May 28, 2021 • 58 mins
Firearms are banned in many countries across the world, and it is highly difficult to acquire one. That is changing. The combination of 3D printing technology and the Internet - for better or worse - is moving the power of weapons manufacturing to the public domain.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is an owner. They
called me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer
Alexis code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. A quick recap for anyone
who missed our earlier Strange news segments. We covered a
(00:49):
recent court case here in the US regarding essentially homemade firearms,
and we received a lot of helpful feedback on this,
include being clarifications regarding the laws as they currently stand,
the ongoing debate in d C, and the various you
could call them stakeholders on all sides of the issue.
(01:13):
And I don't know about you, guys, but the more
I looked into it, the more I realized this is,
yet again, at heart, a case of technology outpacing legislation.
Legislation just takes forever to catch up two things. Sometimes
legislation can be very reactive or ideologically driven. But our
(01:34):
question today is are their conspiracies of foot what do you?
What does this um emergent era of homemade firearms mean
for the future. To answer this question, we have to
first understand the incredibly unique position firearms hold in the US.
(01:54):
We were talking off air, Doc and Matt Nolan myself
about just our own personal experiences growing up around firearms.
Did you guys have guns in your house when you
were growing up? And there was never a gun family.
We were like a violin family. We didn't have weapons.
We had one bb gun that I was allowed to
(02:15):
shoot sometimes and that was it. That was going to
be the baseball bats as our home defense. Seriously, like
a special cabinet, like these are the baseball bats for
playing baseball? These are the ones for thwacking villains. Well,
you know, they're really it's not a one use tool,
you know, um baseball, but that's a really versatile thing.
It's still what I have. Now I've got one right
(02:36):
by my feet actually, just in case you got a
metal one or a wood one. Now it's metal. Yeah, okay,
you know what's up. So so baseball bats maybe a
story for a different day, But here are the facts.
Gun ownership maybe a controversial issue when you get to
the specifics here in the US who should be able
(02:59):
to own which types of guns and so on, But
on a very basic level, firearm ownership is enshrined in
American laws under the Second Amendment. That means that firearms
have a cultural significance that doesn't really exist in a
lot of other countries. And if you're familiar with the way, UM,
(03:25):
I'm trying not to be doo snarky about this, but
with the way Congress works in this country, it can
be very difficult to um to change laws that require
a majority. So there's a spectrum here, and whether you
are on one extreme side or another, whether you think
there should be absolutely no gun ownership whatsoever by civilians,
(03:47):
or whether you think, uh, not only should I be
able to own whatever kind of firearm I want, but
it's also nobody's business, including the governments, what I do
with it and where I keep them, at cetera. No
matter how where you fall in that in that ideological space, uh,
the truth is that the Second Amendment is is not
(04:09):
going to go away, but it's there's no there's no
um practical way for that law to change or for
that amendment to be revoked. But there are many laws
that arguing nuances of this right and say that like
a handgun, you can have a handgun, but you can't
(04:30):
have you know, um, well a tank is a terrible example.
But you know, there's there's certain guns that legislators will
say you shouldn't have unless you are in the military.
But yeah, people can still get fully automatic weapons at
like gun shows, right, yeah, yeah, And this is something
where the system can become so byzantine because it goes
(04:53):
state by state. UM there are a lot of things
that UM proponents of gun controls as purposeful loopholes, and
there are a lot of things that proponents of gun
guns rights see as government overreach. But regardless of the controversies,
regardless of these concerns, we know this is an issue
(05:13):
that is incredibly important to a lot of our fellow
conspiracy realisticiting date. Regardless how you feel about it, the
simple fact is that in the US a lot of
people own guns. Yeah it's true. Um US has just
four percent of the entire world population, but fort of
(05:35):
civilian gun ownership of the entire world. Yeah, that's right.
And and as of last year, I think it's of
US households had at least one gun, or you know,
at least report to have one gun. And a lot
of these gun owners, probably the majority of them, site
you know, personal defense protection, uh, and in their Second
(05:57):
Amendment rights as like this is why have a gun? Yeah?
And there and but I think it is important to
note there about that statistic that you just mentioned, Matt,
is this this is kind of it. We'll see, it's
kind of a skewed distribution, right, Like a lot of
people who are that in that forty two percent just
(06:18):
have one firearm. It's at their house. It's probably under
lock and keys somewhere. Um, it's it's there's this stereotype
about this country that a lot of my friends from
abroad fully believe. And they're intelligent people, I should say,
they just fully believe that, Um, everybody in the US
(06:40):
is walking around in an action movie and we're all
strapped up, you know what I mean, whether we're going
to the library or to the local wing spot. It's
also kind of it can be kind of difficult to
break that stereotype for people who aren't from here, because
it's tricky to estimate gun ownership, like when we say,
(07:03):
for that is very that's a very large ballpark. It's
it's the same way that you know, certain ill informed
Americans might think that all French people wear berets and
have curly mustaches and wear like striped shirts and just
walk around drinking espresso all day and chain smoking cigarettes.
You know, some of them, sure do, I guess, but
(07:25):
you know, definitely not all of them. And some Americans
toute their guns to target. So it's it's there's a
reason the stereotype exists. Not all French people even speak French.
It's it's it has been known to happen from time
to time. Yeah, it's a um, it's a strange thing.
Like just personally, I currently do not own any firearms.
(07:46):
But in a different in a different life, in a
you know, another multiverse, if my situation wasn't as it
was with a wife and children, I would certainly own
multiple guns. Uh, like I would right now, I'm telling you,
but I don't because it it frightens me the thought
of having a firearm, no matter how locked down it
(08:08):
is in my house. So you know, but there are
a lot of family members out there, fathers, mothers, heads
of households that feel very comfortable having guns, and it's
just a regular thing, not only comfortable strongly about protecting
their homestead and their family, you know, against invaders or
whomever that imagined or real, uh, you know, individual might be. Um,
(08:32):
I have a quick question for you guys before we
move move on. I've been thinking a lot about the
Volstead Act lately. I've been rewatching um Boardwalk Empire. And
it was an amendment of the Constitution that that made
alcohol illegal, and obviously it was very controversial. It caused
a lot of corruption and a lot of problems. But
then you mentioned at the top of the show how
there's really no functional way, or be really functionally difficult
(08:54):
to amend or change the constitutional right to bear arms.
Do you think that is because it is a something
in the constitution that provides a right, as opposed to
removes the right, like the way the volts That Act
was ultimately walked back because it was a terrible, terrible
idea because because of all the things I mentioned. But
yet we have so many reasons that gun control maybe
(09:15):
should be enacted, but yet it seems very very difficult
from an ideological standpoint to do anything about it. Sure,
there's an ideological standpoint, Um, there's also uh, it's all.
It also directly touches an enormous industry. The US, by
several measures, is one of the largest weapons manufacturers in
(09:38):
the world. I know that can sound a little misleading
because weapons is a big word that encompasses uh many things. Uh.
It goes down to yeah, ideology, money, political capital, and
and you know, the thing is, like we've talked about
this before. Everybody agrees that there are any number of problems.
(09:59):
Right the heart where the conversation breaks down is the
idea of what would be the way forward, What are
the best next steps, what are the solutions to things
that everybody admits need to be fixed? Um, and this
you know, I'm I'm endeavoring to be pretty objective here,
(10:20):
just personally and not not put my, um, any of
my own personal biases in this. When we talked, you know, Matt,
you said personally in a universe, Well, no, no, feel
like I I appreciate what you're saying. I think it
support because he said, I loved that you're basically like,
you know, in a universe perpendicular to ours or to
(10:40):
the left of hours. If these variables were different, I
would absolutely own again. And the thing about it here
is that you also would not have to tell anyone. Right,
There's the way it works is there's not a like
you might be surprised, fellow conspiracy realist, how many of
your friends and relatives do own firearms, just haven't told
(11:03):
you about it? And they have they don't have to. Uh.
That's part of this comes from the fact that there
is no federal registration requirement or similar regulation that would enable, like,
require you to report this stuff or enable an official
better than ballpark estimate. In fact, the opposite is the case.
(11:26):
There is a federal level law about this, but it
is a law that is built to prohibit a central
registry of firearms owned by private citizens. And of course
these statistics were pulling our we need to understand these
are ballpark. There is a pretty fascinating report from eighteen
(11:49):
out of Switzerland by a group called the Small Arms Survey,
and they show that Americans own a disproportionate share of
the world's firearms overall. As you mentioned, no four percent
in the world's population shian civilian owned guns globally, and again,
a lot of a lot of those numbers sound weird,
(12:10):
but not everybody's strapped. A lot of people have like
one firearm at their house. And then you know, out
of those nine people, there's a there's a tenth person
who's very Jeffrey Allen lash about it, and he's got
he's apparently got a woman army, more guns than he
could ever fire, more AMMO than it could ever use. Yeah,
maybe not quite Jeffrey Allen lash level. Hopefully. I know.
(12:31):
It's just I'm showing the extremities of the spectrum here.
You have like million rounds of AMMO or something insane
like that. It was some absurd number. Yeah. Ammo bien
is interesting because you'll you'll hear reports of AMMO shortages
and it often coincides with political cycles, and people say, hey,
(12:51):
you need to make sure you have AMMO. There will
be a shortage, or there may be a law banning
all firearms, or there may be a law that somehow
prevents you from buying ammunition for firearms. So like in Atlanta,
there maybe a gas shortage, so make sure you hoard
all of the gas. People will do it. I don't
(13:13):
say that. Uh well, I think we mentioned that right previously.
Gas goes bad. Yeah, okay, okay, good. Just to make
that clear, how long did it take? Again? Takes months?
About your look, it could go bad in as early
as three months, so you would look at three to
six months unless you put in a stabilizer. In all fairness,
(13:36):
diesel will last about a year on the shelf. But
they're living chemicals, you know, so they're going to degrade anyway.
The Small Arms Survey and all these questions in the air,
they estimate that American civilians all together own three hundred
and ninety three million guns, making the country number one
(13:56):
in terms of firearms per capita. But again, it's not
an equal distribution. If you come to the US, you
might be surprised at how weird gun purchasing laws are.
