The extreme libertarian is coming to London challenge the global financial system
Paul Peachey
He speaks of liberty, freedom and helping society’s marginalised. His dedication to civil liberties has brought him a loyal band of followers. Now Cody Wilson, scourge of the campaign to control the proliferation of arms, is coming to London with a new mission: to challenge the global financial system.
Mr Wilson, 25 – named by Wired magazine as one of the world’s 15 most dangerous people after he created a gun that can be download and built with a 3D printer – is promoting a crypto-currency that would operate outside of government control.
Driven by an extreme libertarian philosophy, the Texan has already achieved notoriety with his vision of putting a gun in the hands of anyone who wants one – and who has a few hundred pounds. The online blueprint for his handgun – the Liberator – has been downloaded 100,000 times since it was released in May.
Senior police sources have warned that the gun is one of the biggest threats they face as they try to cut firearms crime in Britain. The US Government embarked on legal action to prevent his organisation – Defense Distributed – from continuing to disseminate the designs.
Calls for stricter gun control laws in Britain followed the a series of raids in Manchester last month that netted what police believed to be the country’s first 3D-printed gun parts. Though it was later confirmed that the parts were not from a 3D gun, a man arrested remains on bail until January.
Mr Wilson yesterday laughed off his position at No 14 on the Wired list (below Bashar al-Assad but above Paula Broadwell, whose relationship with General David Petraeus ended the career of the director of the CIA), saying that his philosophy placed individual liberty above attempts at gun control.
“Do the interests in protecting liberties overcome the fact that bad things may happen? It’s a simple calculus: for me it’s worth it.”