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3D-Printed Gun May Be Unveiled Soon
colinneagle writes "A 3D-printed gun capable of firing multiple rounds may be unveiled soon. Cody Wilson, the 25-year-old founder and director of nonprofit organization Defense Distributed, recently told Mashable that the end product of Wiki Weapon, the initiative to create an operational 3D-printed gun, may soon be ready to unveil to the public. In a March interview with CNN, Wilson said he hoped to have a printable gun ready by the end of April, so his most recent comments suggest that he may fulfill that promise. While Wilson was sparse with details, he did tell Mashable that the prototype would be a handgun consisting of 12 parts made out of ABS+ thermoplastic, which is known for its durability and is commonly used in industrial settings. The firing pin would be the only steel component of the 3D-printed gun, which will be able to withstand a few shots before melting or breaking. Wilson reportedly anticipates making an official announcement soon."
If the barrel and/or the slide is made of even the best plastic, I wouldn't trust it to take the 35ksi of a normal 9mm round even once. That application requires properly heat treated 4130 or 4140 steel (or 316 stainless).
To 3D print the cartridges.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
get a 3D printed silencer to go with it?
I'm waiting for 3D-printed House Representatives. One more dimension than the present models.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Increasing supply does not necessarily increase demand. It depends whether the good has a fixed demand (is price inelastic). Murder is mostly price inelastic just like gasoline. When gasoline gets more expensive only a small amount less is used.
One quick Google search later:
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
No, making guns for sale requires you have a license. Making guns for personal use only requires no licenses at all, as long as they fall under ATF guidelines for weapons that don't need to be registered with the ATF (no assault rifles or SBRs).
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Except I don't think murder is as price-inelastic as you think. Only a small fraction of gun murders in the US are in, e.g., carefully planned heists by criminal masterminds who will acquire guns regardless of cost for a pre-planned murder. Gun deaths overwhelmingly come from heat-of-the-moment domestic disputes, drug-addled petty criminals, super-depressed suicide victims, etc.: folks not utilizing near-unlimited resources and careful long-term planning skills. If a (cheap, ubiquitously available) gun is on hand at the minute of bad decision making, it gets used; otherwise not.
I'm interested to see the reaction from the pro-gun groups and lobbies who are supported by major manufactures. Will they still be so keen for everyone to own a gun when those guns aren't being bought from their interest groups? Or will it become like the tobacco industry where only "approved manufacturers" (ie. the current ones) are allowed to design, manufacture and sell guns.
- accompanied by the words "Give your fucking wallet..."
...Murder is mostly price inelastic just like gasoline. When gasoline gets more expensive only a small amount less is used.
Like hell it's inelastic. You may wish to /believe/ it's inelastic, and "everyone" you like and talk to at bars and hang out with may repeat this back to you as if it's irrefutable fact, but I guarantee you that having a conveniently lethal murder instrument helps quite a bit. We have a very high murder rate in this country, basically the highest of the developed world. Guess what country also has the most guns per capita, by a wide margin? Correlation may not imply causation, but correlation does hint pretty strongly that there's a connection.
And we know that guns are even more commonly used for suicide; suicide is NOT inelastic to supply of convenient suicide methods, and we know this because the suicide rate in England went down dramatically when they got rid of town gas (i.e. partially burned coal containing high levels of carbon monoxide used as fuel in ovens and such, a very convenient suicide method). Having such an enormous glut of legal guns in our country also means the black market also becomes flooded with guns.
Yes, there are some people who are hell-bent on killing and will attempt some way to do it, but a heck of a lot of people kill others in the heat of the moment or at least would be far less effective at it if they didn't have such an efficient killing instrument handy. It doesn't take a ton of foresight or coordination with others to shoot and kill a bunch of people with a gun. To do the same with another weapon, like a bomb, is actually a heck of a lot harder, as Boston vs Newtown shows. Or the recent Chicago five-fatality shooting spree (that sort of thing is pretty common... fatal shootings occur multiple times a week in Chicago).