Or if you've never bought a gun and you were
thinking about it and you you started looking into it,
(14:17):
you'll quickly find that the law is very state by
state in almost like in so many ways. So instead
of walking through all fifty states and there are various requirements,
maybe it's most helpful to give just an example of
from Georgia. So the process is pretty straightforward here. You
don't need a ton of stuff and you don't need
(14:38):
firearm training either. You just need to be over twenty
one UM or I think eighteen. If you have an
honorable military discharge and you can't be a convicted felon
that is restricted from owning a gun, you just need
a valid state issued I D driver's license, State i
D blockbuster card. UH. I knew that in hand. Yes,
(15:05):
trudos that everyone who kept one. UH. And then you
know you'll get a background check if you're buying from
a licensed dealer. UH. There's something that happens in other
states that is similar to Georgia. If you already have
a Georgia weapons license, that counts as your background check
because you passed it already to get that license. And
(15:26):
also if we're hanging out and you know, um, we're
off air and um Matt decides to uh privately like
sell a gun to UH code named Doc Holiday or
UH Doc decides to just give a gun like literally
give it as a gift. Maybe then there's no background
(15:49):
check involved. You also don't need any license to keep
it at your house. You only need a permit or paperwork.
If you plan to carry it in public, then you
would need something like to carry per minute you can
still carry that costs about seventy bucks seventy five bucks
at the local probate court. So Georgia also is one
of the easier states. Um they have reciprocity with about
(16:12):
thirty two other states, meaning if you have firearms, if
you have if you're good in Georgia, you're good in
those states. Exactly. It's an interesting thing. I just happened
to have recently sold a car, and it's a weird
thing where you've got well, it was for as anyway,
it's for almost no money to a family in my
(16:34):
neighborhood that I needed a car, and I didn't want
it anyway. But the circumstances aside. In order to do
that in the US, especially here in Georgia, you have
a title for that vehicle. It's a piece of paper
that you you physically have to sign and give to
the new owner, and that way they can use that
(16:54):
piece of paper that shows ownership when registering that vehicle, right.
And it's it's odd to me that there's no system
like that with a weapon, where you'd have a piece
of paper that says this weapon was registered to me,
I am now going to sell it to this other person.
And now they have that piece of paper with that weapon.
It seems like that would be a thing. Overall. The
(17:16):
point is this, there is a series of systems in place.
Supporters of the current system believe it's better than nothing,
and warned that too much oversight many regulations are outright
banning can create a kind of slippery sloop, with the
fear being that the bottom of this slope is eventually
a situation where all firearms are illegal, or even more extreme,
(17:40):
the Second Amendment itself is repealed, which again and I think,
in our collective opinion, will probably never happen. Opponents have
gun ownership in the current system argue that it has
been purposely broken by any number of bad actors, corrupt politicians,
lobbying groups like most infamously the n r a UM.
(18:02):
They point to the valid and disturbing data surrounding mass
shootings in the United States, which we can't not mention. Right, Um,
there's the statistics are there, they are inarguable. Uh, these
systems are going to remain controversial. There's gonna be criticism
from nearly every stakeholder you can imagine about one thing
(18:24):
or another. But now there is a new trend in
the field, and it's one that may fundamentally change the
state of firearms in the US and in the world. Gentlemen,
we are looking at the rise of the ghost gun,
or we will be looking at it afterwards from our sponsor.
(18:47):
Here's where it gets crazy. But so, what is it
we talked about this strange news? Is it a gun
that shoots ghosts? Is it a gun? Like? No, no,
not shoots them as in, like shoots at them like
instead of bullets. There's a fire ghost because I'm kind
of into it. Ah, Yeah, I would be into that.
Let's let's do that. If we can find a way
to get ghosts into AMMO, we're definitely going to do that. Technology,
(19:09):
as you said, always outpaces the physical laws. I don't know.
I assumed it was a gun that's designed to kill ghosts,
that would be used by a ghostbuster of some sort.
Could be, but no, in this case, a ghost gun
is simply referring to essentially a homemade firearm. Really, that's
what it is. A firearm that is not going to
(19:31):
be as easily traced as a firearm that you would
purchase from a large gun manufacturer. Yeah, it's true. I
mean and that's the thing. This this term, it really
is an umbrella term because it encompasses a lot of
different kind of flavors of these things, right, so you
can have totally improvised Like I mentioned I think on
the air on a previous episode, how these ghost guns
(19:53):
reminds me of the thing that John Malkovich made out
of like a composite plastic and in the line of
fire that he could sneak charity. Uh, this isn't that,
but it definitely could be a mcgiver ask type mishmash,
you know, assembly of different parts that could you know,
equal a gun um or it could be like a
kit kind of thing like you would buy for like
(20:14):
electronics for example, where you can make your own gun
at home. Because that sounds like fun. But at the
end of the day, they all have two things in common.
They are a gun um that can shoot bullets, and
they don't have a serial number. I'm sorry, there's a
third thing they don't have. They have in common as well,
they don't require a background check. Yeah, and it's entirely
legal in the US too, as symbol a firearm on
(20:37):
your own. There's there's really interesting interview with a former
a t F operative named David Chipman alcohol to back
Loom of Firearms Burero thereof, let's make that less complicated,
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Exclusives. We just
call it a t F. And Chipman says, building a
(20:58):
gun in your home has always been lawful, but it
wasn't a big issue because being a gunsmith requires some
serious skills and equipment, and people who did it were
mostly hobbyists and they had a lot of time on
their hands. Yeah, and you know, to to build a
weapon from scratch like that, or to actually be a
person that can literally fabricate the individual parts, that requires
(21:22):
some training, that requires a lot of equipment that your
average person wouldn't have. So I guess the assumption there
is that these people are going to be mainly, like
you said, Ben, hobbyists that are kind of doing this
out of the passion of the craft or whatever and
not necessarily for nefarious purposes. Um, But I don't know.
It seems to me like if they're if these people exist,
(21:45):
surely there's someone that like this that does this exact thing,
like an off the books gunsmith for a criminal enterprise.
You think that would be someone that would be very
attractive to, you know, folks like that. It's possible, But
Chapman stay, these types of weapons, no matter who is
manufacturing them, very seldomly actually show up when there's a
(22:06):
crime committed somewhere and there's an investigation and they're looking
for a specific weapon. The ghost gun isn't a thing
that is just seen all the time, or it wasn't.
It wasn't that that's that's well, yeah, that's the that's
the thing too. When you think about what somebody is
going to do or what strategy they're going to take
in the course of planning like a heist or a crime,
(22:30):
they're going to look for probably the fastest, most convenient thing.
And the issue was that it was, you know, it
was easier to get a gun. It was easier to
get an existing gun than it was to have someone
build one in most cases. Uh this is before you know,
the rise of three D printing, which will make guns
that aren't as good or as durable as traditional guns,
(22:53):
but we'll still get a job done for a short
amount of time. And yeah, Chipman says this has changed.
He argues that it's easier than ever to build an
untraceable firearm, and he thinks that it's becoming a routine
strategy for criminals and drug traffickers. But there's there is
one interesting note we have to just be transparent about
(23:15):
with Chipman. He retired from a t F. He's now
a senior policy advisor for a gun control organization, so
he definitely has a horse in the race. That organization
is called Gifford's. That doesn't make him wrong, We just
we just think it's fair to also acknowledge that he
(23:35):
is coming from a very specific perspective. And then we're
talking about specific perspectives, let's talk about firearm hobbyist enthusiasts
would be gunsmith's right, armchair Gunsmith's. They're gonna argue, rightly,
so that it's misleading to portray every person who wants
to build a home firearm as somehow a criminal mastermind.
(23:58):
In a lot of cases, they would argue, and this
is true. People just want to build one for the experience,
for the feeling of accomplishment, you know what I mean.
Like I was trying to think of a good analogy.
This is not a perfect analogy. But we all know
someone who had a project car, right, it's their garage. Baby.
They might they might be working on for months, it
(24:18):
might be years, it might never end, you don't know,
and it's it's probably not going to leave their garage. Uh.
They somebody might get a fixer upper car or just
even components if they're super ambitious, and tinker away on it,
possibly forever, and then when they're done, you know, they
just like wash it. They take it out and they
(24:39):
wash it and they drive it around on the weekends,
because it's more about the experience of working on the thing,
you know. And in some cases it's like that somebody
just wants to say, Hey, I'm interested in engineering and
build this myself. And now they're like, oh, weird, I
have a gun, and I guess I'll take it to
a range, But really I just I wanted to build
it like Legos or even then you have a gun
(25:03):
for home defense one day if you need it, but
you may never even shoot it. You may never even
do anything with it besides putting in a display case. Yeah,
which I object to. I think if you have I mean,
there's no be tricky to write a law for it.
But I believe that if you have a firearm in
your home on everybody of age should be aware of
(25:25):
of how guns work and what what guns safety means,
because there are a lot of deaths in the US
that are attributed to somebody not knowing how to operate
a firearm or you know, the tragic extreme example as
kids playing with a loaded weapon, and it does happen.
But I mean, that's a real concern. Let's talk about
(25:46):
the concerns with ghost guns. A t F prefers to
call them privately made firearms. And you might hear some
people in the debate say that ghost guns itself is
like a politically loaded term, but loaded, But in my opinion,
it's just it's just the cooler word. And because we're
(26:09):
talking about a government organization, they can never use the
cooler words. They always have to always have to have
the boring, dressed up dry ones. Anyway, they're concern is
that what we've talked about, that bad actors, criminals may
conspire to create and use off the grid firearms for
illegal stuff. And it's true, you know, it's it's not
(26:31):
anybody's opinion. It's just a fact that if like say, um,
like Noel, maybe some stuff went down, you can't legally
purchase a firearm, but you absolutely need one. It's been
a crazy weekend. You know, it's a Guy Riching movie now,
and you needed a gun. There'd be some part in
the movie where you're like, I can't buy one, but
(26:54):
we know a guy who can build me one. So
this could be a way around that law if you
were a criminal in that case. And it all goes
down to a component of the firearm, which is known
as the receiver. That's right, It is all about the components.
The Gun Control Act of Night was a thing that
was passed after um U S Senator Robert F. Kennedy
(27:15):
and Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Were assassinated um and
it mandated that all firearms be marked with serial numbers
on the frames or receivers to make them traceable by
law enforcement. I actually didn't realize that it was that
relatively recent that that that the serial number became such
a thing. It's sort of like having a bin number
on your car. You know, they're all printed in the
(27:36):
same place and they're easy to locate, and then you
can trace the chain of custody of that car. So
within things like this, you always have loopholes that derived
from these very nuanced legal terms, what exactly defines a gun?
What exactly is a firearm. It's the same thing with
like cryptocurrency, like is it a security or is it
(27:59):
a currency? And that determines the regulation surrounding it. Um
So it hinges on this nuance of what legally constitutes
a frame or receiver. Which that's the problem with all
of these legal terms, it's so easy to pick them
apart if you don't go overboard and identifying your terms
and the setting them up. So the Code of Federal
Regulations defines a fire frame a firearm frame or receiver
(28:24):
as quote that part of a firearm which provides housing
for the hammer bolt or breech block and firing mechanism,
and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to
receive the barrel. That seems pretty explicit to me. But yeah,
as we'll see, it doesn't always add up to that.
