Slashdot Mirror
Defense Distributed Has 3D-Printed an Entire Gun
Daniel_Stuckey writes with this snippet from Motherboard with an update on Cody Wilson's Defense Distributed project: "On Friday morning, Forbes's Andy Greenberg published photos of the world's first completely 3D-printed gun. It has a 3D-printed handle, a 3D-printed trigger, a 3D-printed body and a 3D-printed barrel, all made of polymer. It's not completely plastic, though. So as not to violate the Undetectable Firearms Act and guarantee it would get spotted by a metal detector, Wilson and friends embedded a six-ounce hunk of steel inside the gun. They're calling it 'The Liberator.'" (A name I'm sure that Wilson didn't come up with accidentally.)
Giving people ammo would be too socialist.
We'll make people earn their bullets through their own individual efforts.
My kid will be five soon, and I thought it would be a great present!!!
Especially considering that it's not particularly difficult to manufacture a gun out of metal using more conventional technologies. It's not some kind of space-age, 21st-century device; guns have been produced for something like 700 years. Instead of a 3d printer, why not get a CNC mill?
The answer, I suspect, is that we're dealing with a gun-nut libertarian desperate to get press for their TECHNO-LIBERATION concept.
Because most people can't afford a CNC mill and you can now buy a 3-D printer at Staples?
A surprising number of 3d printing projects seem to have been born of the fact that the gutting of domestic blue-collar production means that we currently have a massive glut of geeks who want to make things; but who never had wood shop(and certainly not metal shop, heaven forfend!) in school, and whose fathers pushed paper for a living and weren't in a position to teach them anything about manufacturing...
There are, undoubtedly, applications for which 3d printed materials cannot be matched by any conventional technique(some of the 'sure, let's just print a highly detailed collagen matrix to build a replacement organ' stuff, or some of the single-piece geometry you can get, along with anything that rewards rapid turnaround on very small runs); but there are a lot of 3d printed objects that are essentially really bad plastic versions of something that could have been knocked together with the machine tools of 50 years ago, never mind fancy CNC gear.
(And lest anybody think that I'm criticizing from the outside, I'm actually in a pretty similar boat. My grandfather was a mechanical engineer, did it at work, had a pretty serious setup in his basement. We didn't live at all close to that side of the family, so I only really saw it when doing logistics after the funeral. Dad was mostly a white-collar numbers guy, with a little bit of hobby carpentry that tapered off after he had kids. My own education was strictly college prep, and my only machine-tool time was through a university, plus the online services.)
Americas relationship with guns simply seems CRAZY to me.
Notice how we didn't ask you about it.
Unlike Europe and Asia, this country was not founded by a conquering king. It was founded on the abuse of authority; we won our freedom because the civilians had guns and formed militias. For a while after that, we kept our freedom because the politicians were afraid that if they abused their authority that the citizenry would not be afraid to use them again. Quotes by people like James Madison sum it up better than I can: "The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." "The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." Of course, members of our government don't feel quite as threatened today, or if they do they don't mention it.
We also don't have to look back too far in history to see what tyrannical governments have done to unarmed civilians. Germany and Russia in the last century, of course; but Cuba and North Korea still run roughshod over their civilians. We say to ourselves, "we'd never let that happen here", and we mean it.
When some group says "we have guns because we have the right to hunt, or we need to defend ourselves from crime", they're being disingenuous. We have guns because we want our government to be nervous. We want our police officers to be polite and cautious. The 3AM knock on the door to haul away a political dissident will not be allowed to become commonplace here, because we don't even track the law abiding citizens that have guns.
Unfortunately, the price we pay is very steep. If it my child were killed in a school shooting, I'm sure I'd feel differently.
The civilian disarmament crowd want guns only in the hands of the police and the criminals. The latter is unavoidable no matter how convenient it may be to pretend it is not.
...drastically less gun crimes than the US.
Replaced by other weapons of opportunity.
Nope.
All you need is a constitutional amendment, and your wishes will come true. Good Luck with that....
Or a re-reading of the 2nd Amendment that puts more weight on the "well-ordered militia" clause... I can imagine a future Supreme Court reading that to restrict gun ownership to only those who serve in the National Guard, military, or police forces.
Actually, that "well regulated militia" part is proof that the Second Amendment was not to protect deer hunters, collectors or hobbyists. It was to protect the citizens from invaders and an abusive government. "Well regulated militia" is completely open to interpretation. My family can make up a "well regulated militia". Understand that at the time it was written, a "well regulated militia" meant farmers who could grab their gun and hit the streets to stand in a straight line and fire en masse. "Well regulated" meant that they all fired when someone said "FIRE!"
