United States Government Takes Down 3D Gun Blueprints

How hard do you think it is to make a shotgun with a metal pipe and a 2x4 stock, especially if you read the step-by-step how to on any number of websites that currently exist that have such things.

I mean, come on..I go to the store, buy a short length of pipe, a fitting or two, a 2x4...no one thinks anything of it.

I go purchase an expensive specialized 3D printer and special plastic powder and....hmmmm...

Are we now going to regulate who can buy pipe and 2x4's too?

 

Undetectable Firearms Act

Any home made gun up to this point would have taken a lot more time, a lot more expensive material, and it would have been a lot worse quality because there is just no way to make quality parts without expensive manufacturing equipment.

The reason why 3D printing is automatically going to be higher quality than any home made gun is because it can print parts that are not possible to make by hand or even by previous machines because of the pin point accuracy.

Companies are using 3D printers to make parts that were never before possible because a 3D printer can create shapes to any specification.

 

Any part can be made by hand...I mean, how do you think all the guns were made before milling machines and the like were created? Many of those guns are not exactly cheap crap either.

3D printer made stuff is not going to automatically be better quality. The only thing it has is the ability to automate the making of quality parts faster than someone can do it by hand. But then again, that's no different than what 5-axis CNC machines have been doing for years.

The question is, if I had a CNC machine and I took a block of that plastic, and use a subtractive process to make that plastic gun, would it be just as simple and functional as if I used an additive process 3D printer? It's still the same plastic and it is still formed by automated machinery.

I guess what I'm getting at is that we have had the ability to make a plastic gun like this for years. I think the hoopla over this new method is that it uses a terminology more associated with something we are all familiar with, but don't associate with "making" products..i.e. "printing". It somehow conveys to the average person that this new gun is somehow magical and that this "amazing" new "printing" technology is going to unleash a blood bath because, OMG I can "print" a gun. In the end it is just another CNC controlled machine like we've had for years.

 

murder... IE matching bullets to the gun that killed someone

 

Ronald Reagan made guns like this illegal decades ago....

 

Welp, they better ban aluminum, mills, lathes, gun parts, steel, machining tools, calipers, files, most air tools.

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Spend 8 grand to make 100K, count me in.

 

You've stated your ignorance in one sentence. There is a reason why 3d printing is becoming all the rage. And it's exactly because not every part can be made by hand. Some can't even be made by machine yet. NASA is using 3D printing to make parts that never existed before to improve oxygen flow in their rocket engines. CAD designers could provide the similar benefits to guns.

 

Name one part of a plastic gun that can't be made by hand.

there is no ignorance, so try again.

 

That wasn't what you said. You said all parts can be made by hand. That is not a true statement.

 

Wow. I thought I was going to read another post that irritated me somehow. Thanks for subverting my expectations. Long live liberty!

 

Its a hell of a lot cheaper for the criminal element to just get a "real" gun. As we have seen the cities with the strictest gun control laws are often the ones most riddled with criminals using them. A few hundred for a handgun is alot cheaper than over a thousand for one of the printers and then you add the cost of the materials as well. Also, lets face it the vast majority of your gangbangers and moonshiners aren't exactly the most computer literate people on the planet. The extent fo their knowledge most likely end at playing online with their friends on xbox live.

 

We just have different definitions of what liberty is Ethereal. When it comes to censorship I'll always be against it. Even if what you're censoring is an untraceable gun that can easily breach gun free zones.

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Cheaper for an individual maybe. But for an organized crime ring it would be cheaper to get the printer. Guns are expensive when you add them up. One 8000 dollar investment to have unlimited cheap untraceable weapon manufacturing capabilities is extremely beneficial.

 

It shoots regular bullets.

 

How do you think guns were made before the industrial revolution.
Ever see the movie "Carbine Williams".

 

Did anyone else think of that movie with Clint Eastwood where he plays the Secret Service guy and the bad guy makes a gun from plastic? That was back in the 90s. LOL

 

Did I say guns weren't capable of being made by hand? No. I said there is a such thing as parts that cannot be made by hand. There may be ways to improve on a gun's design with parts that can only be made with a 3D printer. A 3D printer can make things that have never been made by any other machine before. That's why this tech is so revolutionary.

 

Personally, I never thought gun control "gun grabbing" was necessarily the best solution anyway, try not to put all liberals in the same bucket, k? I don't think we pay enough attention to the mental health of our population and circumstances that foster gun violence in the first place. I recognize and accept the fact that simply trying to control people will likely be a futile effort, especially in the long run. And that's a good thing, I'm as worried about a "government takeover" as the next loony ultra-conservative.

 

Name one gun part that can't be made by hand....I ask again, but this time include guns in general, not just the plastic one.

On another note, since you brought it up, what are 3D printers making for NASA that can't be made any other way?

 

And in the case of large, organized crime syndicates doing millions, if not billions of dollars in "business", do you think the cost of their guns vs an $8,000 printer is going to mean much to them?

In the case of smaller gangs, $8,000 might be a hurdle. It might just be easier to pass a stolen gun or two around to whomever needs to do the deed (which they do), or just steal one or trade some "product" for one.

Still not buying the argument that printable guns are suddenly going to become some kind of epidemic in the crime world.

 

I can build a complete AR minus the barrel for under 2500 and that is buying all the tooling, a used or lease mill and lathe. But after I lay out for the machine tools, I can spend all day building and selling guns if I choose to. And people will pay more for a special serial number or no number at all.
All the blueprints are on line and other places.
Making guns is not that high tech. Most precision machinists can do it.
And if you can rifle barrels, you can do it all in house.
I know people who are doing it.
My point is, go ahead. Ban 3D guns, it wont stop gun making.

 

Well, you only have to buy the machine once, and then the marginal cost of material is probably going to be much cheaper than the few hundred spent on a hand gun. So you're right, it wouldn't make sense for one person to buy a printer and then use it for the purpose of printing just one or two guns for himself. At least not until the technology becomes cheaper. But right now, it makes more sense for one person to buy the printer it and print a multitude of guns for, say, 25 bucks each, guns which have the benefit of being undetectable in metal detectors and built to the size and specification as required.

I also recognize that people can already hand-make guns, but there's something special about having the ability to simply print a gun that someone else has already designed and tested without needing to do the testing yourself of acquire the skills to learn how to make and develop new guns. The transferability of this design and knowledge may become dramatically more efficient than hand-making a metal gun, it has the advantage of being undetectable with current metal detectors, and the marginal cost of making each gun will be quite small after the initial investment. Maybe it's a bunch of hooie, but I see potential in this.

 

I have a feeling that at some point they are going to "tag" the plastics/printers sold for these 3d printers so that they know exactly where they come from. If you know the store and you know the customers that would narrow the search down quite a bit. Perhaps every item designed by a printer would have a number printed on the inside of the item so that it couldn't be sanded off after words.

 

Even things that can be made can be doen much more simply. Complicated 3 dimensional structures that are difficult to mold can instead be simply "printed" by layers much more simply. The issue here really isn't that a gun can't already be made at home, rather it's the unknown potential that is yet to be seen.