(28:45):
All weapons are a little bit different. But the main
thing you need to know here is that if you're
thinking about a pistol, you've seen in movies, you've seen
in television, you've probably maybe you've held one, but it's
you've got the handle part, you've got the barrel part,
and in the part in the middle that connects all
that stuff together. That's generally the way I at least
(29:05):
think about the frame or the receiver. Yeah, and and
though it seems explicit, you know, we're we're entering the
treacherous waters of legal language, which means that things that
are not explicitly spelled out open to negotiation, you know
what I mean, it's up for debate. This is where
(29:25):
if you look into it, you'll see a response from
another A t F spokesperson, C. C. Glass May. In
glass May uses an A R fifteen type rifle receiver
blank as an example. And if you look at a
picture of this on the A t F website, you
(29:46):
can see what what they declare as differences between an
eight percent receiver or a complete finished receiver. And it's
a pretty simple diagram. If you can a receiver and
it doesn't have holes or dimples, it hasn't been machined
out right, for things like the trigger selector hammer pins,
(30:09):
there's the fire controlled cavity, hasn't been machined all that
good stuff. Then it's technically not a firearm. It's an
interesting chunk of you know, aluminum or whatever. And that
is fine, if you can sell aluminium left and right
and no one really cares. I guess people who care
if you're like moving weight. But then you'd be like
(30:29):
an aluminum dealer, or like you would own a mind.
I don't know. That's a different story. But because of this,
according to Glossmate, if the receiver blank is solid and unmachined,
the cavity area hasn't been dug out and there no
holes or dimples, that it doesn't meet that night definition
(30:52):
of a firearm. It's only when, uh, the rest of
the work, the machining work is finished. So when you
buy what could become a ghost gun, you're buying pieces
of something that in the present state, do not constitute
a firearm. You have to build it at home, a
keya style. One thing. One thing we need to clarify
(31:13):
from that strange news segment is that we had we
have found some sources saying it was easy to build these.
That's a little misleading. It is easier to build these
than it would have been in the past, but easier
than does not automatically make something easy, right. I mean,
(31:35):
there's a there's a thing here where gun control advocates say,
you know this shift makes it possible to sell gun
kids and parts. They're very simple to put together, even
for someone without any training. They say, you know, you
can just figure out how to use the drill press
the other tools you'll need, and you can follow instructional
(31:55):
videos available on YouTube. Yeah, that's true, but it's still
probably if you're not familiar with it and you haven't
looked into this, it's probably still not as easy as
you might assume, you know what I mean, Like, it's
not if if someone did this in fifteen minutes, it
would be because it is a movie and it's part
of an action montage and fictional Well, and we get
(32:16):
into a weird thing here because it's I don't want
to reference some of the stuff too soon. But it
really comes down to how determined an individual is to
do a thing right, and you can apply that to anything,
from something is as relatively simple as changing a headlight
in your vehicle to like you said, assembling some i
(32:40):
Keia furniture to repairing the roof of your house. These
are all things any one person can do, but it
just depends on how determined you are to do it
and how much time you're willing to spend learning how
to do it. Yeah, that's true, and I appreciate the
point because that does apply to a great many things.
If you want to get a quick sense of this,
(33:03):
we are going to be recommending several things available on
YouTube if you want to get a quick sense of this.
There's a neat little video from Wired in where a
senior writer at the time, Andy Greenberg, who is not
a gun enthusiast, is not an experienced machinist. He successfully
assembles an a R fifteen type firearm at home, and
(33:25):
he walks through the process of buying these gun components,
and he's focusing on that eight percent lower receiver, so
it's eight percent finish. It doesn't have that the rest
of the machining work that we just talked about. So
he hasked to figure out how to do that on
his by himself, and he is, you know, tabula rasa.
(33:46):
He is learning from day one. So he tries three
different strategies traditional drill press right, which would ordinarily use Uh.
He doesn't have a ton of luck with that because
you know, it's his first time out of the gate.
Don't be too tough on him. And then he tries
three D printing and ultimately he reaches success and builds
(34:08):
a usable firearm with a computer controlled milling machine called
the Ghost Gutter, which is also a great name. I
would play that video game. I was surprised to learn
that the Ghost Gunner is only about dollars have by
far the best results. It's an interesting little feels like
a CAD machine, just a small version of one, and
(34:32):
it does exactly what it says it does. Yeah, it's built.
If you go on your web on their website, um,
you'll see that they say you don't have it. You
don't have to have any CNC experience. It gives you
the types of tasks it can perform and the specific
types of firearms, the receivers that it can work on.
(34:56):
So it's useful and it's Uh, it's a democratization of technology.
That's something we've talked about as well. A quick question,
I mean, if you can three D print a gun,
does that mean that it's made of some sort of
like non metallic composite material or can you three D
print metal? Because I didn't think you could. Yeah, is
so the Ghost Gunner is able to machine existing metal.
(35:20):
The three D printed guns, which are also can be
home made on are going to be from from like
a non metalic component, so they're there. It varies from
what I understand, but a lot of the three D
printed weapons are considered good for a certain amount of shots,
(35:42):
like one like this will work for one thousand to
two thousand uh routes, right, because then they're still gonna
be at this point less durable. But of course if
that's used in a crime, the opponents of these practices
would say then less than don't worry it's us durable.
Is a terrible thing to tell victims of a crime
(36:03):
who were there when the gun was working. But doesn't
that mean it is possible to do that? The John
Malkovich in the line of fire thing to have a
type of material that won't get picked up on on
airport security scanners or metal detectors somewhat is Somewhat it is.
And you know what, guys, why don't we why don't
we take a quick break and we come back. Let's
(36:25):
jump right into three D printed guns and a lot
of the issues around them, and uh, some of the
mass shootings that have occurred, and we've returned, so we
spent a lot of time looking at the U S here.
But obviously this isn't just the US. Technology knows no
(36:49):
geopolitical boundary. There are plenty of specifically three D fire
our makers abroad. And this was examined by our end
and colleague Jake Hanrahan, the creator of Popular Front we
interviewed earlier about his series on qu and on He
he made a documentary documentary called Plastic Defense, which is
(37:13):
but it's a little less than a half hour. It's
more than worth your time if you want to learn
about this, and I think it really kicked off reporting
in the West about the motivations and the beliefs of
people who are making three D firearms that would function
they would also function as ghost guns simply because they
(37:33):
don't require a background check, they have no serial number,
all the reasons we named earlier. And you know, we
have a huge opinion of Jake. He does great work
and it's it's uh, it's a fascinating interview to watch,
especially because they don't totally agree. He talks with an
anonymous firearm manufacturer named Jay Stark or calling themselves Jay
(37:57):
Start right, Yeah, Jay Stark is associated with this thing
called Deterrence Dispensed, which is a group a decentralized group
that offers three D printed gun plans, very detailed plans
to create your own three D printed weapons. And this person,
(38:18):
Jay Stark, says that they were inspired by this announcement
and video and a series that was put out by
someone named Cody Wilson who was the creator of Defense Distributed,
and they were showing this weapon called the Liberator pistol.
And no, it's exactly what you were talking about, or
(38:39):
very close to what you were talking about. One large
three D printed piece that was essentially the entire weapon
except for the handle in a couple I think maybe
a few other parts that were in there. I'm not positive,
but it's the kind of thing that you were talking
about that you may be able to get through some
kind of metal detectors, except for you know, if you
(39:00):
have a metal round. But well know, you had those
in your Lucky rabbits foot that you put in the
bowl that you don't have to go through, and that's
what that that's what they did in the movie. Um,
but what about a firing pin or like the mechanism
that that seems like that would have to be metal, right, Yeah,
there there's quite a few components to a weapon like
that that you would need to to install. Um. But
(39:21):
I guess what I'm saying is this, so this guy
got inspired by this thing that was kind of like
what you're talking about, but it was meant to be
shot once. That Liberator pistol is designed to be fired
one time, because, as you stay before, those materials weren't
meant to last. What this person, Jay Stark, wanted to
do and what he did and this just centralized group.
(39:44):
They created versions that are way, way, way more durable
that Ben Ben. I think you quoted a thousand to
a couple of thousand shots. That's that's what These weapons
that they are now creating plans for are meant to
do be fired thousands of times. And you know it's
they're being created in Europe in places where it is impossible,
(40:09):
it is illegal to purchase a gun or ammunition for
a gun. And it's a fascinating piece of reporting that
Jake put out. I cannot recommend watching it enough. And
there's a ton we can talk about. I don't want
to derail us too much, but I would say some
of the ideological stances put forward by this person, Jay Stark,
(40:32):
I identify with them in a lot of ways. I
think a lot of us would listening to this right now, Well,
Jay Stark could be uh, you could argue that his
stance is absolutist, which is why I don't think Jake
was fully on board with all of the ideas. But
one thing, one valid point that's about was the worries
(40:53):
of the rise of far right wing uh fascism or
you know, those kind of networks springing up. And there
was a wave of that for some time. And you
can understand how someone who is concerned about that kind
of regime taking over in a country where the laws
(41:15):
do not allow them to have any sort of firearm,
you can understand how they would say, okay, well things
might pop off, and you know, not not to add
to too many nuances to it, but let's say you
are a you're a member of an ethnic minority, and
you're seeing a troubling rise to power from a group
(41:38):
that wants to do bad things to you. Then in
that case, it is absolutely reasonable to say, hey, I
need to prepare. This isn't something I want to improvise
when things go south. And just to give you one
quote from j Stark from this video, we were discussing
how easy or difficult it is to create one of
(41:59):
these three printed weapons, and you know, how much do
you have to learn? And how would you learn it?
Jay Stark has this quote, and I just want to
read this to you. Jake asks him, you know, how
did you learn how to do all this stuff to
create these plans and put them out there? And Jay
Stark says, quote, the most powerful tool for this in
general was the Internet. The Internet enabled me to do
(42:20):
all this. I was able to learn all the information
that I needed through YouTube, through Wikipedia, through various forums,
and through chatting with other enthusiasts. There's one thing that
you really have to take in mind here, motivation. All
of this information is available out there and it has been,
but why isn't everybody doing it? Because they don't have
the motivation to do all that. It goes back to
(42:43):
I think that's what you're referring to when you said,
you know, it's the amount of time. Um more, it's
the amount of dedicated time that becomes even more critical
than the amount the tools needed, right because tools are
useless without the knowledge to wield the And this so
this brings us to another thing, Like you, I'd love
(43:06):
to hear your thoughts on that interview. J Stark's motivations
the larger conversation, and we have to we have to
acknowledge that we're talking about the US. The larger conversation
about things like ghost guns does go to mass shootings
and crime. And it's tragically true that homemade firearms have
been used in crimes, including mass shootings. Just a couple
(43:29):
of years ago, there was a guy named Aaron Luther
who used it. He was a fellon who had got
out and he had a homemade firearm, a ghost gun,
and he was in a routine traffic stop and he
pulled it and ended up shooting three California Highway Patrol officers.
