Downloaders have successfully acquired at least 100,000 schematics for Defense Distributed's printable 3D handgun over the course of two days.
By comparison, the first episode of Game of Thrones clocked in at a million downloads per day.
Andy Greenberg of Forbesreports that company owner Cody Wilson teamed up with controversial Kim Dotcom to upload the gun's print plans to the website Mega. Predictably, Greenberg notes, Americans have surged into the lead for the country with the most downloads, in front of Spain, Brazil, Germany and the U.K.
And the plans are spreading.
From Forbes:
The gun’s blueprint, of course, may have also already spread far wider than Defense Distributed can measure. It’s also been uploaded to the filesharing site the Pirate Bay, where it’s quickly become one of the most popular files in the site’s 3D-printing category. “This is the first in what will become an avalanche of undetectable, untraceable, easy-to-manufacture weapons that will turn the tables on evil-doers the world over,” writes one user with the name DakotaSmith on the site. “Share and enjoy.”
Wilson told Greenberg this about choosing Dotcom, “We’re sympathetic to Kim Dotcom. There are plenty of services we could have used, but we chose this one. He’s down for the struggle.”
A struggle it will be: currently California, New York, and D.C. are looking at possible bans for 3D printed weapons.
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