In crimes of passion almost any weapon will do. A gun being present generally only changes the cause of death. This is evidenced by the fact that in Britain and Australia gun bans have had no effect on either suicide or homicide rates when isolated against already prevailing national crime rates and trends. You are also incorrect about the nature of homicide in the US. 70-85% of those murdered the US every year have a criminal record. Most major cities track close to 80% of there homicides resulting from gang violence.
I should be clear, I am not a "gun rights" advocate, but from an economics perspective it is rather obvious that murder is price inelastic. The vast majority of murders are infact crime related. The remander are largely crimes of passion for which any serviceable weapon can and will do (suicide falls under this as well).
Wow. You think you live in a safe, sane, rational world? The mind boggles.
He's a crypto-anarchist and honestly believes that doing this showcases what a joke popular conceptions of "gun control" are. You can watch a documentary by Motherboard about him and this issue on YouTube, search: 3D Printed Guns (Documentary)
In a world where 3D printers will conceivably be a commonplace household item, gun control via the old practices simply will not work.
It also draws attention to the limitations of how freely information is distributed and exchanged across the 'net.
While I agree this is a troubling trend, I am even less comfortable with the government (and the rest of us) policing what is and is not "appropriate" speech.
What is clearly " going too far" for some of us might be perfectly acceptable to someone else, and the right to believe different is at risk when powerful issues like this take center stage....
No one needs the ability to exercise lethal force, much less the ability to casually produce the tools that do so.
The Sherriff of Nottingham and Ghengis Khan didn't need guns to exercise lethal force.
Hammer, knife, iron pipe, strangulation, pushed from a roof-top.
I would rather be robbed by a guy with a gun than a guy with a tire iron. The guy with the gun probably won't shoot if I cooperate, besides it is noisy and he can flee without worrying I would follow him.
The guy with the tire iron might crack me over the head before making his getaway.
In crimes of passion almost any weapon will do.
Any weapon will inflict injury. Guns make it especially easy to rapidly inflict death (point and click!), even for people who would not be mentally prepared to keep hacking away with a knife once the blood starts spurting, or would be restrained by others around.
70-85% of those murdered the US every year have a criminal record. Most major cities track close to 80% of there homicides resulting from gang violence.
And the availability of guns makes murder easier and more efficient, even in gang violence situations. It's a lot harder to kill someone with a baseball bat than a gun --- no quick drive-by pot-shots at kids wearing the wrong colors, you've got to stay around and pummel until the target's buddies show up with their own weapons.
I had no idea 3D printers were that loud.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
This man is single-handedly ruining 3D printing for EVERYONE, just because he's a gun nut obsessed with firearms. He's pushing into a gray area and setting a very early precedent that will impact the availability of 3D printing for the rest of America.
Cody Wilson is just what you'd expect from a 25-year old, gun nut, pothead, government conspiracist. He's afraid of having his weapons taken away, he's afraid of having his weed taken away, and he's afraid of his rights being taken away. His entire life is ruled by fear. So how does Cody respond? He perverts a revolutionary technology to make _more_ fucking weapons with them in violation of the law.
Fuck Cody. This is why scientists and engineers fucking hate people that take what they pour their lives into and deform for their own fucked up needs. When the 3D printer was invented people envisioned a technology that could help, that could make development rapid, that would improve our lives. Now Mr. Wilson has ruined all that and made it a tool to create weapons.
Cody Wilson is a fucking asshole.
Except banning guns in two cultures very similar to ours has had no effect on either of those from an empirical perspective. You are basically plato reasoning about the five elements right now. No matter how well you construct your thought process the empirical, statistical evidence disagrees with your result. I have linked you to the associated articles on the effects of the gun ban in Australia, please take the time to read them.
"Protect yourself" with a gun means more people get killed.
Since they would in turn be killing other people, you are in fact reducing the overall number of people killed.
Not sure why you want more people dead?
The overwhelming majority of rapists are "friends" and family members
And that makes it less useful to stop them with a gun because....
Yeah, that worked out real well for protecting MLK.