And then also in California, well a few years earlier,
(43:53):
twenty three year old named John Zawari used a a
R fifteen assembled at home to murder five people. I mean,
you know, we fired about a hundred rounds within thirteen minutes.
And there are more examples than this, but they all
prove the same thing. This loophole can be exploited by
(44:14):
people with nefarious intentions. The question is how do we
prevent these tragedies from occurring. The proposed solutions run the
gamut right, and the leaders of the US do not
agree on what the next step should be, and the
voters don't seem to all agree either. It's not inherently unusual.
(44:35):
It would be extraordinary if people in the US agreed
on anything, Honestly. It's just we've got a lot of
people here, um, and they're very strong feelings about this problem,
about what to do on all sides. And that's where
we have to ask what will the future bring. Currently,
as we said at the top, it is unknown how
(44:56):
many homemade firearms or ghost guns are in the US today. Uh,
there's no solid way to know exactly how many are
out there, and there's even less of a way to
know how many are being used for prime or legal
purposes versus being someone's home project. You know, I imagine
there's some like there's some homemade replica antique guns right
(45:22):
for gun collectors were like, I want to, you know,
some very specific fancy gun from the eighteen hundreds, But
of course I can't buy that because they're only like,
you know, forty two of them in the world. But
I can make one and then they, you know, they
have their cool replica and will they tell people it's
a replica, or will they try to act like it's
just the antique. Well, that's up to their character. That's
(45:46):
a replica. You see the you see the words that
are down the side of mine. Desert Eagle. Yes, yeah,
that was back when guy Richie made good movies. Remember
that that was cool? Um, I don't heard his new
one is fine, But he made that. He really tried
going Downhill and he made that Madonna Desert Island movie
that people said was just unwatchably bad. But wasn't there
(46:09):
another one? There was another joke in that movie that
said replica, Right, didn't I make that up? I'm in
my mind picturing a gun saying replica in some action
movie and that being a big twist. But maybe it
wasn't the Is it Snatch? Man? I'm sorry. I had
a really hard time. No, no no, no, it's been a
long time I've seen either Snatch or lock Stock. Ye, funny,
funny story. Those are two different movies. That always gets me,
(46:35):
you know, watching one after the other and you'll be like,
what's that? Is that one movie or two? Anyway? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
mine says Desert Eagle, blah blah blah, and yours says replica, Yeah, yeah,
that's what they're gonna stand up. I'm sorry, I was
just making sure it was from the same Yeah. So
speaking to segways, this is an important issue to everybody
(46:58):
in the future. Legislation was introduced in the U. S.
Senate in May of just about a year ago that
wanted to that was aiming aiming geez uh to require
all frames and receivers, even even the unfinished ones, to
already have serial numbers. And then the law would also
(47:19):
require the d I Y do it yourself gun builders
to go in person to a federally licensed dealer of
receivers to buy these components uh. And then they would
have to have the same background checks as people who
are buying fully assembled firearms. And then you know, people
who are pushing for this law are saying, look, if
(47:41):
you're an enthusiast, you want to build something like this
for fun, it's not going to stop you. The whole
point of it is not to stop you, but it's
to make it more difficult for convicted domestic abusers, gun runners, felons, terrorists,
and so on to acquire untraceable weapons. And this legislation
(48:01):
was very recently introduced. Ben didn't just happen, it got reintroduced. Yeah. Yeah,
so revised version of this legislation just got reintroduced um
this week, a few days before we recorded this, and
(48:22):
that makes it another hot topic. It also happened around
the same time the Department of Justice issued a proposal
that expands their official definition of what constitutes a firearm.
So now they're they're going to be saying we want
to call we we want firearm to also mean any
any kind of weapon of this type that you can
(48:42):
assemble at home. The n r A is not happy.
This is really kicking the pants for them. And they
said the proposed Department of Justice rule could quote destroy
the American firearms industry. And I wanted to ask you
guys about that. Is there some we're missing in the legislation,
like what what about that regulation would destroy such a
(49:04):
huge industry? Yeah, that is true, because we're just the
legislation is focused directly on these pieces or components, right. Yeah,
I just don't understand, and I'm not you know, I'm
not I'm not trying to be I'm not trying to
just pick a fight with them. I just don't I
(49:24):
don't understand what specifically about that registration would uh would it?
Are they saying it would damage sales of those components? Maybe,
but even then those components can't be the bulk of
of money that's made in with guns in the United States.
My god, Smith and Wesson isn't like exclusively trying to
(49:46):
get those receivers out the door. They're trying to sell
their guns. Maybe it's the maybe maybe the argument is
something along the lines of, uh, increased costs or burden
of responsibility for people selling the stuff because they have
to do the background checks. Um, yeah, well that's There's
(50:07):
a spokesperson for the n r A, Lars dull Siege,
who said the proposed rule would do nothing to address
violent crime while further burdening law abiding gun owners and
the lawful firearm industry with overbroad regulations. So please let
us know, like what, how would this have a delatorious
effect on the firearm industry. I'm interested to know because
(50:30):
you get multiple claims of conspiracy regarding this technology and
these firearms. But what is the conspiracy. It depends on
who you ask. Some people say, well, it's leads to
a conspiracy by criminals. Series of conspiracies by criminals to
remain untraceable. And then someone else, I don't know where
we are when we're having this conversation. We're um hate
(50:53):
being stuck in an elevator. We're we're waiting to take
a plain flight, and we're just we're just kicking it
at what's an airplane restaurant? Airport restaurant? You guys like Chili's.
We're a Chili's. We're Chilis. And the flights are delayed
so long that everybody's had a few drinks and we're
talking about gun rights because we're fun at parties. Uh
(51:15):
so yeah. So one person, you know, one person is
like finishing up their cheese sticks and they're saying, once
the criminals they want these guns to be untraceable, they're conspired. Yeah.
Then I'm like, no, no, no no, man, it's the government.
They're trying to take away our rights. M hmm. And
then the server who's also been there for a while
and has really made a bond with you guys. Now
(51:37):
it's like past the work relationship you had. Uh. The
servers say no, no, no, you gotta follow the money.
It's a conspiracy by lobbyists to keep making cash in
the firearm industry? Would you like another Corona? And so
weird situation is a weird conversation even because uh, everybody
(52:01):
is making a valid point. I think, yeah, that's the
thing there, there are valid points in all of these positions.
Like a criminal act is you know, often inherently a conspiracy.
It's conspiratorial, you're trying to get away with something. And uh,
the idea that there would be government overreacher, that there
(52:22):
would be an erosion of rights, specifically for firearms. You know.
I think a lot of people will lean on the
precedent that in the past, powerful governments have done things
to remove rights from citizens. But that's not that the
problem is that just doesn't apply to the US. That
applies to the entire world, you know. And then the
(52:46):
lobbyists making money. The weird that nobody ever talks about
this in the U. S. But lobbying is strange. You know,
if you explain that to someone who's not from the US,
they're like, oh, yeah, bribery, you know, no, no, no, no, no,
no no no, no, briberies illegal, bro, you gotta call
it lobby. Yeah. It almost feels like the way the
(53:07):
n R A has kind of recently almost had to
walk some things back, and like kind of seems to
be maybe losing its stranglehold over this whole situation. Maybe
not entirely, but it seems to be slipping a little
bit based on some recent news events. Wonder if it's
worth examining in a whole episode or you know, delving
into the history of it and what the future might be.
(53:29):
And we do we ever do a lobbying episode? Oh god,
if we haven't, that's another one. That's just you're right.
It literally has legalized bribery. We have a video series.
We do big video series and lobbying. Yeah, but I
don't know if we did an audio show on it yet.
It wasn't great. It was a great UM television show
called k Street that ended up getting pulled, not because
(53:52):
it was bad. It was. It was a pretty good show.
It got pulled because it was too realistic. Yeah, it's dangerous.
This is dangerous. It says a dangerous his ghost guns.
So hey, I wanna right before we wrap you guys,
I want to read one more quote from Jay Stark
that the creator there of deterrence dispersed. I wanna ask
you listening to this, what's your opinion on this kind
(54:15):
of ideological stance, because I find myself agreeing with Jay Stark,
But then I also very much agree with Jake about
how dangerous what deterrence dispersed as doing. So it's it's interesting,
I wonder where you would find yourself. Here's a quote
from Jay Stark, the guy who's helping people three D
(54:37):
print guns. He says, quote, I'm of the opinion that
to bear firearms is a human right. The government or
the entity that has rule over you, has an executive force,
the police, the military, they have firearms to be able
to escape that injustice. Citizens need to have the same
force on the individual level as the executive force of
(54:58):
the government entity that is a rule over them. Yeah,
and you know, we're very much not telling people what
to think. These are important questions and there are questions
that are going to continue being relevant, right, not again,
not just in the US, in the world, because the
(55:20):
one thing you cannot do is remove the technology from
the wild ones that exists. There's no there there are
very few cases of that ever actually happening a hundred percent. Uh,
we want to know what you think about lobbying, right,
We want to know where you stand on this. Reacting
(55:41):
to the quote Matches shared from Jay Stark, and we
also wanted one more, one more quote right there because
the technology I have to give it to you, ready.
This is what Jay Stark says. What you have to
realize is the advancement of technology has no politics. The
Adam Bomb, chemical weapons, d I. Y Rock, It's I E. D. S.
Technology has no politics. So it's that it's again that
(56:05):
argument of like it just depends on who's wielding the
tech and no no geopolitical borders or boundaries, you know.
And that's um one of the things that I brought
up to with the Poseidon super sub. Yeah. So this
is this is going this is going to continue to
be a relevant issue and a problematic one for a
(56:29):
lot of people. Where do you think the conspiracy lies?
If indeed conspiracy there is I we want to hear
from you. We try to make it easy to find
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And while you're at I want to hop over to
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(56:50):
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(57:14):
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(57:55):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is an owner. They
called me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer
Alexis code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. A quick recap for anyone
who missed our earlier Strange news segments. We covered a
(00:49):
recent court case here in the US regarding essentially homemade firearms,
and we received a lot of helpful feedback on this,
include being clarifications regarding the laws as they currently stand,
the ongoing debate in d C, and the various you
could call them stakeholders on all sides of the issue.
