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Should We Print Guns? Cody R. Wilson Says "Yes" (Video)
The Wiki Weapon Project and its idea of making guns with 3D printers has already been mentioned on Slashdot. It has also been written up on Forbes.com and a lot of other geek and non-geek sites. Note that when some Wiki Weapon proponents talk about making "guns" with 3D printers, they may be talking only about lower receivers or other static parts, not barrels, firing pins or other parts that must be machined to close tolerances and are subjected to a lot of stress when the gun fires. But low-cost 3D printing and low-cost CNC machining technologies are both advancing at a rapid rate, so thinking about the intersection of firearm manufacturing and open source is both worthwhile and timely. There's been a strong debate about this topic on Eric S. Raymond's Armed and Dangerous blog that's worth reading. Also recommended: The Home Gunsmith.com and CNC Gunsmithing. Astute Slashdot readers will, no doubt, recommend many more. Meanwhile, this video is about licensing, distribution, and legal matters, not the actual manufacture of firearms. There's a transcript (we're finally doing transcripts of selected videos) below the video for those who prefer to read instead of watch.
Life also gets interesting when we can print keys. To your house, your car, your safe deposit box....
Then only outlaws will have printed guns.
Which isn't to say you shouldn't be able to, but that you shouldn't do it because it will be misused and serves no practical purpose. Also, why is it we ask "how can we shoot things or blow things up with this" every time a new technology comes to the market?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
That's an interesting use of "field day" :)
It does raise lots of questions about the current registration / tracking regime, though. For people who want to home-build a (legal, personal) gun, the BATFE has provisions for applying for a serial number to then inscribe/afix to the result. The details are eluding my memory right now, though, perhaps someone with more recent steeping will be able to expand ...
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Transcripts!
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
...regulating this behavior. The rules of what you can create and can't are pleasantly explicit in the US. There may be a few new edge cases, but on the whole this won't be anything new to the ATF. Simply, with modern tools, zip guns are no longer hard to make.
Where these people will run into trouble is the attitude ~5:30 minutes into the video, the statement "Fuck your laws." Does not show the kind of safe-and-sane experimenter spirit to which the courts are often forgiving. It's more of a "make an example of me" invitation.
I hope everyone inspired to experiment with these toys takes the opposite approach. Last I read about them, the jail sentences that come with full-auto weapons manufacture were 10 years per gun.
The ATF has no problem with good amateur gunsmithing, nor experimenting with new technologies to make better guns. Kel-Tec is a great example. My first Kel-Tec (the Grendel) was painful to shoot, but cheap and reliable, and now they are a thriving business.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kel-Tec
Eventually you'll be able to print the whole thing, and synthesize the charge/primer too. The same equipment will be able to make food and medicine. Who do you want controlling that?
The Chinese were so ignorant they thought gunpowder was useful for making delightful colors in the sky to amuse people.
You call that ignorant. I call that bliss. They used the technology for centuries to delight and entertain people...and nothing more. Call my cynical, but I wish more technologies followed that pattern.
Police are going to have a field day with printed guns, which by nature won't have/need serial numbers or registration (except possibly for conceal and carry)
*re-reads the Second Amendment*
Hmm, don't see the clause where it requires all my firearms to be registered with the government...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You don't have to put a serial on them unless you are selling them.
No tracking system is going to deal with the question of home made / under the counter gun sales or construction.
It has ALWAYS been possible (and fairly easy) to make a lower receiver in the comfort and privacy of your own machine shop. Making it on a 3D printer doesn't change a thing except for requiring a different skill set.
In fact, if you wanted to create a race-to-the-finish between aficionados of 3D gun printing and the old boring machine shop way, I'm going to bet that the folks with the 3 axis Bridgeports are going to win hands down. You can teach anyone with an IQ of about 110 to use a milling machine / lathe well enough to make a simple gun in about a month. High school shops do it all the time.
By the time that the 3D folks have figured out the plans, figured out the materials and debugged the system to make a .22 popgun that won't literally melt after the third round, I'm well on my way to fabricating a raft of AK-47 clones.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
3D printing technology is moving into realms that many of us would have overlooked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8MaVaqNr3U documents using a "sand printer" to make very precise molds for sand casting. Precision castings reduce the amount of finish work required on the casting. Many of the parts used in a gun could be cast using such a technique, finished, tempered where necessary. (Ruger casts a lot of frames, At one time Springfield used cast bolts in the M1A until enough of them broke that they started forging bolts.) MIM is already widely used in the firearms industry for parts like hammers, triggers and grip safeties. The only parts I can think of that couldn't be made using 3D printing or the above technology are springs which can be bought in bulk, and the barrel, which has to be ordinance grade steel and rifled unless you're shooting a smoothbore with shot or a fin stabilized projectile.
