Cody Wilson, Pioneer of Homemade 3D Printed Guns, Calls Out Another Company For Refusing to Do Business with Him
Offers $15,000 Bounty for Anyone Who Can Deliver Him a MarkForged carbon-fiber 3D Printer.
I reported last week about how FedEx refuses to help Cody Wilson ship his home CNC mill to make un-serial-numbered weapons at home, his "Ghost Gunner."
This morning he wages a new P.R. war front against MarkForged, for refusing to sell him a 3D printer using carbon fiber.
As Wired reported this morning:
Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson says he pre-ordered the Mark One about a year ago for $8,000, but was told last Friday in a phone call with a MarkForged salesman that the company refuses to sell him one, citing terms of service that disallow private citizens from using the machine to make firearms. So instead, Wilson is offering what he describes as a "bounty" to anyone who can get him MarkForged's new carbon fiber printer.
"Anyone who's got access to one, any reseller, any individual or business or entity that can deliver it to me, I will give them fifteen grand," says Wilson, who has also released a YouTube video advertising his offer. "I'm going to get this printer. I'm going to make a gun with it. And I'm going to make sure everyone knows it was made with a MarkForged printer."
In a statement to WIRED, MarkForged cited terms of service that "limit experimentation with ordnance to the United States Government and its authorized contractors." In fact, the company's terms of service page doesn't include that statement. But it does reserve the right for the company to refuse sale to anyone, even after an order is placed.
A professional provocateur as well as armament-maker, it clearly amuses Wilson watching how so many elements of the world of "normal business" try to run far from any connection to his projects.
But he knows it doesn't matter in the end; their very refusal both highlights aspects of the world he wants to highlight, and doesn't ultimately stop him from his goals. As Wilson said to me in my extensive December 2013 profile of him:
There hasn't been a roadblock in his path that he didn't in some way foresee, and none of them have yet have set back his goals. "This has been a continuous process of different levels of authority figures trying to stop it from happening and thus allowing it to happen," he says. "Of course we are going to succeed-because you all are trying to stop me. That seemed natural and ended up being true."
Wilson video about his feud with MarkForged:
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Cody Wilson is a damn hero.
Doesn’t he, though, come off as a bit of a douche sometimes?
Doesn’t everybody?
well, everybody HERE.
On a scale of what?
He wouldn’t be a douche if people weren’t such vaginias.
Can we nominate Cody Wilson, and Edward Snowden for president and vice-president? I just feel like that would be a good team.
Secretary of State Ellsberg!
I’d pay to see that just to see liberal heads explode.
I’d totally agree, except that the phone booth where every one of us supporters of this ticket gathered to watch election returns would be a fucking depressing place.
That phone booth better have an open bar.
Grass, ass sex and Mexicans, baby!
Maybe a gay couple should buy it for him. Either they receive the printer or they can sue for discrimination.
Now that would be fun. You could watch all the leftists twist themselves into knots trying to justify why forcing Christian bakers to make wedding cakes for gay couples is ok, but forcing a 3d printer company to sell their product to a gay couple is not.
It’s always fun anytime you can highlight their hypocrisy.
The leftists would be twisting themselves into knots because homosexuals are supposed to all be leftists, and all support gun control. So whoever did it would be labeled with some homosexual equivalent of Uncle Tom.
That too.
lawn flamingo?
FUCKING. AWESOME.
(Though that may not stick….)
Seconded.
You know, I was thinking if that machine could also make cakes everyone would be up in arms over this.
Do private companies and citizens have the right to freely associate (and disassociate with anyone they want)? Do private entities have the right to not sell any good or service to any other entity for any reason?
Come on. People get up in arms on this site all the time when entities are forced to do business with someone they don’t want to (like the bakers and gay weddings). Yet here, we have the same situation, and people are behaving differently.
Who is saying that they should be forced to do business with Cody? I think what people are saying is that MarkForged are a bunch of goat fuckers for pussying out on this.
* I don’t think the commenters calling for the use of the FYIGDWID** clause were serious.
**Fuck You I’m Gay Do What I Demand
Hey- I thought we’d all agreed to NOT GO DOWN THE GOAT FUCKER ROAD!
That was sheep fucker that we agreed to go down. Goats are totally different man.
People get up in arms about force being used. No force being used here. Analogy fail.
just societal pressure.
Which is perfectly cromulent, if a little brutish.
MarkForged has the right to refuse to do business with Cody Wilson.
And we have the right to mock them mercilessly for doing that.
Just like a bake shop has the right to sell a wedding cake to two gay guys, and we have the right to stand outside and picket them.
Yeah, we think you can live your life however you want without government interference. But we also think we can laugh our asses off at the way you live your life.
A Lot of People don’t successfully differentiate between a) social pressure, b) force, and c) making a law. (I know b and c have a lot of overlap)
It’s always a problem when you’re talking about something like this.
Not quite:
1) MarkForged is clearly lying about their terms of sale
2) They are doing so as a way of currying favor with
a) the hoplophobes
b) the nation state
3) Wilson is exercising his right to contract to purchase the printer from a willing seller, one who in turn purchased in from a series of one or more willing sellers including the manufacturer.
Nobody is saying that MarkForged should be *forced* to sell the printer to Cody.