(01:13):
And I don't know about you, guys, but the more
I looked into it, the more I realized this is,
yet again, at heart, a case of technology outpacing legislation.
Legislation just takes forever to catch up two things. Sometimes
legislation can be very reactive or ideologically driven. But our
(01:34):
question today is are their conspiracies of foot what do you?
What does this um emergent era of homemade firearms mean
for the future. To answer this question, we have to
first understand the incredibly unique position firearms hold in the US.
(01:54):
We were talking off air, Doc and Matt Nolan myself
about just our own personal experiences growing up around firearms.
Did you guys have guns in your house when you
were growing up? And there was never a gun family.
We were like a violin family. We didn't have weapons.
We had one bb gun that I was allowed to
(02:15):
shoot sometimes and that was it. That was going to
be the baseball bats as our home defense. Seriously, like
a special cabinet, like these are the baseball bats for
playing baseball? These are the ones for thwacking villains. Well,
you know, they're really it's not a one use tool,
you know, um baseball, but that's a really versatile thing.
It's still what I have. Now I've got one right
(02:36):
by my feet actually, just in case you got a
metal one or a wood one. Now it's metal. Yeah, okay,
you know what's up. So so baseball bats maybe a
story for a different day, But here are the facts.
Gun ownership maybe a controversial issue when you get to
the specifics here in the US who should be able
(02:59):
to own which types of guns and so on, But
on a very basic level, firearm ownership is enshrined in
American laws under the Second Amendment. That means that firearms
have a cultural significance that doesn't really exist in a
lot of other countries. And if you're familiar with the way, UM,
(03:25):
I'm trying not to be doo snarky about this, but
with the way Congress works in this country, it can
be very difficult to um to change laws that require
a majority. So there's a spectrum here, and whether you
are on one extreme side or another, whether you think
there should be absolutely no gun ownership whatsoever by civilians,
(03:47):
or whether you think, uh, not only should I be
able to own whatever kind of firearm I want, but
it's also nobody's business, including the governments, what I do
with it and where I keep them, at cetera. No
matter how where you fall in that in that ideological space, uh,
the truth is that the Second Amendment is is not
(04:09):
going to go away, but it's there's no there's no
um practical way for that law to change or for
that amendment to be revoked. But there are many laws
that arguing nuances of this right and say that like
a handgun, you can have a handgun, but you can't
(04:30):
have you know, um, well a tank is a terrible example.
But you know, there's there's certain guns that legislators will
say you shouldn't have unless you are in the military.
But yeah, people can still get fully automatic weapons at
like gun shows, right, yeah, yeah, And this is something
where the system can become so byzantine because it goes
(04:53):
state by state. UM there are a lot of things
that UM proponents of gun controls as purposeful loopholes, and
there are a lot of things that proponents of gun
guns rights see as government overreach. But regardless of the controversies,
regardless of these concerns, we know this is an issue
(05:13):
that is incredibly important to a lot of our fellow
conspiracy realisticiting date. Regardless how you feel about it, the
simple fact is that in the US a lot of
people own guns. Yeah it's true. Um US has just
four percent of the entire world population, but fort of
(05:35):
civilian gun ownership of the entire world. Yeah, that's right.
And and as of last year, I think it's of
US households had at least one gun, or you know,
at least report to have one gun. And a lot
of these gun owners, probably the majority of them, site
you know, personal defense protection, uh, and in their Second
(05:57):
Amendment rights as like this is why have a gun? Yeah?
And there and but I think it is important to
note there about that statistic that you just mentioned, Matt,
is this this is kind of it. We'll see, it's
kind of a skewed distribution, right, Like a lot of
people who are that in that forty two percent just
(06:18):
have one firearm. It's at their house. It's probably under
lock and keys somewhere. Um, it's it's there's this stereotype
about this country that a lot of my friends from
abroad fully believe. And they're intelligent people, I should say,
they just fully believe that, Um, everybody in the US
(06:40):
is walking around in an action movie and we're all
strapped up, you know what I mean, whether we're going
to the library or to the local wing spot. It's
also kind of it can be kind of difficult to
break that stereotype for people who aren't from here, because
it's tricky to estimate gun ownership, like when we say,
(07:03):
for that is very that's a very large ballpark. It's
it's the same way that you know, certain ill informed
Americans might think that all French people wear berets and
have curly mustaches and wear like striped shirts and just
walk around drinking espresso all day and chain smoking cigarettes.
You know, some of them, sure do, I guess, but
(07:25):
you know, definitely not all of them. And some Americans
toute their guns to target. So it's it's there's a
reason the stereotype exists. Not all French people even speak French.
It's it's it has been known to happen from time
to time. Yeah, it's a um, it's a strange thing.
Like just personally, I currently do not own any firearms.
(07:46):
But in a different in a different life, in a
you know, another multiverse, if my situation wasn't as it
was with a wife and children, I would certainly own
multiple guns. Uh, like I would right now, I'm telling you,
but I don't because it it frightens me the thought
of having a firearm, no matter how locked down it
(08:08):
is in my house. So you know, but there are
a lot of family members out there, fathers, mothers, heads
of households that feel very comfortable having guns, and it's
just a regular thing, not only comfortable strongly about protecting
their homestead and their family, you know, against invaders or
whomever that imagined or real, uh, you know, individual might be. Um,
(08:32):
I have a quick question for you guys before we
move move on. I've been thinking a lot about the
Volstead Act lately. I've been rewatching um Boardwalk Empire. And
it was an amendment of the Constitution that that made
alcohol illegal, and obviously it was very controversial. It caused
a lot of corruption and a lot of problems. But
then you mentioned at the top of the show how
there's really no functional way, or be really functionally difficult
(08:54):
to amend or change the constitutional right to bear arms.
Do you think that is because it is a something
in the constitution that provides a right, as opposed to
removes the right, like the way the volts That Act
was ultimately walked back because it was a terrible, terrible
idea because because of all the things I mentioned. But
yet we have so many reasons that gun control maybe
(09:15):
should be enacted, but yet it seems very very difficult
from an ideological standpoint to do anything about it. Sure,
there's an ideological standpoint, Um, there's also uh, it's all.
It also directly touches an enormous industry. The US, by
several measures, is one of the largest weapons manufacturers in
(09:38):
the world. I know that can sound a little misleading
because weapons is a big word that encompasses uh many things. Uh.
It goes down to yeah, ideology, money, political capital, and
and you know, the thing is, like we've talked about
this before. Everybody agrees that there are any number of problems.
(09:59):
Right the heart where the conversation breaks down is the
idea of what would be the way forward, What are
the best next steps, what are the solutions to things
that everybody admits need to be fixed? Um, and this
you know, I'm I'm endeavoring to be pretty objective here,
(10:20):
just personally and not not put my, um, any of
my own personal biases in this. When we talked, you know, Matt,
you said personally in a universe, Well, no, no, feel
like I I appreciate what you're saying. I think it
support because he said, I loved that you're basically like,
you know, in a universe perpendicular to ours or to
(10:40):
the left of hours. If these variables were different, I
would absolutely own again. And the thing about it here
is that you also would not have to tell anyone. Right,
There's the way it works is there's not a like
you might be surprised, fellow conspiracy realist, how many of
your friends and relatives do own firearms, just haven't told
(11:03):
you about it? And they have they don't have to. Uh.
That's part of this comes from the fact that there
is no federal registration requirement or similar regulation that would enable, like,
require you to report this stuff or enable an official
better than ballpark estimate. In fact, the opposite is the case.
(11:26):
There is a federal level law about this, but it
is a law that is built to prohibit a central
registry of firearms owned by private citizens. And of course
these statistics were pulling our we need to understand these
are ballpark. There is a pretty fascinating report from eighteen
(11:49):
out of Switzerland by a group called the Small Arms Survey,
and they show that Americans own a disproportionate share of
the world's firearms overall. As you mentioned, no four percent
in the world's population shian civilian owned guns globally, and again,
a lot of a lot of those numbers sound weird,
(12:10):
but not everybody's strapped. A lot of people have like
one firearm at their house. And then you know, out
of those nine people, there's a there's a tenth person
who's very Jeffrey Allen lash about it, and he's got
he's apparently got a woman army, more guns than he
could ever fire, more AMMO than it could ever use. Yeah,
maybe not quite Jeffrey Allen lash level. Hopefully. I know.
(12:31):
It's just I'm showing the extremities of the spectrum here.
You have like million rounds of AMMO or something insane
like that. It was some absurd number. Yeah. Ammo bien
is interesting because you'll you'll hear reports of AMMO shortages
and it often coincides with political cycles, and people say, hey,
(12:51):
you need to make sure you have AMMO. There will
be a shortage, or there may be a law banning
all firearms, or there may be a law that somehow
prevents you from buying ammunition for firearms. So like in Atlanta,
there maybe a gas shortage, so make sure you hoard
all of the gas. People will do it. I don't
(13:13):
say that. Uh well, I think we mentioned that right previously.
Gas goes bad. Yeah, okay, okay, good. Just to make
that clear, how long did it take? Again? Takes months?
About your look, it could go bad in as early
as three months, so you would look at three to
six months unless you put in a stabilizer. In all fairness,
(13:36):
diesel will last about a year on the shelf. But
they're living chemicals, you know, so they're going to degrade anyway.
The Small Arms Survey and all these questions in the air,
they estimate that American civilians all together own three hundred
and ninety three million guns, making the country number one
(13:56):
in terms of firearms per capita. But again, it's not
an equal distribution. If you come to the US, you
might be surprised at how weird gun purchasing laws are.
Or if you've never bought a gun and you were
thinking about it and you you started looking into it,
(14:17):
you'll quickly find that the law is very state by
state in almost like in so many ways. So instead
of walking through all fifty states and there are various requirements,
maybe it's most helpful to give just an example of
from Georgia. So the process is pretty straightforward here. You
don't need a ton of stuff and you don't need
(14:38):
firearm training either. You just need to be over twenty
one UM or I think eighteen. If you have an
honorable military discharge and you can't be a convicted felon
that is restricted from owning a gun, you just need
a valid state issued I D driver's license, State i
D blockbuster card. UH. I knew that in hand. Yes,
(15:05):
trudos that everyone who kept one. UH. And then you
know you'll get a background check if you're buying from
a licensed dealer. UH. There's something that happens in other
states that is similar to Georgia. If you already have
a Georgia weapons license, that counts as your background check
because you passed it already to get that license. And
(15:26):
also if we're hanging out and you know, um, we're
off air and um Matt decides to uh privately like
sell a gun to UH code named Doc Holiday or
UH Doc decides to just give a gun like literally
give it as a gift. Maybe then there's no background
(15:49):
check involved. You also don't need any license to keep
it at your house. You only need a permit or paperwork.
