Last month, Wired UK
detailed the story behind London’s Victoria & Albert Museum
acquiring a
3D-printed Liberator pistol for display. The story is an
unintentionally hysterical tour through bureaucratic roadblocks,
and an object lesson in just how useful personal 3D printing can be
in cutting through red tape and giving people access to things they
want without having to say “mother may I?” to a horde of petty
officials.
Writes
Olivia Solon for Wired UK:
when Austin-based Cody Wilson developed a 3D-printed handgun —
called The Liberator — that achieved international notoriety, it
piqued the interest of curators at the Victoria & Albert
Museum. But the museum would not be content with a replica; only a
Wilson original would do.“The museum is interested in provenance and so wanted to explore
something that had come from Cody. In a sense it’s a bit absurd to
have that lineage [for something like a 3D-printed gun], but it’s
important for the museum,” explains V&A Curator of Digital
Louise Shannon. …For Shannon, the legal hurdles around importing such artefacts
have become as important to the story as the material objects
themselves. When she set out to acquire the pieces, she had no idea
how complex the process would be. The V&A is by no means
lacking in experience of complicated imports: the museum has one of
the world’s largest collections of arms and armour and has a
license to display firearms under the UK’s Firearms
Act.Under the guidance of in-house specialists, Shannon set about
seeking an individual import license for the Department for
Business Innovation and Skills – a customary measure when bringing
a firearm into the UK from outside of the EU. This would need to be
accompanied by a Non Transfer of Use certificate from the US
Department of State and customs paperwork generated by the fine art
transportation specialist agent. Once it arrived at the V&A it
would have to be unpacked by a safety specialist and displayed in
an extra-thick case.All of this needed to be completed in time for display in the
museum for a show on 14 September 2013. As the deadline approached,
the V&A fulfilled its part in the process, gaining the relevant
import licence on 13 August. But then the US State Department
demanded an updated import license with further specifications
relating to the Liberator’s components. The UK Department for
Business Industry and Skills rejected this request, saying it was
“purely cosmetic”. The gun appeared to sit squarely in the gap
between the two governments’ definition of a firearm.
Months later, Cody Wilson’s Liberator is still in Texas, held in
place by the bureaucratic rules of two nations. The pistol on
display in London was printed in the UK, though it’s non-working as
a matter of principle, because the company that made it backed
itself into an ethical corner. Jonathan Rowley, design director for
the company that produced the controversial weapon for the V&A
museum,
told The Independent that after a radio debate with
Defense Distributed’s Cody Wilson, “I made rather pompous
statements that we’d never make one, and then the V&A called up
asking us to print one for them. It was a bit of dilemma
because I love the V&A. So we worked out how we could
make one without being hypocritical about it.”
Which means they created a non-firing replica.
The museum, being less squeamish than Rowley, still plans to
import the real thing from Texas for a future show.
But all of the bureaucratic nightmare was actually a
choice. The museum could have bypassed the nonsense by
printing the Liberator pistol at home. As 3D printers become
increasingly widespread, museum officials could have had an actual
working gun from a company with fewer bizarre scruples than Rowley,
or purchased their own printer and acted only to please
themselves.
It’s an interesting story in which bureaucratic red tape has
become a nightmarish hurdle, even as technology renders it
increasingly optional.
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