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The First Fully 3D-Printed Gun Has Been Successfully Test-Fired

On Friday, we mentioned that Defense Distributed had created a (near-enough-to) fully 3-D printed pistol. Sparrowvsrevolution now writes that "Last week, the Liberator was fired for the first time at a firing range and successfully shot a .380 caliber bullet using a remote firing setup. Over the weekend, Defense Distributed's founder, the anarchist and radical libertarian Cody Wilson, was bold enough to try firing it by hand. The results of that test, witnessed by a reporter, indicate that the era of the 3D-printed firearm may be upon us, for better or for worse." Predictably, certain politicians are — so to speak — up in arms about it.

10 of 717 comments (clear)

  1. Re: That's nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nah its about the bribery. The gun industry needs their profits so they lobby for no gun control. 3d printing guns would reduce profits so it must be banned.

  2. Re:Not really by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You already can make assassination weapons from schematics from Internet - if you have skills and good understanding of physics involved.

    This is why 3D printed guns are a game changer: the average Joe Blow can get himself a gun without needing any sort of gunsmithing skills.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  3. Re:Not really by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's perhaps a commentary on the state of craftworking skills in the U.S. that making a rudimentary, one-shot gun is now considered too high-skilled for a regular person to do. The level of skill and equipment needed is basically at the level of a 1950s high-school metalworking class.

  4. What's the big deal? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Does ANYONE think that someone who wanted a gun for nefarious reasons could only now get one?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:Ultimately we do need more government intervent by krygny · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Tyranny is a small price for safety. But we still have a long way to go to eradicate all the things that bad people can use to hurt and kill good people. I mean, they haven't even collected all the guns and pressure cookers. It's will be a long time before they get around to all the sharp and jagged rocks.

    --
    Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
  6. Re: That's nice by Salgak1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bad ammo causes weapon damage as well. And plenty of people build their own guns: you can build an AK-format rifle cheaper than buying one, although it DOES take some fairly common shop tools. . . .So the "public health" issue is a straw-man argument. If you really wanted to, you could build a simple single-shot pistol or shotgun with hand tools and perhaps $10-20 of common parts available in any store that sells plumbing supplies. . .

  7. Re:Ultimately we do need more government intervent by BLKMGK · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're right, I don't own a gun and I support our rights to own guns. I see the minority, those that want to remove the 2nd Amendment, trying to shout and scream things like "think of the children" in order to do this. Thankfully the minority has yet to manage it.

    Stronger background checks? Go for it. Assault weapons ban? Get a clue, no way. When the cosmetics are what's used to make decisions common sense has left the auditorium. Magazine limits? Seriously? Our reps don't even realize that magazines themselves can be reloaded let alone that it's possible to swap magazines and continue firing. Printable magazines are also available BTW although I'm told that this is actually a difficult thing to do correctly, something to do with the spring. More people are killed by automobiles in this country and yet we focus on guns. That's okay though as our cars are already so fat it's disgusting as they strive to swaddle us ever more in protective devices. I'm betting more than one person in Boston is a new gun owner after the fallout from the Marathon bombings and I don't blame them. If a manhunt in an urban neighborhood wasn't a wake up call I don't know what is.

    BTW, unless you've got some sort of special machine that detects "wrong people" guns will always end up being wielded by them, checks cannot screen them all out. Any competent machine shop can build a damned gun and plans to do so aren't hard to find. The problem is so many people are freaked out by the news and screaming Chicken Little's that it's the "right people" who're going to end up being restricted. It's common sense that if someone is going to break the law that "yet another damned gun law" isn't going to even slow them down. Guns are so easy to get that the Boston bomber twits had a whole arsenal! Oh wait no they didn't...

    What will you aim to ban next? Knives? Screwdrivers? Sticks? Baseball bats? Fireworks? Tree stump remover? Model rocket engines? Lithium batteries? Fertilizer? Dry ice? Perfect safety is NOT achievable no matter how many rights you decide to give up...