If you plan to carry it in public, then you
would need something like to carry per minute you can
still carry that costs about seventy bucks seventy five bucks
at the local probate court. So Georgia also is one
of the easier states. Um they have reciprocity with about
(16:12):
thirty two other states, meaning if you have firearms, if
you have if you're good in Georgia, you're good in
those states. Exactly. It's an interesting thing. I just happened
to have recently sold a car, and it's a weird
thing where you've got well, it was for as anyway,
it's for almost no money to a family in my
(16:34):
neighborhood that I needed a car, and I didn't want
it anyway. But the circumstances aside. In order to do
that in the US, especially here in Georgia, you have
a title for that vehicle. It's a piece of paper
that you you physically have to sign and give to
the new owner, and that way they can use that
(16:54):
piece of paper that shows ownership when registering that vehicle, right.
And it's it's odd to me that there's no system
like that with a weapon, where you'd have a piece
of paper that says this weapon was registered to me,
I am now going to sell it to this other person.
And now they have that piece of paper with that weapon.
It seems like that would be a thing. Overall. The
(17:16):
point is this, there is a series of systems in place.
Supporters of the current system believe it's better than nothing,
and warned that too much oversight many regulations are outright
banning can create a kind of slippery sloop, with the
fear being that the bottom of this slope is eventually
a situation where all firearms are illegal, or even more extreme,
(17:40):
the Second Amendment itself is repealed, which again and I think,
in our collective opinion, will probably never happen. Opponents have
gun ownership in the current system argue that it has
been purposely broken by any number of bad actors, corrupt politicians,
lobbying groups like most infamously the n r a UM.
(18:02):
They point to the valid and disturbing data surrounding mass
shootings in the United States, which we can't not mention. Right, Um,
there's the statistics are there, they are inarguable. Uh, these
systems are going to remain controversial. There's gonna be criticism
from nearly every stakeholder you can imagine about one thing
(18:24):
or another. But now there is a new trend in
the field, and it's one that may fundamentally change the
state of firearms in the US and in the world. Gentlemen,
we are looking at the rise of the ghost gun,
or we will be looking at it afterwards from our sponsor.
(18:47):
Here's where it gets crazy. But so, what is it
we talked about this strange news? Is it a gun
that shoots ghosts? Is it a gun? Like? No, no,
not shoots them as in, like shoots at them like
instead of bullets. There's a fire ghost because I'm kind
of into it. Ah, Yeah, I would be into that.
Let's let's do that. If we can find a way
to get ghosts into AMMO, we're definitely going to do that. Technology,
(19:09):
as you said, always outpaces the physical laws. I don't know.
I assumed it was a gun that's designed to kill ghosts,
that would be used by a ghostbuster of some sort.
Could be, but no, in this case, a ghost gun
is simply referring to essentially a homemade firearm. Really, that's
what it is. A firearm that is not going to
(19:31):
be as easily traced as a firearm that you would
purchase from a large gun manufacturer. Yeah, it's true. I
mean and that's the thing. This this term, it really
is an umbrella term because it encompasses a lot of
different kind of flavors of these things, right, so you
can have totally improvised Like I mentioned I think on
the air on a previous episode, how these ghost guns
(19:53):
reminds me of the thing that John Malkovich made out
of like a composite plastic and in the line of
fire that he could sneak charity. Uh, this isn't that,
but it definitely could be a mcgiver ask type mishmash,
you know, assembly of different parts that could you know,
equal a gun um or it could be like a
kit kind of thing like you would buy for like
(20:14):
electronics for example, where you can make your own gun
at home. Because that sounds like fun. But at the
end of the day, they all have two things in common.
They are a gun um that can shoot bullets, and
they don't have a serial number. I'm sorry, there's a
third thing they don't have. They have in common as well,
they don't require a background check. Yeah, and it's entirely
legal in the US too, as symbol a firearm on
(20:37):
your own. There's there's really interesting interview with a former
a t F operative named David Chipman alcohol to back
Loom of Firearms Burero thereof, let's make that less complicated,
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Exclusives. We just
call it a t F. And Chipman says, building a
(20:58):
gun in your home has always been lawful, but it
wasn't a big issue because being a gunsmith requires some
serious skills and equipment, and people who did it were
mostly hobbyists and they had a lot of time on
their hands. Yeah, and you know, to to build a
weapon from scratch like that, or to actually be a
person that can literally fabricate the individual parts, that requires
(21:22):
some training, that requires a lot of equipment that your
average person wouldn't have. So I guess the assumption there
is that these people are going to be mainly, like
you said, Ben, hobbyists that are kind of doing this
out of the passion of the craft or whatever and
not necessarily for nefarious purposes. Um, But I don't know.
It seems to me like if they're if these people exist,
(21:45):
surely there's someone that like this that does this exact thing,
like an off the books gunsmith for a criminal enterprise.
You think that would be someone that would be very
attractive to, you know, folks like that. It's possible, But
Chapman stay, these types of weapons, no matter who is
manufacturing them, very seldomly actually show up when there's a
(22:06):
crime committed somewhere and there's an investigation and they're looking
for a specific weapon. The ghost gun isn't a thing
that is just seen all the time, or it wasn't.
It wasn't that that's that's well, yeah, that's the that's
the thing too. When you think about what somebody is
going to do or what strategy they're going to take
in the course of planning like a heist or a crime,
(22:30):
they're going to look for probably the fastest, most convenient thing.
And the issue was that it was, you know, it
was easier to get a gun. It was easier to
get an existing gun than it was to have someone
build one in most cases. Uh this is before you know,
the rise of three D printing, which will make guns
that aren't as good or as durable as traditional guns,
(22:53):
but we'll still get a job done for a short
amount of time. And yeah, Chipman says this has changed.
He argues that it's easier than ever to build an
untraceable firearm, and he thinks that it's becoming a routine
strategy for criminals and drug traffickers. But there's there is
one interesting note we have to just be transparent about
(23:15):
with Chipman. He retired from a t F. He's now
a senior policy advisor for a gun control organization, so
he definitely has a horse in the race. That organization
is called Gifford's. That doesn't make him wrong, We just
we just think it's fair to also acknowledge that he
(23:35):
is coming from a very specific perspective. And then we're
talking about specific perspectives, let's talk about firearm hobbyist enthusiasts
would be gunsmith's right, armchair Gunsmith's. They're gonna argue, rightly,
so that it's misleading to portray every person who wants
to build a home firearm as somehow a criminal mastermind.
(23:58):
In a lot of cases, they would argue, and this
is true. People just want to build one for the experience,
for the feeling of accomplishment, you know what I mean.
Like I was trying to think of a good analogy.
This is not a perfect analogy. But we all know
someone who had a project car, right, it's their garage. Baby.
They might they might be working on for months, it
(24:18):
might be years, it might never end, you don't know,
and it's it's probably not going to leave their garage. Uh.
They somebody might get a fixer upper car or just
even components if they're super ambitious, and tinker away on it,
possibly forever, and then when they're done, you know, they
just like wash it. They take it out and they
(24:39):
wash it and they drive it around on the weekends,
because it's more about the experience of working on the thing,
you know. And in some cases it's like that somebody
just wants to say, Hey, I'm interested in engineering and
build this myself. And now they're like, oh, weird, I
have a gun, and I guess I'll take it to
a range, But really I just I wanted to build
it like Legos or even then you have a gun
(25:03):
for home defense one day if you need it, but
you may never even shoot it. You may never even
do anything with it besides putting in a display case. Yeah,
which I object to. I think if you have I mean,
there's no be tricky to write a law for it.
But I believe that if you have a firearm in
your home on everybody of age should be aware of
(25:25):
of how guns work and what what guns safety means,
because there are a lot of deaths in the US
that are attributed to somebody not knowing how to operate
a firearm or you know, the tragic extreme example as
kids playing with a loaded weapon, and it does happen.
But I mean, that's a real concern. Let's talk about
(25:46):
the concerns with ghost guns. A t F prefers to
call them privately made firearms. And you might hear some
people in the debate say that ghost guns itself is
like a politically loaded term, but loaded, But in my opinion,
it's just it's just the cooler word. And because we're
(26:09):
talking about a government organization, they can never use the
cooler words. They always have to always have to have
the boring, dressed up dry ones. Anyway, they're concern is
that what we've talked about, that bad actors, criminals may
conspire to create and use off the grid firearms for
illegal stuff. And it's true, you know, it's it's not
(26:31):
anybody's opinion. It's just a fact that if like say, um,
like Noel, maybe some stuff went down, you can't legally
purchase a firearm, but you absolutely need one. It's been
a crazy weekend. You know, it's a Guy Riching movie now,
and you needed a gun. There'd be some part in
the movie where you're like, I can't buy one, but
(26:54):
we know a guy who can build me one. So
this could be a way around that law if you
were a criminal in that case. And it all goes
down to a component of the firearm, which is known
as the receiver. That's right, It is all about the components.
The Gun Control Act of Night was a thing that
was passed after um U S Senator Robert F. Kennedy
(27:15):
and Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Were assassinated um and
it mandated that all firearms be marked with serial numbers
on the frames or receivers to make them traceable by
law enforcement. I actually didn't realize that it was that
relatively recent that that that the serial number became such
a thing. It's sort of like having a bin number
on your car. You know, they're all printed in the
(27:36):
same place and they're easy to locate, and then you
can trace the chain of custody of that car. So
within things like this, you always have loopholes that derived
from these very nuanced legal terms, what exactly defines a gun?
What exactly is a firearm. It's the same thing with
like cryptocurrency, like is it a security or is it
(27:59):
a currency? And that determines the regulation surrounding it. Um
So it hinges on this nuance of what legally constitutes
a frame or receiver. Which that's the problem with all
of these legal terms, it's so easy to pick them
apart if you don't go overboard and identifying your terms
and the setting them up. So the Code of Federal
Regulations defines a fire frame a firearm frame or receiver
(28:24):
as quote that part of a firearm which provides housing
for the hammer bolt or breech block and firing mechanism,
and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to
receive the barrel. That seems pretty explicit to me. But yeah,
as we'll see, it doesn't always add up to that.
