has some really pretty parks and.gardens though. I got to spend a Saturday morning riding with a co-worker in his RX-8 all around Tokyo once.

[Tman]

Is it as crazy big as it looks in the pictures? I was stunned at how far out all of the apartment buildings went.

[db]

It is huge. But it's only a three and a half hour drive to Mount Fuji.

[Donut-san]

I went up to the observation floor in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building, one of the tallest buildings in the skyscraper district in Shinjuku. The city went pretty much as far as the eye could see in every direction.

[Pro Libertate]

I rode a train into Tokyo from Narita back in the 90s, and I swear the city never friggin' ended.

[Carl ?s his privilege]

They will get rid of the lady-only train cars. Old men gotta have somebody to grope.

[GILMORE]

"some bad news from Japan, the (as far as I know) first arrest of a human being for possessing a plastic weapon"

Well, *Someone* is a little miffed about being 'un-noticed'...

[Clich? Bandit]

Man I had a full size Voltron lions (had the cars too but they were lame) That thing WAS a weapon. Step on THAT at 2am in the dark and you will be lucky to live.

[Clich? Bandit]

P.S. Voltron was fucking awesome. I miss Voltron.

[Vampire]

You couldn't have just asked for the damned micro machines........ You just HAAAD TO HAAAVE the biggest toys on the block so folks could trip and stab themselves while trying to get some mothereffin COOKIES!!!

[GILMORE]

"human, schmuman.... what...cybernetic 'second class citizens now?... defender of the universe, with what?? #($&* lazersword goes next? *#&$... I blame the Chinese... this never would have happened under Hirohito..."

[Clich? Bandit]

Actually, Cody's statement is well written and somewhat poetic. I shouldn't be surprised but I guess I forgot to check my priv or something.

[Zeb]

I really liked the "tame and mediocre society" bit. There are many interesting aspects to Japanese culture, but standing out as an individual and going against the established order are not big.

[Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat]

Save for lack of an oxford comma, I thought so too. Nice use of alliteration and consonance without overdoing it.

[Warty]

Yoshitomo Imura is a person of strong character and virtue under unfavorable circumstances. He expressed with his work only virtue, but this virtue is ostracized by his society. He performed his work in the open, without suspicion, fear or dishonor. That he must harvest persecution and calamity for his creative and intrepid instincts is an indictment of his tame and mediocre society. Yoshitomo Imura is trying to say something profound.- is trying to be profound.

Damn. Well said.

[Clich? Bandit]

Don't steal my sentiment Warty...I'll send the fucker of sheep after you again.

[Warty]

That guy can't touch me. I'm invincible. Come at me bro.

[Vampire]

No need for that sheep dude to come at ya, it already came in ya, bitch!

Clich? posted it on YouTube. You're a star dude!

[Clich? Bandit]

My favorite part was you and hmm and several others were all named directly in the lawsuit but that was before registration and totally anonymous (NSA revelations not withstanding)...how in the hell would that pass muster during the first hearing?

[Stormy Dragon]

How do we know he is a "person of strong character and virture" just because he demonstrated the ability to hook up a 3d printer?

[SusanM]

He's a patriot, like...all those people in jail...

[Warty]

Because he broke the law on purpose and told the world about it, you obnoxious sack of contrarian shit. You know, civil disobedience. Moron.

[SusanM]

Or he's a dumbshit who uploaded a vid of himself doing something wildly illegal not believing for a second that anything would come of it. I'm not arguing the principle here, just saying that you should choose your champions with care.

[Stormy Dragon]

He could have done that and still be a douchenozzle. It's possible to call for his release without proclaiming him an candidate for sainthood.

[VicRattlehead]

no but Martyr for civil liberties may be more accurate. and it does take character to stand for something stormy... what do you stand for?

[Raston Bot]

Good thing the Japanese govt initiated some violence and caged this dude like an animal. You can't have creative types in the one country with a worse debt-to-GDP ratio than Zimbabwe.

[Episiarch]

Weren't Japan's draconian gun laws created when the US (MacArthur?) wrote their constitution for them after they surrendered? I'm actually a little fuzzy on how that all went down.

[tarran]

Nah, it predates that era.

Japan has had gun control for a while.

[sarcasmic]

It could be carryover from the samurai days. I don't think peasants were ever allowed to arm themselves.

[sarcasmic]

Or I'm totally wrong.

[Zeb]

That's what I understood as well. I think they have a long tradition of not letting common people arm themselves, at least not with the good weapons.