It did for his goal, which is what mattered. The civil rights movement wasn't about a man, it was about people - many people - all of whom needed protection from very real threats.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You'll recall, or perhaps not, from your economics course that price is function of both supply and demand. The supply curve can shift right independent of the demand curve which implies a decreased price at every point along the supply curve, as when the price of inputs decreases or the productivity of their outputs increases, without necessarily increasing the "demand for murder", as you chose to put it. Ask yourself, who commits most of the violent gun crimes in America? Is it the law abiding rural gun owners with their cabinets full of rifles, shotguns and handguns or is it the poor urban criminals who are holding up liquor stores and robbing their fellow citizens with "born to lose" tattoos scrawled across their chests? If you believe that increasing the price of guns will reduce violent gun crimes then let's go ahead and try that. If a few less poor urban dwellers end up armed with cheap Saturday night specials, I won't complain. After all, they're the ones committing the crimes.
No one needs the ability to exercise lethal force, much less the ability to casually produce the tools that do so.
This isn't about "need" this is about being inevitable. 3D-printed weapons are the inevitable result of improving 3D printer technology. No amount of idealism about what should and shouldn't happen will change that.
Everything in life is a trade-off. If we don't want 3D-printed weapons, the only way to effectively stop that is to ban 3D printers. Is that a price you are willing pay? There really is no other choice. You can outlaw 3D printed weapons but as long as the printers exist, people are going to be printing weapons.
Just look at how well the MAFIAA has done trying to stop piracy, it is basically the same set of trade-offs. If you want personal computers and an internet, piracy is going to happen. If you want good 3d printers and an internet, then most forms of physical contraband are going to be 3d printed. Weapons, bongs or whatever. You want 3D printers, that's the price.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
That you might actually believe your laughable, ridiculous argument is frightening.
By your reckoning, Australia should have turned into a fascist state by now; let me assure you, it hasn't. Those who hold the power do not become totalitarian by nature simply because there is less chance of armed revolution.
I will, however, counter your argument as simply as it ever could be by pointing out that regardless of how many rifles, handguns, etc. you own, you will never be able to defeat a military that has the ability to wipe you off of the face of the earth with a few keystrokes. The entire NRA could never hope to hold off the American military for more than a few hours at best when the 'enemy' has conventional bombs that can level a small city, and nuclear options that produce minimal fallout.
This is simply about personal empowerment -- the ability to shoot at those who 'threaten' you, the comfort that 'if you had to' you could take the life of another human being. It's thinly-veiled psychopathy that becomes blatant once you actually kill somebody.
It can only fire "a few shots" before needing repair, and the muzzle velocity is probably low enough that even those are unlikely to be deadly. If a nutcase in my neighborhood was getting a gun, I'd want him to get this one.
Stricter control on real guns, and 3D-printing for the masses seem to be a good way forward.
And we know that guns are even more commonly used for suicide; suicide is NOT inelastic to supply of convenient suicide methods, and we know this because the suicide rate in England went down dramatically when they got rid of town gas (i.e. partially burned coal containing high levels of carbon monoxide used as fuel in ovens and such, a very convenient suicide method).
Prevent suicides by making it unaffordable for people to conveniently kill themselves. Now that is a real winner for society. We can take solace in our belief that we have done all that we can to prevent suicides and we can avoid all those unconformable discussions about the role that mental illness and social injustice play in people that act against their most basic instinct.
No one needs the ability to exercise lethal force
Regardless of whether one needs such an ability, the means to exercise it will always be available in society - a human being can be killed with bare hands, if the attacker is sufficiently determined. This, in turn, creates the actual need to be able to exercise lethal force in self-defense against others who would initiate such force against you. To deny that is to deny that people have a right to defend themselves.
I initially thought you were talking about gun shows when you said "ZERO massacres". Then I saw that you'd qualified that with a year, so you weren't talking about gun shows.
Funny how in all those gun shows full of guns and people who love guns, there's never a mass shooting. It's almost as though it's not possible for an individual to successfully massacre large groups of heavily armed individuals.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
20 years is the blink of an eye. Time remains to see what the result will be. I will say this: if you have no leverage, you really will be fucked if there ever is a war.
I will, however, counter your argument as simply as it ever could be by pointing out that regardless of how many rifles, handguns, etc. you own, you will never be able to defeat a military that has the ability to wipe you off of the face of the earth with a few keystrokes.