(28:45):
All weapons are a little bit different. But the main
thing you need to know here is that if you're
thinking about a pistol, you've seen in movies, you've seen
in television, you've probably maybe you've held one, but it's
you've got the handle part, you've got the barrel part,
and in the part in the middle that connects all
that stuff together. That's generally the way I at least
(29:05):
think about the frame or the receiver. Yeah, and and
though it seems explicit, you know, we're we're entering the
treacherous waters of legal language, which means that things that
are not explicitly spelled out open to negotiation, you know
what I mean, it's up for debate. This is where
(29:25):
if you look into it, you'll see a response from
another A t F spokesperson, C. C. Glass May. In
glass May uses an A R fifteen type rifle receiver
blank as an example. And if you look at a
picture of this on the A t F website, you
(29:46):
can see what what they declare as differences between an
eight percent receiver or a complete finished receiver. And it's
a pretty simple diagram. If you can a receiver and
it doesn't have holes or dimples, it hasn't been machined
out right, for things like the trigger selector hammer pins,
(30:09):
there's the fire controlled cavity, hasn't been machined all that
good stuff. Then it's technically not a firearm. It's an
interesting chunk of you know, aluminum or whatever. And that
is fine, if you can sell aluminium left and right
and no one really cares. I guess people who care
if you're like moving weight. But then you'd be like
(30:29):
an aluminum dealer, or like you would own a mind.
I don't know. That's a different story. But because of this,
according to Glossmate, if the receiver blank is solid and unmachined,
the cavity area hasn't been dug out and there no
holes or dimples, that it doesn't meet that night definition
(30:52):
of a firearm. It's only when, uh, the rest of
the work, the machining work is finished. So when you
buy what could become a ghost gun, you're buying pieces
of something that in the present state, do not constitute
a firearm. You have to build it at home, a
keya style. One thing. One thing we need to clarify
(31:13):
from that strange news segment is that we had we
have found some sources saying it was easy to build these.
That's a little misleading. It is easier to build these
than it would have been in the past, but easier
than does not automatically make something easy, right. I mean,
(31:35):
there's a there's a thing here where gun control advocates say,
you know this shift makes it possible to sell gun
kids and parts. They're very simple to put together, even
for someone without any training. They say, you know, you
can just figure out how to use the drill press
the other tools you'll need, and you can follow instructional
(31:55):
videos available on YouTube. Yeah, that's true, but it's still
probably if you're not familiar with it and you haven't
looked into this, it's probably still not as easy as
you might assume, you know what I mean, Like, it's
not if if someone did this in fifteen minutes, it
would be because it is a movie and it's part
of an action montage and fictional Well, and we get
(32:16):
into a weird thing here because it's I don't want
to reference some of the stuff too soon. But it
really comes down to how determined an individual is to
do a thing right, and you can apply that to anything,
from something is as relatively simple as changing a headlight
in your vehicle to like you said, assembling some i
(32:40):
Keia furniture to repairing the roof of your house. These
are all things any one person can do, but it
just depends on how determined you are to do it
and how much time you're willing to spend learning how
to do it. Yeah, that's true, and I appreciate the
point because that does apply to a great many things.
If you want to get a quick sense of this,
(33:03):
we are going to be recommending several things available on
YouTube if you want to get a quick sense of this.
There's a neat little video from Wired in where a
senior writer at the time, Andy Greenberg, who is not
a gun enthusiast, is not an experienced machinist. He successfully
assembles an a R fifteen type firearm at home, and
(33:25):
he walks through the process of buying these gun components,
and he's focusing on that eight percent lower receiver, so
it's eight percent finish. It doesn't have that the rest
of the machining work that we just talked about. So
he hasked to figure out how to do that on
his by himself, and he is, you know, tabula rasa.
(33:46):
He is learning from day one. So he tries three
different strategies traditional drill press right, which would ordinarily use Uh.
He doesn't have a ton of luck with that because
you know, it's his first time out of the gate.
Don't be too tough on him. And then he tries
three D printing and ultimately he reaches success and builds
(34:08):
a usable firearm with a computer controlled milling machine called
the Ghost Gutter, which is also a great name. I
would play that video game. I was surprised to learn
that the Ghost Gunner is only about dollars have by
far the best results. It's an interesting little feels like
a CAD machine, just a small version of one, and
(34:32):
it does exactly what it says it does. Yeah, it's built.
If you go on your web on their website, um,
you'll see that they say you don't have it. You
don't have to have any CNC experience. It gives you
the types of tasks it can perform and the specific
types of firearms, the receivers that it can work on.
(34:56):
So it's useful and it's Uh, it's a democratization of technology.
That's something we've talked about as well. A quick question,
I mean, if you can three D print a gun,
does that mean that it's made of some sort of
like non metallic composite material or can you three D
print metal? Because I didn't think you could. Yeah, is
so the Ghost Gunner is able to machine existing metal.
(35:20):
The three D printed guns, which are also can be
home made on are going to be from from like
a non metalic component, so they're there. It varies from
what I understand, but a lot of the three D
printed weapons are considered good for a certain amount of shots,
(35:42):
like one like this will work for one thousand to
two thousand uh routes, right, because then they're still gonna
be at this point less durable. But of course if
that's used in a crime, the opponents of these practices
would say then less than don't worry it's us durable.
Is a terrible thing to tell victims of a crime
(36:03):
who were there when the gun was working. But doesn't
that mean it is possible to do that? The John
Malkovich in the line of fire thing to have a
type of material that won't get picked up on on
airport security scanners or metal detectors somewhat is Somewhat it is.
And you know what, guys, why don't we why don't
we take a quick break and we come back. Let's
(36:25):
jump right into three D printed guns and a lot
of the issues around them, and uh, some of the
mass shootings that have occurred, and we've returned, so we
spent a lot of time looking at the U S here.
But obviously this isn't just the US. Technology knows no
(36:49):
geopolitical boundary. There are plenty of specifically three D fire
our makers abroad. And this was examined by our end
and colleague Jake Hanrahan, the creator of Popular Front we
interviewed earlier about his series on qu and on He
he made a documentary documentary called Plastic Defense, which is
(37:13):
but it's a little less than a half hour. It's
more than worth your time if you want to learn
about this, and I think it really kicked off reporting
in the West about the motivations and the beliefs of
people who are making three D firearms that would function
they would also function as ghost guns simply because they
(37:33):
don't require a background check, they have no serial number,
all the reasons we named earlier. And you know, we
have a huge opinion of Jake. He does great work
and it's it's uh, it's a fascinating interview to watch,
especially because they don't totally agree. He talks with an
anonymous firearm manufacturer named Jay Stark or calling themselves Jay
(37:57):
Start right, Yeah, Jay Stark is associated with this thing
called Deterrence Dispensed, which is a group a decentralized group
that offers three D printed gun plans, very detailed plans
to create your own three D printed weapons. And this person,
(38:18):
Jay Stark, says that they were inspired by this announcement
and video and a series that was put out by
someone named Cody Wilson who was the creator of Defense Distributed,
and they were showing this weapon called the Liberator pistol.
And no, it's exactly what you were talking about, or
(38:39):
very close to what you were talking about. One large
three D printed piece that was essentially the entire weapon
except for the handle in a couple I think maybe
a few other parts that were in there. I'm not positive,
but it's the kind of thing that you were talking
about that you may be able to get through some
kind of metal detectors, except for you know, if you
(39:00):
have a metal round. But well know, you had those
in your Lucky rabbits foot that you put in the
bowl that you don't have to go through, and that's
what that that's what they did in the movie. Um,
but what about a firing pin or like the mechanism
that that seems like that would have to be metal, right, Yeah,
there there's quite a few components to a weapon like
that that you would need to to install. Um. But
(39:21):
I guess what I'm saying is this, so this guy
got inspired by this thing that was kind of like
what you're talking about, but it was meant to be
shot once. That Liberator pistol is designed to be fired
one time, because, as you stay before, those materials weren't
meant to last. What this person, Jay Stark, wanted to
do and what he did and this just centralized group.
(39:44):
They created versions that are way, way, way more durable
that Ben Ben. I think you quoted a thousand to
a couple of thousand shots. That's that's what These weapons
that they are now creating plans for are meant to
do be fired thousands of times. And you know it's
they're being created in Europe in places where it is impossible,
(40:09):
it is illegal to purchase a gun or ammunition for
a gun. And it's a fascinating piece of reporting that
Jake put out. I cannot recommend watching it enough. And
there's a ton we can talk about. I don't want
to derail us too much, but I would say some
of the ideological stances put forward by this person, Jay Stark,
(40:32):
I identify with them in a lot of ways. I
think a lot of us would listening to this right now, Well,
Jay Stark could be uh, you could argue that his
stance is absolutist, which is why I don't think Jake
was fully on board with all of the ideas. But
one thing, one valid point that's about was the worries
(40:53):
of the rise of far right wing uh fascism or
you know, those kind of networks springing up. And there
was a wave of that for some time. And you
can understand how someone who is concerned about that kind
of regime taking over in a country where the laws
(41:15):
do not allow them to have any sort of firearm,
you can understand how they would say, okay, well things
might pop off, and you know, not not to add
to too many nuances to it, but let's say you
are a you're a member of an ethnic minority, and
you're seeing a troubling rise to power from a group
(41:38):
that wants to do bad things to you. Then in
that case, it is absolutely reasonable to say, hey, I
need to prepare. This isn't something I want to improvise
when things go south. And just to give you one
quote from j Stark from this video, we were discussing
how easy or difficult it is to create one of
(41:59):
these three printed weapons, and you know, how much do
you have to learn? And how would you learn it?
Jay Stark has this quote, and I just want to
read this to you. Jake asks him, you know, how
did you learn how to do all this stuff to
create these plans and put them out there? And Jay
Stark says, quote, the most powerful tool for this in
general was the Internet. The Internet enabled me to do
(42:20):
all this. I was able to learn all the information
that I needed through YouTube, through Wikipedia, through various forums,
and through chatting with other enthusiasts. There's one thing that
you really have to take in mind here, motivation. All
of this information is available out there and it has been,
but why isn't everybody doing it? Because they don't have
the motivation to do all that. It goes back to
(42:43):
I think that's what you're referring to when you said,
you know, it's the amount of time. Um more, it's
the amount of dedicated time that becomes even more critical
than the amount the tools needed, right because tools are
useless without the knowledge to wield the And this so
this brings us to another thing, Like you, I'd love
(43:06):
to hear your thoughts on that interview. J Stark's motivations
the larger conversation, and we have to we have to
acknowledge that we're talking about the US. The larger conversation
about things like ghost guns does go to mass shootings
and crime. And it's tragically true that homemade firearms have
been used in crimes, including mass shootings. Just a couple
(43:29):
of years ago, there was a guy named Aaron Luther
who used it. He was a fellon who had got
out and he had a homemade firearm, a ghost gun,
and he was in a routine traffic stop and he
pulled it and ended up shooting three California Highway Patrol officers.