On the contrary, they started making weapons out of it in fairly short order.
This, on the other hand, is true. Guns and cannon were not an obvious application. The Chinese used it for flamethrowers, rockets and bombs. The first guns *were* produced by Chinese, about three or four centuries after gunpowder was invented.
Because we have to have some means of tracking all those guns out there committing crimes. Do you know where your guns is when you are asleep at night? Perhaps it sneaks out and holds up a few all night markets on its own.
I don't give a damn about fully automatic weapons. The primary issue that printing (or CNC manufacturing) guns is the impact that has on registering and controlling guns. Not the people holding the guns, but the guns themselves.
Lets worry more about who is carrying a gun, some guns, many guns rather than what shape or quantity is involved. A nut case with one pistol can do more damage than a sane person who likes to plink with an AK-47.
except possibly for conceal and carry
I have no idea what this means. I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon. But I don't have to identify (by serial number or anything else) which weapon I am permitted to carry.
Have gnu, will travel.
As best I can tell, the enthusiasm over 'zOMG 3d printing!!!' is a combination of (optimistic) speculation about what they'll be capable of in the future, genuine enthusiasm for certain quite handy functions right now, and the fact that a lot of the people buzzing about them(especially, though not exclusively, the people who write about the subject but aren't too deeply immersed in it) really have no idea what sorts of fabrication techniques are on the table...
In a way, I suppose it really shouldn't be too surprising. With the dramatic gutting(not total extermination; but the relative decline has been massive) of the skilled-blue-collar/manufacturing sector, there are a lot fewer people out there who have a parent, friend, etc. who is a machinist or works with machinists. Anybody who doesn't go full-vocational-track-at-regional-school-for-that-purpose probably won't encounter much shop class in high school, either.
I don't wish to suggest that 3d printing isn't a genuinely interesting and novel class of techniques: the serious kit can achieve some geometry that you'd be hard pressed to get in other ways, or put out parts that are very similar to injection moulded; but in quantity one and less than a day; but part of its perceived novelty really seems to have to do with the fact that hobbyist 3d printing exists largely outside an environment where knowledge of machine tools really doesn't exist in a serious way.
"*re-reads the Second Amendment*
Hmm, don't see the clause where it requires all my firearms to be registered with the government..."
You should start reading it from the beginning rather than the end. Your actions as part of our militia are to be "well regulated", part of regulating "well" can easily be tracking weapons. You DO know you are likely part of the militia as defined by laws right? That same regulation is why you can't have NBC weapons, if you read closely you should note the word GUN never appears.
That's because that's the form for Short Barreled Rifles, Any Other Weapons, &c. which require a $200 ``tax'' (which felons are exempt from paying).
``c. Firearm. The term “firearm” means: (1) a shotgun having a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length; (2) a weapon made from a shotgun if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length; (3) a rifle having a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length; (4) a weapon made from a rifle if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length; (5) any other weapon, as defined in 18 U.S.C. 5845 (e); (6) a machinegun; (7) a muffler or a silencer for any firearm whether or not such firearm is included within this definition; and (8) a destructive device.''
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
What I always found amusing is that a well regulated militia is limited to personal firearms. What battle in the late 18th century was won with personal side arms, though reading through gun nuts blogs shows a lack of knowledge of this. I mean one could even hardly storm a castle with just a automatic rifle. You would be taken down by the well protected archers on the walls, not to mention the hot oil. My issue with the organizations like the NRA is that they tend to promote the toys, but not the well regulated malitia that would stand between the populous and foreign or domestic raiding force. Where is the support of rocketry clubs that could actually provide a real defense against helicopters that would place boots on the ground? Clustering a few E engines in a simple shell could deliver enough reactant to be seriously annoying. But all they talk about is how a few pop guns are going to fend off the tanks and hummers.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Would turning it in for a 'gun buy back' be considered sales?
Cause I can make a zip gun for much less then they are offering for them.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm all for the Second Amendment (I almost agree with the talk.politics.guns poster who opined that handguns should be sold in vending machines next to the cigarettes and booze), but that quote is pretty obviously spurious; the language is all wrong for the early 19th century. Hmm, a little searching reveals that it's not completely spurious; Jefferson did copy it down, but the words aren't his; they're from Cesare Beccaria's "Essay on Crimes and Punishments" (in Italian).
