Pandora's Box  AP Images/Austin American Statesman/Jay Janner
On a clear day this past May, Cody Wilson stood at a firing
range just south of Austin, Texas. The BBC crew he’d invited
stood a few feet away as the 25-year-old University of Texas law
student adjusted his earplugs and sized up his target—a mound of
dirt off in the distance. He raised a small handgun, pulled the
trigger, and a .380 caliber shot rang out, kicking up a cloud of
dust. The pistol Wilson held was made of black-and-white plastic
and looked like a cheap children’s toy. What had drawn the BBC
was that the gun, which Wilson dubbed the “Liberator,” had been
created with an $8,000 3-D printer bought used on eBay. A self-
described “techno-anarchist,” Wilson is on a quest to prove that
new technology is rapidly changing what we can hope to
regulate—from information and ideas to physical objects. The
proof is that anyone with an Internet connection, a computer,
and a 3-D printer can now manufacture a gun.  Three-dimensional
printing is Star Tr