That's a pretty bold statement. Just because you hear people say it a lot doesn't make it true. The world has a long history of the little guy winning in wars. No weapon trumps manpower. Evenmoreso, because a weapon can be used by whoever holds it. It supposes that in a hypothetical revolution the revolutionaries would not be able to subvert the military in many cases. We live in a tenous balance and it benefits both the people and the powers that be that we don't war. I mean we see neckbeards and teenagers hacking into major security companies. The fact of the matter is, a weapon is a weapon, and in a war, it doesn't matter who "owns" it. All that matters is who actually possess it at that moment.
This is simply about personal empowerment -- the ability to shoot at those who 'threaten' you, the comfort that 'if you had to' you could take the life of another human being. It's thinly-veiled psychopathy that becomes blatant once you actually kill somebody.
So basically evey human society until modern times was basically populated with psychopaths? Right. You're right. You're so right, you're more right than basically the entirety of human history. You'll have to let me know how it feels sometime.
In crimes of passion almost any weapon will do. A gun being present generally only changes the cause of death.
If the party doesn't have access to a gun, there may well be no "crime of passion". It's really a lot harder to kill someone with a baseball bat than it is to squeeze a trigger. You may well stop at some point short of completion and say, "shit, I didn't mean to do that".
This is evidenced by the fact that in Britain and Australia gun bans have had no effect on either suicide or homicide rates when isolated against already prevailing national crime rates and trends.
From that article, "cut firearm suicides by 74%... no evidence of substitution of method of suicide in any state. The estimated effect on firearm homicides was of similar magnitude but less precise". Other studies found no effect or were inconclusive. So I don't think you can say it is "evidenced".
You are also incorrect about the nature of homicide in the US. 70-85% of those murdered the US every year have a criminal record. Most major cities track close to 80% of there homicides resulting from gang violence.
How about "deaths by firearm"? What percentage of those have criminal records? Indeed, note that the accused perp of the Boston Marathon killings had no criminal record. But if it is true, it blows a hole in the argument that people need guns to protect themselves. At least, if they're not in gangs.
I should be clear, I am not a "gun rights" advocate, but from an economics perspective it is rather obvious that murder is price inelastic. The vast majority of murders are infact crime related. The remander are largely crimes of passion for which any serviceable weapon can and will do (suicide falls under this as well).
I'm trying to think of some category of murder that's not "crime-related", including crimes of passion. Nope, I'm drawing a blank, unless you're only talking about suicide (which I don't count as murder)..
Hardly a valid criticism of my post.
You know, I can't solve all the problems in the world in a single post. Of course socioeconomic factors are huge, but it's possible to, you know, look at an issue and try to evaluate it critically without throwing up one's hands and saying, "welp, since this is only part of the problem, it's obviously not worth anyone's time..."
ANY single factor you try to adjust or optimize will be incremental. It takes a bunch of things working together to solve this problem of murder in this country. You're not helping any by criticizing a valid observation just because it isn't all-encompassing.
No one needs the ability to exercise lethal force, much less the ability to casually produce the tools that do so.
I'd be curious whether your opinion on this would change were the lives of your family being threatened by brutal savages before your eyes. Perhaps with the lives of those you love being taken before your eyes, you would come to see that there do exist circumstances where a peaceful, law-abiding individual must use deadly force to defend himself and other peaceful, law-abiding people from criminal savages that prey upon the vulnerable.
Don't take this to mean I wish any harm to come to you or those you love; rather, take it to suggest having the wisdom to empathize with those who've been in such a situation and the understanding to realize just how frighteningly common such situations are.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
By your reckoning, Australia should have turned into a fascist state by now; let me assure you, it hasn't.
Better ask the aborigines, they may have a slightly different view from yours. How's that right to freedom of speech and the press? Oops. Fascist states (and almost every other authoritarian regime) don't allow people they want to oppress to own firearms. Can I legally buy and possess an AR-15 or Glock 23 in Sydney as a regular citizen?
