Liberal politicians and their equally-liberal media fanboys are aghast at the concept of a homemade plastic firearm. They want to purge the plans from the internet (yeah, good luck with that), require background checks to purchase 3-D printers and probably give Cody Wilson a lobotomy so he can’t do any more work on it. But there’s one thing that all the media and politicians with their panties twisted over this just don’t seem understand: The Liberator is just a hunk of plastic. Get over it . . .
Their main points of contention revolve around its plastic composition. They have their collective asses in a collective uproar because an average citizen (with a multi-thousand dollar printer) could actually make one of these things all by themselves, and it can’t be detected by airport and other security screening. This is true. However, there’s no law that says a citizen can’t make his or her own firearms for their own personal use. In fact, you can download plans from the internet for making anything from a zip gun using a couple of pieces of pipe to CNC specs for machining the components for custom-built firearms.
For some reason, though, no one seems to worry about those, even though they could be much more deadly than a plastic gun that fires a single .38 caliber round with the help of a nail. If anything, they should welcome the concept. After all, aren’t one-shot wonders the ultimate extension of the mag-cap-limit crowd? And as far as someone mass-producing Liberators and selling them on street corners, there are already laws covering that on the books. They already apply to the Liberator just as they do to any other home-built firearm.
“But”, they whine, “the pieces and parts of the Liberator can make it through an airport or other security screening station undetected.” So what? So can a plastic dagger, a plastic garrote, plastic knitting needles, or a plastic billy club, any of which can be used to cause mayhem as is. The Liberator can’t.
Without ammunition, which any security screening system should be able to detect easily, its usefulness as a weapon is limited to using it as a club. If the TSA is letting live ammo get on planes, they’ve got much bigger problems than a few plastic guns. And I’m sure there are better objects to be found on the average jetliner if you’re looking for something with which to bludgeon the idiot who keeps bumping the back of your seat.
So why are politicians and other liberals getting so bent out of shape over this? It’s not the Liberator itself. It’s what it symbolizes – a way for people to regain some of their Second Amendment rights the Nanny Ninnies have taken away over the years – or hope to in the near future. They can’t handle the idea of John and Jane Q. Public regaining any lost ground. And they want to stop it, even if it means trampling on the First and Fourth Amendments in the process.