At a news conference in Austin, Texas, Paloma Heindorff announced that she has taken the position of Director at Defense Distributed now that Cody Wilson has resigned the post amid his legal troubles over alleged sex with a 16-year-old prostitute. The press conference has become global news. Defense Distributed has always been adept at beating the establishment media. They posted the entire new conference online at Youtube the same day. It is worth watching. The video is reasonably short, at 19:37 minutes Youtube has a history of taking down Defense Distributed videos.
https://youtu.be/LILmEe1eYuo
I have met Paloma Heindorff a couple of times. Her appearance in the video confirms my evaluation. She is smart, capable, and committed to the principles of protecting First and Second Amendment rights. From the video:
It’s the most effective and elegant activism I’d seen performed, and I wanted to be a part of that. It’s just so beautiful, isn’t it, to exercise one’s rights like that and to do so in a way that pushes authorities to allow you to. Too often people are perturbed by threats, and I found it incredible that this company persisted.
When the news of the warrant for Cody Wilson’s arrest came out, I wrote that Defense Distributed was an organization. Wilson’s legal problems would not impact the lawsuits involving Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation. Director Paloma Heindorff confirmed that prediction, as did two lawyers involved, Josh Blackman and Chad Flores. Both lawyers are involved in the case and work out of Houston, Texas. Both were confident about their prospects in the courts.
Director Heindorff stated that she was proud of Defense Distributed.
I cannot be more proud of my team right now. We didn’t miss a beat. No one blinked. No one has missed a day at work. We all come in, we are still shipping, and we have no intention of stopping.
They had 3,000 orders and have shipped 1,500. Defense Distributed is considering new products for 2019.
Defense Distributed has not seen a significant dip in sales.
$400,000 dollars has been contributed to the legal fund for the First Amendment and Second Amendment case. None of that money will go to Cody Wilson, who has his own, separate set of lawyers.
Defense Distributed is an organization that can only exist in America. Nowhere else in the world are free speech and the right to arms intertwined in such a way as to allow a principled organization like Defense Distributed to legally continue.
In most of the word, it is illegal to make your own firearms. Often, swords and spears are prohibited as well. In the United States, it has always been legal to make your own guns. People have done so for centuries. Defense Distributed defends that proud tradition.
Watch the video before Youtube takes it down.
What is your opinion of Defense Distributed and its goal to share plans for printing 3D guns to the public? Share you answer in the comment section.
©2018 by Dean Weingarten
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