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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

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Inventor of 3D gun wins lawsuit against Justice

The inventor of a 3D gun has won a free speech lawsuit against the Justice Department for its order blocking the publication of his 3D gun designs.

Cody Wilson’s Defense Distributed and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) reached a settlement with the Department of Justice allowing unfettered publication of 3D gun files and other information in a case centered on free speech. Breitbart News reported that SAF filed a suit on behalf of Defense Distributed on May 6, 2015, seeking to free Wilson from a federal mandate that he not post blueprints for The Liberator pistol online.

Over three years later, the announcement comes that Wilson and SAF won. SAF sent a press release to Breitbart News, explaining details of settlement, saying, “The government has agreed to waive its prior restraint against the plaintiffs, allowing them to freely publish the 3-D files and other information at issue. The government has also agreed to pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees, and to return $10,000 in State Department registration dues paid by Defense Distributed as a result of the prior restraint.”

In other words, the Justice Department had no authority under the Constitution to block the publication of these 3D gun plans, and in its effort to try it has lost badly.

What this really means is that it is now literally impossible for any government to impose gun control. If you want a gun, all you will need is the right kind of 3D printer (getting better all the time) and the right plans, soon to be available on the web. While this might make guns more available for bad guys, I guarantee that they will quickly be outnumbered by the good guys.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

6 comments

  • Blair Ivey: Ever hear of reloading? If I 3D print a 45, I have the supplies to make more ammo than I’d even need.

  • pzatchok

    Plastic coated bullets. https://www.badmanbullets.com/OnlineStore/hi-tek-coated-bullets.php

    That led to full plastic bullets and now the military is trying out full polymer ammo. No metals at all.

    The plastic cases actually keep more heat inside so less is passed on to the gun.
    The plastic bullets leave less crud in the gun. Easy to clean.
    Lighter weight and cheaper to make.
    And the new ammo fits all standard firearms. Its has the same dimensions as standard ammo.

    Sorry the only metal is the primer.

    Lets just say that i might have made a ‘zip’ gun or two in my time.
    Doing it by 3D printer might be nice and might make more complex shapes, like an exact copy of a glock frame ready for all the metal parts, its not the only or best way to make a single shot firearm like the Liberty gun.

    Its easier to start with a block of nylon and just cut it to shape with a hand coping saw and a hand drill. Add in a few bit of metal and you have a pretty good single shot handgun. you could use all plastic but the design has to be pretty prefect to work. Its the hammer, firing pin, and main spring that get you.

  • wayne

    “Cody Wilson: Happiness is a 3-D Printed Gun”
    2014, Reason TV
    https://youtu.be/g5fhBBipU3w
    (27:50)

  • Col Beausabre

    “That led to full plastic bullets and now the military is trying out full polymer ammo. No metals at all.”

    As an retired career Army officer my reaction us that they may well be illegal under international law as they may not show up in X-rays

    Some relevant info –

    -Protocol I to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

    The 1980 Protocol I to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons provides: “It is prohibited to use any weapon the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments which in the human body escape detection by X-rays.”

    The US is a signatory to the Convention and all its Protocols

    Strangely enough, the US military takes such things serious

    United States of America

    The US Air Force Pamphlet (1976) states: “Usage and practice has also determined that it is per se illegal to use projectiles filled with glass or other materials inherently difficult to detect medically.”

    United States of America

    The US Air Force Commander’s Handbook (1980) states: “Using clear glass as the injuring mechanism in an explosive projectile or bomb is prohibited, since glass is difficult for surgeons to detect in a wound and impedes treatment.”

    United States of America

    The US Instructor’s Guide (1985) states that the principle of unnecessary suffering “outlawed the use of … projectiles filled with glass”

    United States of America

    The US Naval Handbook (1995) provides: “Using materials that are difficult to detect or undetectable by field x-ray equipment, such as glass or clear plastic, as the injuring mechanism in military ammunition is prohibited, since they unnecessarily inhibit the treatment of wounds.”

    The US Naval Handbook (2007) states:

    [U]sing materials that are difficult to detect or undetectable by field x-ray equipment, such as glass or clear plastic, as the injuring mechanism in military ammunition is prohibited, since they unnecessarily inhibit the treatment of wounds. Use of such materials as incidental components in ammunition, e.g., as wadding or packing, is not prohibited

  • BSJ

    And yet again. Trump stabs Second (and 1st) amendment supporters in the back.

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