I will, however, counter your argument as simply as it ever could be by pointing out that regardless of how many rifles, handguns, etc. you own, you will never be able to defeat a military that has the ability to wipe you off of the face of the earth with a few keystrokes.
A significant portion of the military will join the citizens. Besides, how long has that Afghanistan thing against those goat-herders with AKs been going on? Can't they find the right keys to push?
This is simply about personal empowerment -- the ability to shoot at those who 'threaten' you, the comfort that 'if you had to' you could take the life of another human being. It's thinly-veiled psychopathy that becomes blatant once you actually kill somebody.
No, it's about the history in this video I linked to in my OP which totally obliterates your statements, which you still have not addressed nor refuted with any facts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-lNiIDsFM
If all you've got is more fact-free condescending & contemptuous remarks and emotional hand-waving, don't bother. "Bad guys" will always have guns, they don't obey laws. Police don't prevent crime, they write a report and try to catch those responsible *after the fact*. The only decision is whether or not you're willing to allow people the basic human right to self-defense, or if you'd prefer people be helpless victims.
Here's two more inescapable facts. 1.> It takes a "good guy" with a gun to stop a "bad guy" with a gun. 2.> There are more "good guys" than "bad guys", so more people in general with guns means more "good guys" with guns compared to "bad guys" with guns.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It is a good thing in a sane rational world, it is the insane irrational world that would try to destroy individual freedoms.
Every individual must be able to have any weapon he can acquire, I am talking about every form of weapon, every type of weapon. If a government can have a weapon, the public must be able to acquire it.
That is exactly why 3D printers that can print guns are a GOOD thing, they will be part of the solution to the government oppression. At the minimum hand guns and rifles (machine guns) are weapons that the public must be able to access to fight against the government oppression. Too bad 3D printers can't print missiles and nuclear bombs though (for now), so those will remain tools of oppression in the foreseeable future.
You can't handle the truth.
I would rather face off against a guy with a melee weapon than a guy with a gun, because then at least I stand a chance to retaliate (successful or not), simply because it's somewhat harder to dodge/parry a bullet than a melee weapon.
Also, robberies generally rely on surprise, and no robber will allow you to pull your own weapon, so carrying any kind of weapon for self defence is pointless once the robbery is taking place.
You might want to read up on and think about the implications of the Tueller Drill. Also, I know of a few instances where robberies where successfully warded off with both handguns and knifes (used in cutting motion rather than stabbing). I personally have been involved in a home invasion (as the intended victim, not the perp, obviously) where a handgun that was kept with me in bed, within reach while sleeping, was very welcome and not at all pointless. (Except for the surprisors getting a nasty surprise themselves, no perpetrators where harmed during the making of that episode. Sadly. To this day, no arrests either.)
Basically, your views as expressed above are biased by your theories and not borne out in practice.
I know what I'm thinking. "Did I fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is plastic gun, and if it backfires it will likely blow my head clean off, I've got to ask myself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do I, moron?
I want a 3D printing gun. *pow* Hoberman sphere! *pow* Strandbeest! *pow* 3D printing gun!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Because a significant portion of the would be "nerds" suffer from small penis syndrome and feel the need to rant on about their guns? Mod me flamebait all you want, just stick to Linux and talk less about how essential "protecting yourself" is. (Not you personally Trollston).
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Funny how there's never a massacre at a balloon factory as well, as though balloons somehow deter people from mass shootings. However I do seem to remember someone shooting themselves at a gun show recently, I assume from this that gun shows attract stupid people. More conclusions at 11.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
If you want personal computers and the internet, child porn is inevitably going to be distributed too. Should we stop trying to control that?!
Yes. Prosecute the creators because they are the ones harming children and the creation of child porn has nothing to do with computers or the internet. But trying to stop copies of what's already been done from propagating is fruitless and wastes resources that would be better spent on stopping the people who actually harm the kids.
Crime in general is the inevitable result of society. That doesn't mean we should give up trying to minimize it.
"Crime" is whatever we say it is. Harm is what we need to be working to minimize, but the harm caused by 3d printing of weapons is small compared to the harm caused by the measures needed to effectively reduce 3d printing of weapons.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.