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A model of 3D printed rifle called the FGC-9 (which stands for F*** Gun Control) is being used by rebels fighting against the authoritarian genocidal military junta in Myanmar which regained power after a military coup deposed the democratically elected leader in 2021. If that's not enough, the government of Myanmar is not at all shy about killing civilians, from what I've heard.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/guns-are-being-3d-printed-myanmar-199401
https://observers.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220114-3d-printed-weapons-myanmar-rebels
Apparently they've got 3D printers set up in guerilla jungle hideouts. The creator of the FGC-9 was a young German-Kurdish man named Jstark who died recently, possibly of a heart condition.
My thoughts: It's sad that some progressive organizations might be reluctant to bring positive attention to the rebels or the tools they use because it arguably hurts their cause or something.
If I was a guy like Jstark or Cody Wilson, and I was concerned about PR, I might say something truthful but strategic like "the most important thing to me is getting these files somewhere where they can't be taken down and where they can be accessed by anyone, because that's the only way for me to help rebels like these. I care about the downsides of making these guns available, but I've calculated things and it is greatly overshadowed by the upside." Or something. I didn't phrase that well.
Edit: A cleaner way to say it: "the moral benefit of 3D-printed guns to citizens living under brutal authoritarian dictatorships in places like Myanmar is so great that the harm caused to the rest of the world would need to be truly massive in order to outweigh it, and I do not believe it is so massive, if it is indeed a net harm to the wellbeing of other countries."
Isn't that already a big part of what they're selling, only stated more broadly? The moral benefit of accessible firearms is that it prevents brutal authoritarian dictatorships, everywhere and always. This is most readily observable today in Myanmar, but I continue to believe that it holds true in places where the dynamic isn't as plainly visible. Shifting the focus to places like Myanmar feels like providing ammunition to the opposition - "OK, it's necessary in those places and our government can work with that, but no American civilians needs those weapons of war".
Big if true, but is it true? Does not seem to be universally true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Yemen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
Country or subnational area Estimate of civilian firearms per 100 persons
3 Yemen 52.8
Huh. I'm going to have to do some reading and get back to you. At a glance, I admit that I'm puzzled by the situation and it's a pretty clear refutation of my claim.
A Saudi carpet bombing campaign in the middle of a brutal sectarian civil war is not what anyone was talking about with "guns defeat totalitarianism"- for one thing, it's unclear that it's totalitarianism per se, as opposed to living in a war zone just generally sucking.
This is exactly what would happen when second amendment overthrows totalitarianism in US - devastated land split among warlords, fighting it out in proxy wars between great powers of the world. Many such cases in history.
No freedom of speech and press, no freedom of religion except current warlord's favorite sect of Islam, no justice system except current warlord's will, no human rights whatsoever. If it isn't totalitarianism, it really looks like one.
This Wiki article is not about people killed in bombing and shelling or dying of disease and famine, it is about people arrested and tortured.
Exactly the thing universal gun ownership was supposed to prevent according to theory.
The question is: why guns do not prevent it? Why Yemenis armed to the teeth allow themselves to be arrested and tortured at the whim of local warlord and his goons?
Two reasons:
1/ The same reason why Americans armed to the teeth surrender to spend rest of their life in American hell prisons rather than die with their boots on.
2/ Family ties, much stronger over here than in the western countries. If you fight back, the warlord will make example of your whole extended family, and even if they do not care about their life anymore, average Yemenis care about their kin much more than average Americans.
It’s also possible that the Yemenis with guns are the ones doing the oppressing of their less-well-armed peers, and that’s driving the numbers up.
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