Nobody is saying that MArkForged should be excused from criticism of their deceptive explanations.
I don’t think you should get your panties in a twist over this.
“MarkForged is clearly lying about their terms of sale”
seems that way.
I’m wondering (per my comment below) if its because making that claim about ‘how it can be used’ could be legally challenged and expose them to broader liability.
Instead they just act capriciously with one customer and hope he doesn’t personally sue? (as opposed to putting their ‘policy’ in print and exposing themselves to the NRA – or others – suing)
Thank you. You have proven to me that Peak Stupid can never be reached.
I appreciate your contribution to my study.
PS: No one is saying they should be forced to sell it. Oh, and bad PR is not forcing them to do anything so don’t even try.
I didn’t say it bad PR is forcing. Give them all the negative PR you want.
Mock them, picket them, boycott them; I don’t give a shit. I just don’t care if the terms or sale or use include “can’t be used for guns” and they still don’t want to sell to him. If they don’t want to be associated with a 3d printer made gun, they shouldn’t have to sell to him.
I wouldn’t be surprised that they don’t want to sell to him because they fear government retaliation. Look at how they have gone after supporters of anyone who oppose them.
Of course the business should be able to deal with whomever they choose. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t lose customers for being assholes about it.
Did I miss something? Did someone here recommended FORCING MarkForged to deal? Did Cody? No, we’ll let the market decide the correctness of their decision.
+1 right to refuse service to anyone
Whoa, where did it say that Libertarians are currently lobbying nancy pelosi to force MarkOne to bake a Carbon Fiber cake for him?
I don’t think anybody is calling for the company to be forced to sell to Mr. Wilson. Rather they are using their right of free expression to publicly shame the company into selling. That is certainly in keeping with the libertarian ethos.
If the statists had access to a time machine, how far back would they be willing to go in order to quash this technology?
Internet?
Integrated Chips?
ENIAC?
Gutenberg press?
Primordial soup
They’d probably go back and kill as many Chinese people as possible to keep gun powder from ever becoming a thing.
So Ghengis Khan was a time travelling guvt plant. Got it.
That’s my working Theory of Every Great Leader (hero and villain) Is From The Future.
Well he certainly killed enough people to be a true progressive.
Reason should buy the printer. I’ll chip in.
Oooh, that would be something… I suppose their Legal adviser(s) would scream bloody murder, however.
collectivist swine!
Once Cody Wilson gets the printer, he should do 2 things:
1) make a new gun for sh1ts and giggles.
2) print a dildo and send it back to MarkForged so they can f*** themselves.
How about a gun shaped dildo?
That would be great. Maybe also throw in a little vibrator motor and batteries, so they would get a fully automatic assault dildo with no serial numbers or micro-stamping!
“micro-stamping”
Stop making fun of my equipment, Injun.
I larfed.
Too late, you can buy one already.
http://gawker.com/toy-collecto…..-511944789
Sort of SFW
Dang. There goes my get-rich-quick idea.
Look, clearly MarkForged understands that Cody Wilson won’t follow the rules of printer ownership, namely that he will get it wet and then feed it after midnight, causing a small township to be overrun by mischievous and untraceable gun critters.
oh god… what will they do when they start dressing in drag for the sequel…
Something like this?
http://s48.photobucket.com/use…..8.jpg.html
How did they dress in drag? Gremlins are self reproducing and thus genderless.
(sheepishly presents cisgendered shitlord membership card)
When a genderless person dresses in full makeup and women’s clothing is that not drag? I’m sorry I offended.
So after you buy the MarkForged carbon printer, you still don’t own it? Who the fuck do they think they are, Apple?
So who wants to bet that by tomorrow Cody will already have his new 3d printer?
“the company’s terms of service page doesn’t include that statement”
Could anyone with some legal experience (no bo, not you – i said ‘experience’) comment on how “terms of service” actually work in real-life?
I mean, a kitchen knife maker could stipulate “can not be used in self-defense”, but what legal authority does the manufacturer have in dictating how a ‘tool’ is used? If the underlying act is already legal (or illegal), how or what tool is used seems to me to be irrelevant.
i.e. – if making a gun at home from components is legal, the toolmaker can’t impose their own interpretation on how their device applies to that act. Or if making a gun at home from components is already illegal, then the toolmaker’s say in the matter is equally irrelevant. They still probably can’t bar you from purchasing the item, but local law would dictate the legality of its use.
I understand that software is a different beast and should probably be excluded; and given that this ‘tool’ runs on their proprietary software, they may have some say in how it is to be used by that angle’; but still – there’s nothing stopping someone from uninstalling their firmware/code, and using custom software that frees the device maker from any legal culpability.
Usually it’s directly linked to a limitation on liability provision designed to protect the provider/manufacturer from legal liability to the end user or in some cases in the form of an indemnity against third party claims.
My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can’t believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do,
http://www.wixjob.com
With that kind of coin you could by a nice 3D printer.
I’ve made $64,000 so far this year working online and I’m a full time student. I’m using an online business opportunity I heard about and I’ve made such great money. It’s really user friendly and I’m just so happy that I found out about it. Heres what I’ve been doing,
http://www.work-mill.com