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'Download This Gun' — 3-D Printed Gun Reliable Up To 600 Rounds
An anonymous reader writes "We've talked previously about Texan gunsmith Cody Wilson's efforts to create 3-D-printable parts for firearms. He has a printed magazine that can withstand normal operation for quite a while. But he's also been working on building parts of the gun itself. An early version of a 3-D printed 'lower receiver' — the part of the gun holding the operating parts — failed after firing just 6 rounds. Now, a new video posted by Wilson's organization shows their design has improved enough to withstand over 600 rounds. Plus, their test only ended because they used up their ammunition; they say the receiver could have easily withstood a thousand rounds or more. Speaking to Ars, Wilson gave some insight into his reasoning behind this creation with regard to gun laws. 'I believe in evading and disintermediating the state. It seemed to be something we could build an organization around. Just like Bitcoin can circumvent financial mechanisms. ... The message is in what we're doing—the message is: download this gun.' A spokesperson for the ATF said that while operating a business as a firearm manufacturer requires a license, an individual manufacturing one for personal use is legal."
I wouldn't be surprised if this guy met with an unfortunate accident.
There has been a lot of that happening recently in the gun-rights subculture.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
They are simply doing what the law allows them to do. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A GUN
From the point of view of most Europeans where guns are generally banned you all look crazy. We don't have guns and yet somehow aren't being robbed, raped and murdered nearly as much as you guys. At no time in our history would guns have helped us rise up against the government either.
From our point of view you should be trying to figure out how to change your society so that you don't need guns, rather than trying to advocate more of them. You are treating the symptom, not the cause.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
According to the ATF, the lower of an AR is 'the gun'. Transfer of that part alone requires paper work; buying it requires a background check and can only be sold in a private transfer or by a licensed dealer. All the other parts of the AR platform are add ons, and require no paperwork before purchase. Yes, that includes the upper, the barrels, even the trigger assembly. So no, in the eyes of the government, this is a "3D printed gun".
It's also not that big of a deal. 3D mills have existed for a while, and any machine shop with one could turn out a milled aluminium lower in about the same amount of time. The ATF has rules on who can do that, and what you can do with it after it's made. They seem not to be too worried about polymer lowers.
>building your own gun using never-before-tested techniques is bound to result in some unfortunate mishaps before all the kinks are worked out.
That's how gun technology got developed in the first place.
When new models are being developed and tested at Colt, Ruger, Smith and Wesson, Winchester, Marlin, Glock, etc .... they put the gun in a "vice like" stand, behind a barrier, and fire it remotely - especially when testing high pressure rounds that you can't buy (some folks do load their own with higher than standard loads, but usually they do their research and have a pretty good idea on how far to push it. Usually.) in order to test the gun - if it survives the high pressure round then it will survive the standard one.
So, the point is, folks aren't taking unnecessary risks in gun development and I would assume that someone with the knowledge and intelligence to create a gun from a 3D printer would have the sense not to take unnecessary risks.
Now of course in this big World and with the Internet, we will see some asshat who will print a gun using sub standard material, load it up with high pressure rounds, turn the camera on, and create a Fark headline.
He will be an outlier.
I'm just waiting to see this ad: "Level 10 city blocks. Costs very little with parts you can purchase at Home depot. Download the plans online."
Kill people just because you can is not a healthy attitude. Neither is making it easy for others to do it on a whim.
We should not have to make everything you should not do illegal.
So the question is how, short of making it illegal, do we stop cretins like this who think they have the right to do this sort of unhealthy social engineering?
If you don't like the "state" you live under then move or change it. It's okay to think subversive thoughts but there are lines.
While I wouldn't do what he's doing, I'll fight for his right to do it. I have no idea what killing people because you can has to do with being able to print your own firearm. Wake me when you can print your own ammunition too.
First off: plans for DIY fuel air explosives are already available online.
Second off: none of this stuff can be done "on a whim". First, you need the right 3D printer, then you need the right plastics, then you need the plans. Finally, you need to know enough about firearms to be able to print and assemble and test the thing. You're also going to need to get some ammunition.
We should never attempt to stop cretins from doing things we don't like -- we SHOULD make our society one in which doing things that are illegal is seen to be unappetizing.
Personally, I have fewer issues with someone providing plans to print a gun than I do with the entertainment industry -- every day on my way to work, I have to pass an ad for a TV show that depicts an attractive young woman in front of a chart of mugshots with "killed" stamped over them -- and huge letters saying "Murder is only the beginning." Think about that for a moment. This poster is MUCH more likely to result in someone committing a violent act than someone being able to make their own gun. I guess gangs and crime syndicates might like these guns because they're untraceable, but they've already got untraceable guns - being able to print and toss will just allow them to stop robbing people for their firearms and will deflate the prices for unmarked guns on the black market -- both of which are good things.
Of course, the first time a printed gun is proven to have been used in an actual crime, things will get nasty.
From the point of view of most Europeans where guns are generally banned you all look crazy.
That's alright; to us, you look crazy for allowing guns to be banned.
At no time in our history would guns have helped us rise up against the government either.
Oh ho ho. That's a good one. Are you really that ignorant of your own history, or do you seriously need a list of examples where it actually happened? I'll give you the first one for free - France, 1789.
they just tested a single beta copy by firing 600 rounds and it did not fail. There's a difference.