    --
    Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
  8. Re: That's nice by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Reliability is another issue that will keep printed guns from being used by all but the most technophilliac gun nuts. In one of the tests there was a misfire when the firing pin failed to hit the cartridge's primer cap.

    Real gun lovers want reliable guns that fire when needed. All 3d printed guns will do is cause more gun bans to come up in Congress, greatly increasing the statistical odds of one of them passing. If you enjoy your right to bear arms you should adamantly speak out against this reckless self-endangerment that is just begging to be criminalized, dragging the second amendment with it.

    The real challenge to gun enthusiasts is steady supply of reliable ammunition. There are only so many primers and reusable casings out there, and good quality lead forging is pretty challenging. This is really the core of why 3d gun printing is so puzzling. there are already so many guns in the US that even if all manufacturers were forced out of existence (amazingly unlikely) and government-sponsored gun roundups were started (another layer of near-impossibility) there are still enough guns to arm tens of millions of "rebels" to support the inevitable uprising.

    Then again, they say we are due for a meteor to hit, too.

  9. Re:Ultimately we do need more government intervent by PortHaven · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You are so so far off it's not even funny.

    The 2nd Amendment was for the protection of society. That meant from foreign, domestic and criminal. But if you study the documents and statements at the time, it is clear that the authors felt the number one threat the potential threat of one's own government. Considering they had just suffered greatly at the hands of their own government.

    Actually, the NRA was not about hunters. It was due to the fact that after the Civil War, it was noted that northerners were far less adept marksman than southerners. Largely due to the fact that hunting in much of the north had diminished with the advent of industry. Where as it was still common in the south.

    The NRA was established to help ensure that Americans were well equipped skill wise to be able to respond to a call for defense if neded.

    "a well regulated militia",

    Did NOT mean regulations like today. It meant disciplined and capable.

    "They buy so much they create shortages which in turn fuel their paranoia"
    And DHS placing an order for 1.5 billion rounds over 5 years isn't fueling it either? That's about 3x the rounds per person the military is using. And our military is in an active state of war. Just something to consider.

    "The worst part about it is that most of those guns will end up stolen and on the streets at some point in the very near future."

    And this statement is based on zero proof of evidence.

  10. Re:Ultimately we do need more government intervent by kwiqsilver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How the hell did this pile of garbage get modded as "informative"? Let's examine the bullshit, shall we?

    The guys who wrote the Second Amendment were very clear in their other writings that it was about letting communities (not states, and certainly not the feds) organize their own militias. In 1789, there were no national guard units. Regardless of the introductory phrase, the second part is pretty clear that no government, at any level, can restrict the rights of the people to own or carry firearms. No taxes, no bans, no magazine restrictions, nothing. Additionally, since the main body of the Constitution explicitly defines the finite powers that the states and people grant to the federal government, and none of those powers mention the ability to restrict firearms ownership, there is no such power to begin with.

    The NRA is not a sportsmen's association. A handful of Union Civil War veterans founded the NRA, because they realized that the Union soldiers were horrible shots compared to their Confederate counterparts. They founded the NRA to improve the general firearms skills of the population, in preparation for defensive readiness.

    I've purchased three firearms so far this year. They were all about the same price as a year ago. Ammo is definitely up though. Part of this is civilians buying up civilian production, but a bigger piece is the government buying up hundreds of millions of rounds. Additionally, commodity prices are up. Ammunition is mostly processed metals, so when the metal gets expensive, so does the ammo. Also, given the depression that is now finally kicking in (notice the world-wide drop in commodities last month, and the increasing number of bank panics) will probably not be over in 2016, because government idiots will try to legislate it away, which will only worsen it, I doubt a democrat will get elected in 2016. That would be almost as bad as electing a Republican.

    Now I'm sure you have a source for your claim that over 50% of these firearms will end up stolen (perhaps your ass?), but the number of stolen firearms in the US is actually pretty low. As is our crime rate, including our gun crime rate. Yes other countries have an even lower rate, but if you take out the drug smuggling related crimes, our murder rate is pretty low.