Technology took a sinister new turn last week when someone successfully fired a handgun made on a home 3D printer. The gun (also known as the “Liberator”) was the brainchild of Texas law student Cody Wilson, a self-described anarchist and radical libertarian described by Wired Magazine as “one of the 15 most dangerous people in the world.” Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) quickly called for a ban on the “stomach-churning” weapon; but over on Fox Business Network, Lou Dobbs thought the Liberator was “amazing,” and invited Wilson onto his show Tuesday to rave about it - particularly about how it gave the finger to gun-control advocates.

Dobbs began by congratulating Wilson on “the successful completion of your goal,” and then asked whether his progress had been impeded by regulators. Wilson, dripping with cockiness, replied “no question, man;” easily half his budget went into compliance with various regulations. (He says the gun meets all the laws and regulatory requirements.)

What particularly impressed Dobbs was that Wilson had got in the face of the gun-control people. “[In the view of Senator Schumer and others] you have just made it possible for every human being in the planet to go to a printer and to come back and be an armed citizen or revolutionary depending on your perspective I suppose.” Wilson agreed: “They’ve suffered quite a serious symbolic setback haven’t they?” Dobbs laughed.

What is your motivation in creating this gun, Dobbs asked. Wilson replied: “That political, symbolic motivation. I want to put, in as neat and beautiful a package as I can, to them, that their feelings of control, the sense that they have of a corner on history, is nothing but an illusion, nothing but a pantomime. And that this sense that they’re gonna socially administer society into the future forever and ever is collapsing, in spectacular fashion.” (Well, I didn’t really expect he’d say, “for gangsters and other niche-market gun users who want a weapon you can get quickly and anonymously, use a few times and then throw away leaving no trace.”)

Asked about his politics, Wilson replied he doesn’t belong to any party but is “sympathetic with the traditional school of anarchist thought.” Dobbs mused that the anarchist view, the assertion of individual freedom, was not altogether dissonant with the American exaltation of self-reliance and independence. Wilson agreed, saying America was an anarchic experiment in the beginning, and that American hostility to centralized power was a theme throughout its history. He ended by giving the URL for the web site where you can download this amazing new invention.

In the days of my youth, gentle reader, the right was all for Law and Order. The last thing I would have expected was that forty years later, it would be veering toward anarchy and treason. But given the prevailing NRA sentiment that you need guns to protect your liberties in case that scary black man in the White House some government, some day, gets too heavy-handed, the impossible seems to be a little more possible.

I don’t like thinking about it, gentle reader. I’m going to play with my cats. (Video via Media Matters)