Which is not to say this isn't an impressive achievement from an engineering standpoint, or that it doesn't have important policy implications. It's just that I deal with that particular conflation of a successful test with statistically meaningful proof every day. My teenaged son will do something stupid, and when I say that he'll break his neck if he keeps doing it his response is always, "Yeah, but I *didn't*."
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"If you don't like the "state" you live under then move or change it."
There really aren't any places to flee to any more. Most governments are turning oppresive, corrupt and are trampling civil liberties. Computers and networking are making it extremely easy to make a police states these days. When East Germany and the U.S.S.R. did oppresive police state it was man power intensive, its much easier now. There is almost no effective defense of civil liberties being mounted any more. Once your government stacks the courts in their favor there is almost no peaceful path to oppose stripping your civil liberties. The U.S. can and frequently does use "state secrets" provision to shut down any challenge to its power. Y
ou can pretend ballot boxes in the places that have them will make a difference but they seldom do.
In particular, the reach of the U.S. government has extended to most of the nooks and crannies on the planet, with the possible exception of places like China, North Korea and Iran which are sufficiently oppresive without any help from the U.S. The U.S. has military bases and FBI offices in a staggering number of countries. They've used rendition all over the world to snatch people, sometimes innocent people, off the streets to torture . With drone bases in the middle of all of the hard to reach places the U.S. will soon have total global coverage and the ability to assassinate by drone anyone, anywhere, with no judiicial oversight.
Its the down side of living on a small planet with no frontiers left and a civilization with accelerating technology development.
There isn't any place to go if you want to escape.
@de_machina
"If you don't like the "state" you live under then move or change it."
Unless the public have lethal force options there is zero reason for the State to respect their will. "Changing" the State was done by the American Revolution.
Sometimes the only way to remove human obstacles is to take their lives, and under some onerous situations that is reasonable and good.
If you will not kill to be free and free others, how dare you say you deserve freedom you won't fight for? Fighting for freedom includes embedding the practical capability for revolution in the hands of the public. The Second Amerndment codified that RIGHT. The People have Rights under the Constitution, hence the wording.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The Second Amendment is not about hunting, it is about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
when you tell someone you own a device designed to kill people they give you an odd look and get uncomfortable, once that happens you'll see a real drop in guns and violence.
None of my guns were designed to kill people. My shotgun was designed to kill birds and small game. The rest of my firearms were designed to fire a small lead ball at a target of my choosing. That is what guns are designed to do: hit what the person is aiming at. If the person is aiming at another person, then the gun might kill them. But that is the fault of the person firing the gun, not the gun itself. It is the person killing the other person. I do not and would not ever own something designed solely to kill someone.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"That rifle on the wall of the laborer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
-- George Orwell
"Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun'"
-- Mao Tse-Tung
"The gun control agenda is based on the view that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted to use the physical power of arms responsibly. But a people that cannot be trusted with guns cannot be trusted with the much more dangerous powers of self-government. The gun control agenda is thus an implicit denial of the human capacity for self-government and is tyrannical in principle."
-- Alan Keyes
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Before I say anything else, I want to say that I do agree with your concluding point, and I'll come back around to that later.
At no time in our history would guns have helped us rise up against the government either.
There'a an argument to be made that the U.S. itself contradicts that statement, given that it was a collection of European colonies that broke away from European rule, largely through the use of firearms. Had it not broken away, wouldn't it still be a part of European history, at least in a broader, cultural sense, if not in reference to the literal continent?
Ignoring that, however, your comparison is a rather useless one anyway, since European history is long. Throughout most of European history, people were capable of rising up against their governments with either homemade or repurposed items. I.e. The disparity between the government's equipment and the people's equipment was small enough that the people were always a concern, and we're hopefully all aware of at least some of the rebellions, revolutions, and coups that make up the fabric of the continent's past. Guns wouldn't have helped because the people always had a means of rising up, and frequently did just that!
In contrast, at the time of that the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written, that was no longer the case, so it's no surprise that their authors ensured that the people of the nation would always have a right to the same tool that the government could use to subjugate and oppress them. After all, that's exactly what they had done just a handful of years prior when they broke free from the people they viewed as oppressors.
Of course, there's a question today of whether or not firearms are still relevant in a world where fighter jets, cluster bombs, and ICBMs exist. Firearms are becoming increasingly irrelevant, since the disparity is quickly reaching the point where citizens would need to be given far more advanced weaponry than any reasonable person would suggest if they would want to have a hope of overturning their government. Even so, given enough citizens and enough guns, I do think it's possible, so I still see value there.
All of that said, I agree with your final idea about treating the symptom, rather than the cause. I wholeheartedly agree that we need to have some major societal changes take place, though I doubt that all of my ideas would be in line with those of a typical European. As you, however, I would love to see a reduced need for guns and a reduced perceived need for guns. Achieving both would likely lead to a reduced presence of guns, and, to me, that means that we need a government that protects our rights above all else and a lower violent crime rate. The latter has already been taking place, with rates dropping pretty consistently and quickly for most of the last two decades. Even so, the government's decision to engage in security theater and fear-mongering (terrorists everywhere!) have helped to spread a culture of fear that's encouraging people to arm themselves against threats that they believe are both internal and external. That needs to stop.