"figured out the materials and debugged the system to make a .22 popgun that won't literally melt after the third round,"
There are tons of people who would melt the weapon anyway after the second shot, so it doesn't matter.
40 years ago, a friend of mine built a .22 gun made completely out of nylon, barrel included. I saw him shoot several dozen rounds without any problem. Fairly accurate up to 5 yards, enough for a hit.
But anyway, the first thing they will print will be silencers for their old guns, no doubt.
Last I looked into it, everyone suggested you do anyway. Right now law enforcement looks at a firearm without a serial and assumes it has been removed, which is a felony. It's probably best to avoid that altogether. ;)
There is a procedure to deal with constitutional amendments that you believe are "out of date". It would be nice if it was followed for a change.
My issue with the organizations like the NRA is that they tend to promote the toys, but not the well regulated malitia that would stand between the populous and foreign or domestic raiding force. Where is the support of rocketry clubs that could actually provide a real defense against helicopters that would place boots on the ground? Clustering a few E engines in a simple shell could deliver enough reactant to be seriously annoying. But all they talk about is how a few pop guns are going to fend off the tanks and hummers.
Anything more than this gets you a one-way ticket to a federal prison as a domestic terrorist. The US Government and national media successfully turned the notion of a militia into a slur during the Clinton years. Just saying you belonged to a militia meant you were at least a right-wing kook and more likely a dangerous terrorist.
Sure you will. Look at piracy: Illegal practically everywhere, yet florishing even so. If the internet can supply me with a copy of an obscure children's program only ever released as educational packages on VHS tape to primary schools in the early 90s, then it can supply me with 3d CADCAM files for guns.
It's right next to the part where it says you can't.
All these "OMG print gunz!" types seem to think that it is some amazing tech where you'll be able to stamp out a whole gun in your house. Ummm, no. What has been printed is a lower receiver of an AR-15. Now while that is legally the "gun" part, it is also by far the simplest part, and also one of the few that doesn't take a lot of stress and thus can be plastic. This is not printing a fully functional weapon, barrel, chamber, firing pin, and all.
For a functional firearm, you are going to need a metal barrel, and a strong one at that. For example take .45 ACP ammunition, one of the weaker rounds pressure wise. It still can generate pressures of 21,000 PSI in its regular (non +P) variety. 5.56 NATO ammo (the stuff ARs shoot)? 63,000 PSI.
If you have a 3D printer and want to use it to make low stress parts of your guns, like grips, certain kinds of receivers, etc go for it. Just check on the ATF's rules. Most are pretty simple. However don't delude yourself in to thinking you can just go and print out all the parts of a gun. Much of the gun is going to need to be metal and the barrel in particular takes some serious metalworking equipment and skill to make right.
Care to cite that one?
The Militia Act of 1792. It required every able-bodied white male citizen (interesting distinction) above the age of 18 to be registered within the militia. It also specified what equipment they should have.
There are also records from Philadelphia showing how many firearms were owned by private citizens.
You could also reference this article done by Playboy in 2001 which talks to a person who is an avid trapshooter who found, during the research for his book, that the States regularly took a census of who owned a gun, what condition and so forth. Do a search for 'registered' to get to the relevant section.
So yes, guns were registered, in the broadest sense, by the Colonial government for the reasons I stated.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I think that is the attraction of these devices - having someone of minimal experience download a file, stick in some spools of plastic and print a gun, but I doubt that this is going to represent a functional reality. And yes, I have a CNC machine in my basement / cave / study - a little Sherline based unit that could easily make a small gun. Of course, I'm not exactly normal but then again, the guy with a fully functional 3D printer isn't much better....
And yeah, I think a big part of the buzz here is exactly what fff said - people who aren't thinking about this in much detail and who don't have much generic experience in current fabrication methods getting all Star Trek about what is likely to be available next month.
Beam me up....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The guy with a 3d printed plastic gun is more of a danger to himself than anyone else. No need to worry.
So you cite the same law I did. You may have noticed that it did not provide for the registration of firearms, but it did provide for the enrollment in the militia to the local militia Captain. In the broadest sense, you might say that if every able-bodied white male was expected to own a firearm, and that if you take census of all the people as directed by the Constitution, then you can find all of the white male, firearms are registered...