I think Japanese culture is interesting in a lot of ways, but it is pretty well the opposite of libertarian individualist as far as I can see.

[Rich]

I don't think peasants were ever allowed to arm themselves.

Hence the ninja weapons based on farm implements.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Japanese medieval history pre-Tokugawa Shogunate is fascinating.

When the country was in its warring states periods spontaneous order manifested itself in these associations of independent towns and villages that existed outside the feudal system.

Needles to say, these were crushed and the peasants disarmed in favor of the rigid feudal caste system that would last until the Meiji era and beyond.

[Jerryskids]

Good thing the Japanese govt initiated some violence and caged this dude like an animal.

The linked article only says "A twenty-seven year old Japanese man was arrested on suspicion of printing and possessing guns." Why would you not assume that it was the FBI or the BATF or DHS that arrested him? He's lucky Obama didn't just drone-strike his ass. Dumbass thinking he can just go around breaking American laws like that. This is 1984, goddammit, our laws are uni-fucking-versal.

[Vampire]

Hey peon, yeah you!! You can not create weapons to defend yourself. You must wait for the police to arrive, and then clean up the mess which will probably be you you.

Oh, it takes minutes for us to arrive eh? Great, we'll just hire 80,000 more police officers to get that time down to 2 mins 30 seconds. IF we cannot reach that goal, WE WILL hire more. Police abuse??? Sure, we'll just investigate the incident for a year or so. Police brutality and murder??? We'll do all we can to justify it, and give them a desk job, or give them full retirement while you're forced to pay the scumbag that murdered your family member.

Just from an economic standpoint, police are ineffective and inefficient. The only way to attempt to stop a threat to your life and liberty would be able to defend one's self at the moment of the crime. Unfortunately, individuals are forced to pay for such police service no matter it's performance, or it's abusiveness. It is yet another arm of the state meant to protect the state's power and force folks to obey. The protect and serve slogan is Bull sheisser.

[Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat]

I agree, although I think we could break down police action.

As a proactive force, police are very inefficient. Looking for crime will never be as efficient as reacting to it.

As a reactive force, the police may be more efficient, as the conditions of the situation are clearer and they aren't on (as much of) a fishing expedition. However, because their support is after-the-fact, the situation as a whole is less efficient than if a person would protect himself.

The only efficiency value I see for police is that of a neutral third party for collection and evaluation of information in the judicial process. In fact, I would make that function less efficient by separating evidence collection from the police function, for oversight purposes.

[Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat]

Actually, I want to just say that it isn't necessarily the case that a person protecting themselves is more efficient, just because people are so terrible at evaluating diffuse risks. For example, if an elderly community reacted to a sole break-in by installing alarms and barring all their windows, that probably would be a waste of resources, but at least it would be independent from the government. And there would be alternatives, like security guards.

[Raston Bot]

Venezuela's still in the throes of a self-inflicted economic collapse if anyone cares.

[Free Society]

Ukraine!!!!

[Vampire]

But what about ROADZ?!!!!

[Pro Libertate]

If you want to hang out,
You've got to take her out,
Ukraine.
If you want to get down,
Boots on the ground,
Ukraine.

[Suthenboy]

It isn't that no one cares, it is that the proggys don't want you to notice what happens when all of the policies they support are put into place.

[110 Lean]

Everybody knows that the Koch brothers are behind the push for 3D printed guns. The printers use resin, which is a petroleum product. Thos two just keep finding new ways to sell their dirty oil.

[Jerryskids]

Everybody here knows the Koch Bros. are behind the push for 3D printed guns, but that's because we're all employed as Koch sockpuppets.

[The Last American Hero]

That reminds me - has anyone else here been able to get their Koch-shilling checks deposited in Bitcoin? They keep wiring the funds to my numbered account in US dollars.

[VicRattlehead]

No, they kidnapped my family and forced me to be a Libertarian, really i love having people think for me all the time so i have no responsibility for any of my actions like an SS guard at Dachau...

[Pope Jimbo]

My nieces are going to be disappointed by this. Their favorite part of any visit here to the states is the trip to a gun range. They spend hours shooting up a ton of .22 shells and think that makes them total bad asses.

[Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat]

Are they single?

[VicRattlehead]

yeah go for the girls who can pick you off from a distance.... hell hath no fury

[Cytotoxic]

Did this guy actually appear in his video or did the police find him by tracking his account? I just wish he were more cautious than heroic.