Introduction
Cody Rutledge Wilson (born January 31, 1988) is an American crypto-anarchist, free-market anarchist, and gun-rights activist, best known as a founder/director of Defense Distributed, a non-profit organization that develops and publishes open source gun designs, so-called "wiki weapons", suitable for 3D printing. He is a co-founder of the Dark Wallet bitcoin storage technology.
Defense Distributed gained international notoriety in 2013 when it published plans online for the Liberator, a functioning pistol that could be reproduced with a 3D printer. Wilson is regarded as one of America's most influential gun rights advocates, and Wired Magazine's "Danger Room" named him one of "The 15 Most Dangerous People in the World" in 2012. In 2015, Wired named Wilson the fifth most dangerous person on the Internet.
Early life and education
Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, Wilson was student body president at Cabot High School in Cabot, Arkansas; he graduated in 2006.
Wilson graduated from the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) with a bachelor's degree in English in 2010, where he had a scholarship. While at UCA, Wilson was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and was elected president of UCA's Student Government Association. He also traveled to China with UCA's study-abroad program.
He is a former student of the University of Texas School of Law.
Career
Defense Distributed
In 2012, Wilson and associates at Defense Distributed initiated the Wiki Weapon Project to raise funds for designing and releasing the files for a 3D printable gun. Wilson is, to date, the only spokesperson on behalf of the organization, of which he describes himself as "co-founder" and "director".
Learning of his organization's plans, manufacturer Stratasys threatened legal action and demanded the return of a 3D printer it had leased to Wilson. On September 26, 2012, before the printer was assembled for use, Wilson received an email from Stratasys suggesting he was using the printer "for illegal purposes". Stratasys immediately cancelled its lease with Wilson and sent a team to confiscate the printer the next day.
While visiting the ATF enforcement office in Austin to inquire about legalities related to his project, Wilson was subsequently interrogated by the officers there. Six months later, he was issued a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to manufacture and deal.
In May 2013, Wilson successfully test-fired a pistol, called "the Liberator", reportedly made by a Stratasys Dimension series 3D printer bought on eBay. After test firing, Wilson released the blueprints of the gun's design online through Defense Distributed. The State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance then demanded that he remove it, threatening prosecution. They claimed he was violating regulations against the international export of unapproved arms.
On May 6, 2015, Defense Distributed and the gun rights group the Second Amendment Foundation filed a lawsuit against the State Department claiming a violation of their first amendment rights to free speech.
Dark Wallet
In 2013, Wilson, along with Amir Taaki, began work on a Bitcoin wallet called 'Dark Wallet', a project by which he plans to help anonymize financial transactions. He appeared in support of the 'Dark Wallet' project at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas in 2014, speaking to publications such as ReasonTV.
Bitcoin Foundation
On U.S. election day, November 4, 2014, Wilson announced in an interview that he would stand for election to a seat on the Board of Directors of the Bitcoin Foundation, with "the sole purpose of destroying the Foundation." And Wilson stated: "I will run on a platform of the complete dissolution of the Bitcoin Foundation and will begin and end every single one of my public statements with that message."
Political and economic views
Wilson claims an array of influences from anti-state and libertarian political thinkers, including leftist market anarchists like the mutualist scholar Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, capitalist libertarians such as the Austrian School scholar Hans-Herman Hoppe, and classical liberals including Frederic Bastiat. Wilson is against intellectual property rights which is a common view of radical libertarians, but generally seen as foundational within the mainstream libertarian movement. He has also indicated that although his primary goal is the subversion of state-structures he also hopes that his contributions may help to dismantle the existing system of capitalist property relations.
On American gun politics
Asked during an interview with Popular Science if the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting had affected his thinking or plans in any way, Wilson responded:
"... understanding that rights and civil liberties are something that we protect is also understanding that they have consequences that are also protected, or tolerated. The exercise of civil liberties is antithetical to the idea of a completely totalizing state. That's just the way it is."
On subversion and resistance
During a January 2013 interview with Glenn Beck on the nature of and motivations behind his effort to develop and share gun 3D printable files Wilson offered:
"That's a real political act, giving you a magazine, telling you that it will never be taken away. ... That's real politics. That's radical equality. That's what I believe in. ... I'm just resisting. What am I resisting? I don't know, the collectivization of manufacture? The institutionalization of the human psyche? I'm not sure. But I can tell you one thing: this is a symbol of reversibility. They can never eradicate the gun from the earth."
Journalist Brian Doherty of Reason described Wilson as "more than just a gun guy", adding that Wilson may be "right about how it has to end: the people will have the power."
Work
Bibliography
- Come and Take It: The Gun Printer's Guide to Thinking Free (2016) Simon & Schuster
Filmography
- After Newtown: Guns in America (2013)
- Print the Legend (2014)
- Deep Web (2015)
- No Control (2015)
- The New Radical (2017)