The 3D printed gun conspiracy

It is interesting to note that certain mainstream news media outlets are entering the debate on the availability of 3D printing technology to the general public. 3D printing has been around in industry for about thirty years, and has traditionally been used for rapid prototyping and small scale production runs. There are a number of different methods of 3D printing but the technology that has brought this technology to the attention of the public is fused filament fabrication. This method takes a drum of plastic filament and heats and extrudes it into thin, bonded layers typical onto a heated build plate. The key reason for this sudden increase in interest is that this technology has now been brought to a price point and level of simplicity that makes it available to almost anyone.

Take the Robuster, a desktop 3D printer manufactured in the UK by RP Techworks. It retails at £1500 and the plastic filament comes in at about £40 per kilo. Not what anyone would call expensive for something that is essentially an industrial prototyping machine. The ease of use is incredible too. From a 3D computer design, many thousands of which are readily available online if you aren’t a designer yourself, the software that ships with this machine automates the process of preparing the image for building and controlling the unit itself, so in literally a couple of mouse clicks anyone could be building a 3D model of anything, from a lampshade to a fully working 3D gun. This is the part that is causing all the media hyperbole.

You can imagine the news stories, even if you haven’t seen them. A working gun, unregistered, uncontrolled, unlicensed, made of plastic so it will pass metal detectors. Certain sections of the press are having a field day, but isn’t that rather missing the point? In the US where this technology is taking hold faster than almost anywhere else in the World the legitimately held guns are far more of an issue than a few hobbyist who are exploring the possibilities of a new technology. No-one in their right mind would actually rely on a firearm created on a 3D printer and made of plastic, and certainly not when the real thing is so ubiquitous and a great deal safer and more reliable.

So why the level of panic in the press? Could it perhaps be that it is better for the elite to make us fear each other than to fear our rulers? If we are scared of our neighbours and what they might be up to then we are less likely to get together into groups and challenge authority. By separating us we are kept isolated and therefore weaker. Isn’t this somewhat more credible than a vast army of secretive terrorists beavering away making dodgy plastic guns to wreak havoc on society?

The enslavement of the middle and working classes

Have you ever wondered why it is that despite bringing the global economy to its knees and destroying the lives of millions no bankers have been prosecuted for their actions outside Iceland? Have you ever stopped and thought, as you walk down the high street, “Where did all these betting shops come from? How have they got planning permission?” Have you ever watched a primetime television advert break and thought “How is it legal for loan companies to charge interest rates in excess of 2000% per year? Aren’t there laws about loan sharking?” If you have pondered on these changes in the UK highstreet and financial markets you have probably also wondered why, despite the bank of England interest rate remaining at an unprecedented 0.5%, the high street banks are charging higher interest on loans, mortgages and overdrafts than before the banking collapse. You’ll probably have done a little research and some reading around.

It is almost certain that the answers you have found have been unsatisfying to say the least. Bankers can’t really be prosecuted as individuals because they were as much victims of the prevalent banking culture as we were. Licensing and planning laws are enforced by local authorities, not national government, and the increase in betting shops, pawn brokers, cash converters and payday loan companies is the only way to keep shop fronts from becoming empty. As to the loan shark rates of interest, well, the loans are only short term and are really quite reasonable rates when you consider who the money is being lent to, or so you would be led to believe from even quite an in depth analysis of these issues.

The truth is somewhat darker, and ties in the ruling global families with the military-industrial complex and the sinister forces that hold power tightly from behind a veil of secrecy. In reality there has been a move within these power brokers that started in the post war era of the 1950’s and accelerated rapidly through the 1970’s and ‘80’s and is still accelerating today. Let us consider a brief history of 1950’s Britain. We had come through a conflict of global proportions, heavily damaged in terms of economic and political power. The Russian and US blocs were dominant and we were still gripped by rationing and austerity. Within this climate there emerged a growing culture of trade unionism, far left politics, bolshevism and an attempt by the proletariat to wrest some of the power back from the hands of politicians and the Monarchy. It was clear to those in power that if this was allowed to continue then the implications globally would be catastrophic for those traditionally holding power. Something had to be done!

It started with the development of mind and mood altering drugs. At the heart of the development of LSD, stronger strains of cannabis, refinements in cocaine and opium derivatives and so on are the large multinational drug companies, funded by a cabal of private investors. You only have to look at the scale of these companies and the way in which money is funnelled through them in secret, ostensibly to protect against industrial espionage but in reality to hide exactly what a lot of that money is funding. Look further at the experiments carried out by UK, US and Russian scientists and chemists on uninformed, non-consenting test subjects throughout this period. It is clear that there was something very much amiss.

The situation changed dramatically through the 1960’s and ‘70’s with the rise of various counterculture movements in music, the arts, even science. The development of trade unions flexing their muscles with national and international strikes, the environmentalism movement, hippies, beatniks, social drop-outs led to a pressing need to retain control amongst the elite, so plans were formulated to keep the masses enslaved, controlled, managed. This took the form of a multi-headed attack on the middle and lower classes. Education standards were lowered, but always quietly, and with the cover story that education was about inclusion for the least able, even if this was at the expense of the most able. At the same time, the concept of a “Job for life” was eroded until the overwhelming emotion felt by the working population was fear. Fear of losing their job, their income, fear of not being able to get a job, and perhaps worse, that their children may not be able to get jobs. So we put up with more in our workplaces, gradually becoming more subservient to our overlords.

Combined with these came the increase in the pervasive presence of technology, in the home, the workplace, out on the streets, a World full of bright flashing lights, noise, bustle to distract and confuse us, and a World full of monitoring and surveillance to track those of us who refused to be cowed. Think of the reports of employee blacklists within the construction, health, education and finance sectors. If you were considered to difficult or challenging you would veryt quickly find opportunities to work drying up. This theme continues today, with anyone challenging the status quo branded a whistle-blower and blocked from employment by tacit agreement between business leaders. So, we have a frightened workforce, monitored and tracked and to this we add the next layer of control; finance. Over the 1980’s and ‘90’s there was a colossal credit bubble, fuelled by the idea that house prices could only ever rise. Ordinary people were encouraged to borrow against their property beyond its value in the expectation that the value would keep on rising inexorably higher. Of course, we know this was a nonsense, to be fair we knew it all along, but we were being conditioned to be aspirational, to want the latest and greatest, and more importantly to want it now. This isn’t just the fault of advertisers, but of the elite pulling the strings.

By keeping us uneducated, fearful, trapped by spiralling debt we have become unable as well as unwilling to truly challenge authority, but it is not too late. It is never too late. Stop buying so much crap! Stop voting for the same carbon copy clone politicians, stop allowing yourself to be spoon fed the latest celebrity reality show and start going to your local library and start reading books before they are all replaced with e-readers! Make a stand, make a choice, and take back control of your life today!