As for the national guard, that can no longer qualify since it is under the control of the federal government. I know, it's not "officially" under the federal government, but I know a lot of guardsmen who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who would disagree.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Ownership of (enough) heroin is also an instant felony. Never mind that heroin has to be smuggled in from overseas, and a junkie requires a continuous supply -- there are lots of junkies around.
The reason that Europe has drastically less gun crime than the US has much less to do with the differences between European and American law and much more to do with the differences between Europeans and Americans.
Haven't you ever considered where this "living document" bullshit about the Constitution came from? If they can convince a critical mass of people that it's true, they won't have to amend the Constitution. They'll evolve it in the public mind and ignore they parts they don't like.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Right, it's because Americans think the best way to defend themselves is to overpower their enemies. You have to have your own gun so you can shoot an intruder or mugger. Europeans prefer to call the police and try to scare the burglar off, rather than getting into a fight.
The result is that criminals come armed and with the intention of murdering you if they feel threatened. Can't just run for it because you don't turn your back on someone who is armed. In Europe they usually flee if discovered.
I don't know how the US can fix this. It's become an arms race. If you don't have a gun you are at the mercy of those who do. Statistically it is better to not threaten the criminal with your own weapon but to either hide or run for it yourself. Even the NRA acknowledges that in their "how to survive a school shooter" videos.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
At some point the intellectual dishonesty of the NRA bashing should come to complete fruition and the Left is going hate it. I factor about the next election cycle when things swing back to the Right due to the ground swell in the grass roots level of this issue, the Left will wish they had hired me to consult for them. lol
Anyway, we've all pissed around, not came to the table in an intelligent approach to problem solving and this article's issue just might be the forefront of a whole new can of worms that's going to stink to high heaven.
Factor this into the equation. Printable guns; who want this in a very bad way? Hmm..I don't know, but if I was a bad guy, an industrious one, tech savy, educated, smart enough to avoid the system if they wanted to do something evil. Here is a way to produce a lethal weapon, ranged, possible sound suppressed. Completely untraceable and disposable. Ha! It's probably recyclable, so it's not only an effective weapon, but it's green. It has appeal to the environmentally conscience villain. Oh yes, and thanks to the movies, we know that metal detectors don't work on plastic guns or their parts. Hurray!
Yeah, inability to work on comprehensive policies is either hallmark of incompetence or corruption. Either way, we are dealing with the possibility of a whole new animal being released into the wild, and we are fucking around arguing about dumb shit like "background checks". What you need is policy that preserves the integrity and spirit of the 2nd Amendment, and places some highly intelligent safety features into play. You can have your cake and eat it as well if you are smart and can work together.
Here's how I see this kind of animal romping about the countryside. The only hope you will have to contain this is through the tools perhaps, and the plastics used to create this. This will catch the dummies, which leaves the smart guys. They will be able to fabricate this and perhaps come up with their on innovations. Your first bad guys will of course be corporate and government types. This is where the really juicy targets are at. At super high dollar and high level corporate shenanigans, this will make wet work far more elegant, the same with politics. When you are dealing with those resources and those stakes, this will find a nice happy home. On down the food chain it rolls, assassins, vigilantes, crime crews, "militias", you name it.
But the bullets, you say? Seriously?
Factor this, if you can print the gun, you can print the simple reloading tools as well. Why not the shell casings and with some modification, even the bullets themselves. With modern chemistry and completely doped up idiots making meth out of common chemicals, how hard will it be for sober people to create a propellant? The variables on that equation get difficult to lock down as any chemical training will probably yield results.
This is dismaying. Even if we found a bottle on the beach and wished every gun on the planet to be turned into kittens and cheese burgers, we will still have them appear, but now not out of predicable venues, but out of thin air as far as any system is concerned. Let's face it, bad people will have reached their weapon production zenith, while the rest of us flounder around in inept, corrupt politics.
Take the Red Pill.
Of course only an American would think that they are unique in overthrowing tyranny. Whilst it is true that America was founded as a direct result of this you ARE NOT unique and special. For example we here in Britain; The English Civil War, wich actually resulted in the execution of our king in an attempt to curtail tyranny. Perhaps you forgot about that one. We also find some sections of the American populace self centered, selfish. Perhaps reason you have so many troubles is this idea of Libertarianism, essentially the idea of, "my rights first, fuck everybody else's rights". I honestly think your founding fathers is they could see what you have become as a nation would disown you. This idea that an unarmed populace couldn't fight a tyrannical government is pretty weak to be honest. For every example that you give I can give a counter. For example The Spanish Civil War. Unarmed civilians very quickly organised into armed "militia". So your populace is having to endure slaughter, innocent kids etc... Because you as a nation seem to have this paranoid belief that the jack boots are going to kick your doors down at "3AM" and arming yourselves to the teeth with little of no regulation ("My rights, me, me, me") is the answer. It obviously isn't working. Time to evolve and change?