Synopsis Come and Take It, set to be released on Oct. 11, 2016, is the memoir of Cody Wilson, the man who was dubbed one of "the most dangerous people in the world" after he released a 3D-printed AR-15. Wilson illuminates his journey from a man who knew nothing about plastics or firearms to someone who sends chills down the spines of lawmakers with his homebrew gun.

Since 2013, I have followed the saga of Cody Wilson, the pioneer behind 3D-printed firearms. The Austin, Texas-based digital gunsmith famously demonstrated in March 2013 that it’s possible to build the lower receiver of an AR-15 on a 3D printer.

"Download this gun," he told me by phone back then.

Since then, Wilson has gone on to build a one-shot pistol dubbed the "Liberator." He moved on to two generations of CNC mills that could help citizens manufacture metal guns at home. (Those remain on sale—Wilson said he's sold over 2,000 of the latest Ghost Gunner 2.)

More recently, the former University of Texas law student has been involved in a lawsuit that his group, Defense Distributed, filed against the United States Department of State, which has tried to halt the group's efforts to distribute the relevant CAD files online. (The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled against Defense Distributed.)

Now, roughly 3.5 years after that first attention-grabbing demo, Wilson has come out with a book, entitled Come and Take It: The Gun Printer's Guide to Thinking Free (UK).

Despite its title, the book is more memoir and less manifesto. Come and Take It describes how Wilson went from being someone who "didn't know a thing about engineering, ballistics, or plastics" to being someone who was publicly chastised by everyone from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt to lawmakers nationwide. (I was disappointed to find out from Wilson that all the dialogue in the book is reconstructed from his memory—there are few primary source materials and no footnotes at all.)

Still, it's a fun, compelling read by one of the smartest provocateurs of the 21st century. As someone who is curious to know what will become of Wilson in the coming months and years, I'd like to know more about what makes him tick and what's coming down the line.

However, Come and Take It fails to fully explain why putting firearms in the hand of every single American (or even citizen of the world) is necessary, much less desirable. Wilson takes it as a given that arming everyone—or, rather, giving everyone the option to arm oneself—in and of itself is an obvious end. He stops short of explaining his political philosophy. As best as I can tell, the point is that this technology simply cannot be stopped.

The saga

In promotional videos, Wilson comes across almost as an creepy zealot, someone who will stop at nothing to usher in his agenda. But on the page, his character is rounded out: he's funny!

Wilson describes the frustrating early stages of building Defense Distributed, back when it was just a video online, in this acerbic way: "Six hundred thousand YouTube views and forty bucks could get you a tank of gas to Houston." (He's well beyond that now, as evidenced below.)

The beginning of the book chronicles his efforts to square his all-consuming idea of being a provocateur—a role that he clearly relishes—with his previous efforts as a law student. Quickly, Defense Distributed takes on a life of its own, and he fades away from the University of Texas. Wilson finds himself in a world of gunsmiths, libertarians, and Bitcoin fanatics, but he isn't quite part of it. Eventually, he finds the crew that will help him make the guns that he wants. Again, we only get a glimpse of these fleeting characters. Some even disappear as quickly as they arrive in the narrative.

Wilson even briefly touches on romantic interests. There's Ann, who "wore fur boots for me" when they met for barbecue one night. I wish Wilson put more of his own three-dimensional character in the book.

I fought the law...

For a few brief moments, Wilson discusses interests outside of his most pressing cause, but, for the most part, his own politics are nebulous.

"I believe the printed pistol lays bare Western ethical ideology and gets to the heart of the question of the political," he writes in the prologue. "Your politics will inform what you think about our actions, but you may feel differently about the potential of powerful, free, and open-source software and intellectual property after you've read this book."

Even after reading his book, I'm still not sure what he means by this. Sure, plenty of open-source zealots favor software that can be edited, freely, by anyone. However, there is a crucial distinction here: no software, until the one created by Wilson and his followers, has ever been used to create a physical device that fires lethal bullets.

Wilson doesn't even attempt to explain what a world would functionally be like—if it could even get to that point—where 3D-printed firearms are the norm.

He also doesn't even seem to consider the possibility that many people will not want to print their own weapons. After all, the United States already has more conventional firearms (roughly 357 million) than people. Printing a gun at this point seems more about sending a message than anything else, but it's not clear what the contours of that message are. Print a gun, and then what?

Wilson previously warned me: "The idea is not to print components for guns that are, but the guns that will be."

But 3D printing, as a popular consumer activity, remains illusory. In July 2016, TechCrunch intoned: "Whatever happened to 3D printing?" Printing a bespoke beer coaster, much less a firearm, isn’t at idiot-proof, push-button levels yet.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Wilson's work be banned or halted. I recognize that the genie is out of the bottle. However, despite his adherence to crypto-anarchy, Wilson seems awfully devoted to fighting The Man on His own turf, as evidenced by his ongoing lawsuit against the Department of State.

In fact, the entire legal battle that Defense Distributed is currently waging against the State Department is conspicuously absent from Come and Take It. The last several pages of the book, where Wilson explains in apparent detail how to actually 3D-print a gun, are largely redacted "by demand of the US Department of State." But, frustratingly, Wilson never explains what that means, exactly.

As Ars reported in February 2016, the lawsuit, Defense Distributed v. Department of State, centers on whether a website that publishes CAD files—which would enable foreigners outside the US to print a firearm—violates munitions export laws. Fearing a possible lawsuit by the State Department or prosecution by the government, Defense Distributed took the files down three years ago, but they have since reappeared on other websites.

When I asked Wilson about why he's going through all of this trouble, he said: "No one else can sue with these facts. I'm in it real deep right now, so I'll take the time, and I'll do it."

This adherence to legalistic process is hardly the tactic that one might expect from someone who readily cites Timothy May's Crypto Anarchist Manifesto. But either way, Wilson believes that he can't be stopped.

"You win formally, or you win informally," he concluded.