And then also in California, well a few years earlier,
(43:53):
twenty three year old named John Zawari used a a
R fifteen assembled at home to murder five people. I mean,
you know, we fired about a hundred rounds within thirteen minutes.
And there are more examples than this, but they all
prove the same thing. This loophole can be exploited by
(44:14):
people with nefarious intentions. The question is how do we
prevent these tragedies from occurring. The proposed solutions run the
gamut right, and the leaders of the US do not
agree on what the next step should be, and the
voters don't seem to all agree either. It's not inherently unusual.
(44:35):
It would be extraordinary if people in the US agreed
on anything, Honestly. It's just we've got a lot of
people here, um, and they're very strong feelings about this problem,
about what to do on all sides. And that's where
we have to ask what will the future bring. Currently,
as we said at the top, it is unknown how
(44:56):
many homemade firearms or ghost guns are in the US today. Uh,
there's no solid way to know exactly how many are
out there, and there's even less of a way to
know how many are being used for prime or legal
purposes versus being someone's home project. You know, I imagine
there's some like there's some homemade replica antique guns right
(45:22):
for gun collectors were like, I want to, you know,
some very specific fancy gun from the eighteen hundreds, But
of course I can't buy that because they're only like,
you know, forty two of them in the world. But
I can make one and then they, you know, they
have their cool replica and will they tell people it's
a replica, or will they try to act like it's
just the antique. Well, that's up to their character. That's
(45:46):
a replica. You see the you see the words that
are down the side of mine. Desert Eagle. Yes, yeah,
that was back when guy Richie made good movies. Remember
that that was cool? Um, I don't heard his new
one is fine, But he made that. He really tried
going Downhill and he made that Madonna Desert Island movie
that people said was just unwatchably bad. But wasn't there
(46:09):
another one? There was another joke in that movie that
said replica, Right, didn't I make that up? I'm in
my mind picturing a gun saying replica in some action
movie and that being a big twist. But maybe it
wasn't the Is it Snatch? Man? I'm sorry. I had
a really hard time. No, no no, no, it's been a
long time I've seen either Snatch or lock Stock. Ye, funny,
funny story. Those are two different movies. That always gets me,
(46:35):
you know, watching one after the other and you'll be like,
what's that? Is that one movie or two? Anyway? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
mine says Desert Eagle, blah blah blah, and yours says replica, Yeah, yeah,
that's what they're gonna stand up. I'm sorry, I was
just making sure it was from the same Yeah. So
speaking to segways, this is an important issue to everybody
(46:58):
in the future. Legislation was introduced in the U. S.
Senate in May of just about a year ago that
wanted to that was aiming aiming geez uh to require
all frames and receivers, even even the unfinished ones, to
already have serial numbers. And then the law would also
(47:19):
require the d I Y do it yourself gun builders
to go in person to a federally licensed dealer of
receivers to buy these components uh. And then they would
have to have the same background checks as people who
are buying fully assembled firearms. And then you know, people
who are pushing for this law are saying, look, if
(47:41):
you're an enthusiast, you want to build something like this
for fun, it's not going to stop you. The whole
point of it is not to stop you, but it's
to make it more difficult for convicted domestic abusers, gun runners, felons, terrorists,
and so on to acquire untraceable weapons. And this legislation
(48:01):
was very recently introduced. Ben didn't just happen, it got reintroduced. Yeah. Yeah,
so revised version of this legislation just got reintroduced um
this week, a few days before we recorded this, and
(48:22):
that makes it another hot topic. It also happened around
the same time the Department of Justice issued a proposal
that expands their official definition of what constitutes a firearm.
So now they're they're going to be saying we want
to call we we want firearm to also mean any
any kind of weapon of this type that you can
(48:42):
assemble at home. The n r A is not happy.
This is really kicking the pants for them. And they
said the proposed Department of Justice rule could quote destroy
the American firearms industry. And I wanted to ask you
guys about that. Is there some we're missing in the legislation,
like what what about that regulation would destroy such a
(49:04):
huge industry? Yeah, that is true, because we're just the
legislation is focused directly on these pieces or components, right. Yeah,
I just don't understand, and I'm not you know, I'm
not I'm not trying to be I'm not trying to
just pick a fight with them. I just don't I
(49:24):
don't understand what specifically about that registration would uh would it?
Are they saying it would damage sales of those components? Maybe,
but even then those components can't be the bulk of
of money that's made in with guns in the United States.
My god, Smith and Wesson isn't like exclusively trying to
(49:46):
get those receivers out the door. They're trying to sell
their guns. Maybe it's the maybe maybe the argument is
something along the lines of, uh, increased costs or burden
of responsibility for people selling the stuff because they have
to do the background checks. Um, yeah, well that's There's
(50:07):
a spokesperson for the n r A, Lars dull Siege,
who said the proposed rule would do nothing to address
violent crime while further burdening law abiding gun owners and
the lawful firearm industry with overbroad regulations. So please let
us know, like what, how would this have a delatorious
effect on the firearm industry. I'm interested to know because
(50:30):
you get multiple claims of conspiracy regarding this technology and
these firearms. But what is the conspiracy. It depends on
who you ask. Some people say, well, it's leads to
a conspiracy by criminals. Series of conspiracies by criminals to
remain untraceable. And then someone else, I don't know where
we are when we're having this conversation. We're um hate
(50:53):
being stuck in an elevator. We're we're waiting to take
a plain flight, and we're just we're just kicking it
at what's an airplane restaurant? Airport restaurant? You guys like Chili's.
We're a Chili's. We're Chilis. And the flights are delayed
so long that everybody's had a few drinks and we're
talking about gun rights because we're fun at parties. Uh
(51:15):
so yeah. So one person, you know, one person is
like finishing up their cheese sticks and they're saying, once
the criminals they want these guns to be untraceable, they're conspired. Yeah.
Then I'm like, no, no, no no, man, it's the government.
They're trying to take away our rights. M hmm. And
then the server who's also been there for a while
and has really made a bond with you guys. Now
(51:37):
it's like past the work relationship you had. Uh. The
servers say no, no, no, you gotta follow the money.
It's a conspiracy by lobbyists to keep making cash in
the firearm industry? Would you like another Corona? And so
weird situation is a weird conversation even because uh, everybody
(52:01):
is making a valid point. I think, yeah, that's the
thing there, there are valid points in all of these positions.
Like a criminal act is you know, often inherently a conspiracy.
It's conspiratorial, you're trying to get away with something. And uh,
the idea that there would be government overreacher, that there
(52:22):
would be an erosion of rights, specifically for firearms. You know.
I think a lot of people will lean on the
precedent that in the past, powerful governments have done things
to remove rights from citizens. But that's not that the
problem is that just doesn't apply to the US. That
applies to the entire world, you know. And then the
(52:46):
lobbyists making money. The weird that nobody ever talks about
this in the U. S. But lobbying is strange. You know,
if you explain that to someone who's not from the US,
they're like, oh, yeah, bribery, you know, no, no, no, no, no,
no no no, no, briberies illegal, bro, you gotta call
it lobby. Yeah. It almost feels like the way the
(53:07):
n R A has kind of recently almost had to
walk some things back, and like kind of seems to
be maybe losing its stranglehold over this whole situation. Maybe
not entirely, but it seems to be slipping a little
bit based on some recent news events. Wonder if it's
worth examining in a whole episode or you know, delving
into the history of it and what the future might be.
(53:29):
And we do we ever do a lobbying episode? Oh god,
if we haven't, that's another one. That's just you're right.
It literally has legalized bribery. We have a video series.
We do big video series and lobbying. Yeah, but I
don't know if we did an audio show on it yet.
It wasn't great. It was a great UM television show
called k Street that ended up getting pulled, not because
(53:52):
it was bad. It was. It was a pretty good show.
It got pulled because it was too realistic. Yeah, it's dangerous.
This is dangerous. It says a dangerous his ghost guns.
So hey, I wanna right before we wrap you guys,
I want to read one more quote from Jay Stark
that the creator there of deterrence dispersed. I wanna ask
you listening to this, what's your opinion on this kind
(54:15):
of ideological stance, because I find myself agreeing with Jay Stark,
But then I also very much agree with Jake about
how dangerous what deterrence dispersed as doing. So it's it's interesting,
I wonder where you would find yourself. Here's a quote
from Jay Stark, the guy who's helping people three D
(54:37):
print guns. He says, quote, I'm of the opinion that
to bear firearms is a human right. The government or
the entity that has rule over you, has an executive force,
the police, the military, they have firearms to be able
to escape that injustice. Citizens need to have the same
force on the individual level as the executive force of
(54:58):
the government entity that is a rule over them. Yeah,
and you know, we're very much not telling people what
to think. These are important questions and there are questions
that are going to continue being relevant, right, not again,
not just in the US, in the world, because the
(55:20):
one thing you cannot do is remove the technology from
the wild ones that exists. There's no there there are
very few cases of that ever actually happening a hundred percent. Uh,
we want to know what you think about lobbying, right,
We want to know where you stand on this. Reacting
(55:41):
to the quote Matches shared from Jay Stark, and we
also wanted one more, one more quote right there because
the technology I have to give it to you, ready.
This is what Jay Stark says. What you have to
realize is the advancement of technology has no politics. The
Adam Bomb, chemical weapons, d I. Y Rock, It's I E. D. S.
Technology has no politics. So it's that it's again that
(56:05):
argument of like it just depends on who's wielding the
tech and no no geopolitical borders or boundaries, you know.
And that's um one of the things that I brought
up to with the Poseidon super sub. Yeah. So this
is this is going this is going to continue to
be a relevant issue and a problematic one for a
(56:29):
lot of people. Where do you think the conspiracy lies?
If indeed conspiracy there is I we want to hear
from you. We try to make it easy to find
us online. That's right. You can find us a conspiracy
stuff on Twitter and Facebook, conspiracy stuff show on Instagram.
And while you're at I want to hop over to
Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. A five star
(56:50):
review would be preferable to help people discover the show
and also make us, you know, feel good in our
little hearts. That's right, And you can also give us
a call. We have a phone number. It is one
h three three st d w y t K. Please
let us know what you'd like for us to refer
to you as. Let us know if we can use
your message on the air and leave your message, and please,
(57:14):
if you don't mind, use your three minutes that you
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In fact, we are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com.
(57:55):
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