Well, no, you really can't. If you're the the colonial government, you still don't know which gun is where (unless perhaps it was in your state arsenal), there were no restrictions on buying, manufacturing, or transference whatsoever. A man might have owned just one gun to satisfy his militia readiness requirements, by the same token, he might have owned ten or a hundred. They were not registered, indeed, many manufacturers didn't provide serial numbers which are used in all registration schemes until the 1960's when a change in federal law mandated that feature.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
It has ALWAYS been possible (and fairly easy) to make a lower receiver in the comfort and privacy of your own machine shop. Making it on a 3D printer doesn't change a thing except for requiring a different skill set.
That is true enough. The difference being that owning your own machine shop is expensive and knowing how to use your machines to build a gun is a complicated process that takes skill. Even though you can't currently build a real gun in a 3D printer, if you ever could you would need nothing other than the printer and the file. That greatly expands the number and sort of people who can build a gun at home. Not saying it is good or bad. Just saying that there is a big difference between a kid downloading a file from the internet and building a gun on his 3D printer and a skilled machinist building a gun in his machine shop.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
If you can build an AR15/M16 lower you can make it full auto (mechanically, but not legally of course.) All you need to do is add the one hole for the disconnector and then install the correct fire control parts (which are easily available and unregulated in the US.) It's no different than it is for converting an existing (aluminum) receiver.
I am what a lot of people might call a gun nut. But I don't have any problem with things like registration, training requirements, background checks or (minor) delays.
People should be allowed to own and use rifles, shotguns and pistols with minimal requirements.
People should be allowed to conceal-carry pistols after demonstrating a sufficient knowledge of safe and responsible firearm usage and state self defense law.
People should be allowed to own and use (though not necessarily public carry) fully automatic weapons for entertainment and sporting purposes after they have demonstrated sufficient knowledge of safe and responsible use of potentially indiscriminate weapons.
But I don't want nutjobs running around with guns thinking they are in a bad comic book movie.
And I don't want idiots running around with guns with a video camera, thinking that saying "i'm gonna stand my ground" allows them to shoot someone for playing their stereo to loud.
And I don't want some asshole running out and buying a gun so he can go home and shoot his wife, kids and himself 15 minutes after getting fired.
The definition of "arms" may have shifted somewhat, but a modern combat rifle still bears a much closer relation to a musket than to a pot plant. If I get your meaning right, you're saying that because modern firearms are more effective than their predecessors that they shouldn't be afforded the same protection under the constitution? Let's explore that a bit.
At the time of the U.S. Revolution it was common for private vessels to have cannons mounted for defense against would-be boarders. They were expensive, but not out of reach for large corporations or wealthy individuals. The British East India Company famously owned ships capable of repelling attacks from contemporary war ships. The term "Privateer" referred to privately owned vessels given permission to legally attack warships. Presumably, absent a letter of marque, these same ships could sail peacefully about their own business while still fully armed.
In light of this I find it hard to believe that the Founding Fathers would disqualify a modern firearm from constitutional protection simply because it's "too effective". Those arguing that the Constitution should be interpreted as a static doctrine should more fairly be also arguing that Donald Trump should be able to mount deck guns on the Princess and rent it out as protection against pirates for merchant vessels.
If we want to be honest about changing and adapting the document to modern culture, though, let's consider the minuteman militia. They carried into battle their own personal firearms, some of which (rifles) were the most advanced firearms presently available. They were a match for the best military equipment of the time. If these were the "arms" which the "People" would carry in a "militia", then extending it to modern times it would be reasonable to allow private citizens to own whichever firearm they could afford or build themselves. It would also be reasonable for the government to call on private citizens to defend the Nation against hostile forces marching on our soil, with the expectation that they'd be a match for whatever the enemy brought.
In Iron Man 2 Tony Stark asserts that he's privatized national defense. If my reading of this history books is correct, he wouldn't have been the first; instead, he'd have been continuing a long and noble tradition. And Cody R. Wilson with his "Defense Distributed" project? He sounds quite philosophically close to the minutemen.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
So this comes down to whether you think the Constitution is a static document, written exactly how the authors pictured things in their time, or if it's designed to change and adapt as culture and language change around it.
Change was built into it, but it was deliberately made to be a hard task. It is indeed static, until amended, which it has been several times. And I see no language in it that has changed meaning since then; most words don't change meaning. I mean hell, you still dial the phone even though phones haven't had dials for over 40 years.
Name a single word in the Consitution that has changed meaning. I can't find one.
Free Martian Whores!
Did you happen to see the clause where it even allows for private ownership or guns in the first place that don't have any connection to a well-regulated militia?
