In this continuing advocacy of us to have an Airsoft CAD Depository Project to create an online source of freely shared and freely downloadable designs of airsoft guns and parts (and anything related to the preservation and promotion of airsoft via 3D printing), we want to point out this ongoing documentary project of the 3D Printed Gun where the Airsoft CAD concept took its inspiration from.

With no date announced yet on its release, what you can expect for this documentary project is that it is produced by Motherboard and will appear on Vice. Unfamiliar names? It's best if you click on the links and if you like what you see, you might as well subscribe to them.

3D Printed Gun Documentary is about Wiki Weapon, whose proponent, Cody Wilson launched as a long term project where designs for 3D printing real steel firearms either for home use or rapid prototyping are shared and wants others to join and help enrich the project with their own contributions. Here's the trailer:

It is a controversial project, but for me it is a project that tests the boundary of the firearms debates. Optimus Prime and I always agree that almost every tool made by humans in history always has its positive and negative uses, and there's no other tool that's subject to such moral predicament and debate than weapons, from knives, guns, to nukes. While obviously putting designs of a nuclear bomb is a no-no (but one can actually put together a plan for building a nuke by searching high and low online and has already been done), weapons such as guns will have almost evenly divided camps, in my opinion.

The only thing that the Wiki Weapon project can move forward is that it's now about weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear, biological, chemical, and even space-based weapons platforms. It is up to the person looking at Wiki Weapon to if such designs can be used for self-defense, supporting a revolution, crime… whatever they have in their minds. Wiki Weapon is morally ambivalent as a project, but in objective terms, it is about sharing information.

The Airsoft CAD that we are promoting does not have that kind of intense debate such as Wiki Weapon, as even it's about some firearms design, it's more about recreation and replicas. It's more on helping the availability of parts, when there is none available in the market, and to build an airsoft replica when its original manufacturer has already discontinued such model as it's not economical for them to mass produce or has shuttered their doors.

I am looking forward to release of this documentary as it pioneers the way for 3D Printing and further inspiration for having airsoft design information freely shared online.