Well-regulated == properly functioning
militia == armed force of regular civilians, not employed by the government (such as cops and soldiers)
Essentially, every private citizen is a member of their respective state militia, and thus is allowed private armament ownership.
Just because the Second Amendment doesn't explicitly state that guns need to be serieled or registered doesn't mean it's unconstitutional for a state to pass laws requiring that guns be serieled and registered.
If we were talking about the states requiring firearm registration, you would be correct; however, this discussion is in regard to federal registration requirements, which stink of unconstitutionality.
After all, no where in the constitution does it state that cars traveling on public roads have to be serieled and registered and yet somehow they are. So unless you're going to tell me that license plates are unconstitutional then you can't tell me that gun registration is unconstitutional.
Riddle: Why do state license plates for cars say the state name, instead of "USA?"
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Unless you are a Class 7 or Class 10 licensed manufacturer, you are not legally allowed to "manufacture" a firearm. If you purchase that 80% lower kit from Roderus, then finish it, you have just manufactured a firearm. A good friend of mine has manufactured several 1911 pistols, and he was advised by BATFE to fill out a Form 1 for each. They provided him with instructions on how to mark the firearm, along with a list of limitations - he can't sell them, he can't give them away, personal use only, etc. BATFE really isn't set up to deal with home-made firearms, and certainly not in any significant volume. Kinda reminds me of a MASH episode:
Hawkeye: [exasperated at Quartermaster Sloan's denial of his request for a hospital incubator] We're not asking for a jukebox or a pizza oven!
Captain Sloan: Oh, I can let you have one of those.
Henry Blake: No kidding! That would be great on movie nights! You got any of those pizza requisition forms?
Captain Sloan: [referring to a generic Army requisition form] Oh, just use one of those standard S-1798s and write in "pizza oven" where it says "machine gun."
That is PATENTLY UNTRUE. Zip off PANTLEGS were made illegal for obvious reasons. Would someone forcrhistssake mod the parent down? This sort of misinformation is what Kqwpeijhasdflakxcvpuern ...
Blacksmithing? I took a blacksmithing class at SIU in the '70s. The only expensive part is the anvil, the rest of the tools you can make yourself. Getting coal for the forge might be problematic these days, though. You need coal or you can't make coke, and you can't blacksmith without coke.
It was one of the more fun classes I took (the physics class with lasers and holograms was a lot cooler).
Free Martian Whores!
In fairness a lack of manual skills (and/or confidence in them) is hardly a trivial problem to overcome - mastery of physical skills is no less demanding than intellectual skills even if the pool of "potential masters" is arguably considerably larger. For a programmer, engineer, etc. to acquire the skills to make a reasonably precise component would hundreds or thousands of hours of experience. What's the general estimate? 10,000 hours to achieve mastery of a subject? That's ~5 years @40 hours per week, time which could alternately be spent extending their expertise into areas where their existing skills translate - a much better proposition in a culture where specialization is the norm, unless you draw pleasure from the act of creating the components of course, but that's an orthogonal question.
That leaves hiring a machinist or time on a CNC machine - both of which are typically expensive and incur significant delays, especially if you're not lucky enough to know someone personally who's willing to squeeze you in during slack time. And either route will probably require you to provide plans about as accurate as needed for 3D printing anyway (often more so in the case of milling machines). Given that I'd say there's actually a pretty considerable market niche for 3D printing for the foreseeable future among hobbyist tinkerers, and it will only grow as the quality and speed improves. Personally I know plenty of people that don't consider themselves to have artistic or hands-on skills, but probably wouldn't hesitate to download and add personal touches to lots of things like custom clothes hooks, door-knobs, costume jewlery, etc. if their $50 3D printer could quickly turn it into a quality solid object. Now that probably won't be a reality n the next 5-10 years, but it's nice to see it in the pipeline considering the average Joe no longer has ready access to the machinists and other custom craftsmen that were once common a part of the cultural landscape.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Police are going to have a field day with printed guns, which by nature won't have/need serial numbers or registration (except possibly for conceal and carry)
*re-reads the Second Amendment* Hmm, don't see the clause where it requires all my firearms to be registered with the government...
Hmmm...you better reread the whole fucking document, dude -- quoting the 2nd Amendment out of context like you just did doesn't score you any credibility points..
Except that I didn't quote shit; perhaps you should consider reading posts before you give your obviously emotional response, lest you make yourself appear the jackass, as you have done here. Congrats on that.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese