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Printable Gun Downloads Top 100k In 2 Days, Thanks to Kim Dotcom

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "The promise of a fully 3D-printable gun is that it can spread via the Internet and entirely circumvent gun control laws. Two days after that digital weapon's blueprint first appeared online, it seems to be fulfilling that promise. Files for the printable gun known as that 'Liberator' have been downloaded more than 100,000 times in two days, according to Defense Distributed, the group that created it. Those downloads were facilitated by Kim Dotcom's startup Mega, which Defense Distributed is using to host the Liberator's CAD files. And it's also been uploaded to the Pirate Bay, where it's one of the most popular files in the filesharing site's uncensorable 3D printing category."

5 of 656 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So many people miss the point. by PortHaven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Really, cause I think he nailed it.

    I'd also point out that the very first "metal" guns weren't all that safe and reliable as well. So this is a generation 1 prototype. Consider in 20 years, when 3D printers are in most middle class homes (if we still have a middle class). What do you think 20 years of tweaking and discovery will do? Might these become more reliable, & safer,... there was a time that folk though using a polymer frame on a handgun was ludicrus. Glocks and many others have shown that is NOT the case.

  2. Re:Yawn by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hicks know better and already own a bunch of real guns.

    What you'd get with the modified version is the urban script kiddies. New York City hicks (they think the world ends at the border of their home town).

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  3. Re:Yawn by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't know of anything illegal or unethical about making a bunch of zip guns and turning them in for a gun buy-back. I'd go so far as to say it's a moral imperative. If you don't drain the gun buy-back fund with profitable junk, quality guns will be destroyed and utility will be lost.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  4. Re:This is the best way of gun control by Myopic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Who pretty much has that anyway? We don't register, license, or inspect guns in most places in America, certainly not anywhere I've lived (Alaska, New Hampshire, Vermont, Nevada, Wisconsin). When I got my first gun I asked, "so how do I register it?" and people laughed at me. "Register it? Why would you do that?"

    The answer to "come up with some meaningful way to get people to lock up firearms" is insurance. If people had to buy insurance against mis-use of their firearms then that would be a 90% solution to the problem. Insurers would do inspections of homes and come up with rubrics by which to judge risk that a person would allow their gun to be used improperly. People who securely lock their guns would pay low rates, wackaloon rednecks with small cocks who wave guns around like it was the end times would pay high rates, perhaps high enough to be prohibitive.

    Like having laws against child abuse, we don't let people "get their progeny killed". We here in Western Civilization consider that bad because it is a violation of individual rights -- you don't get to do just any fuck-all thing you want to your children, because your children are people not property. Only an asshat would suggest that as a good reason to let fucktards be negligent with guns.

  5. Bullshit by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For a criminal, the prospect to creating guns without serial numbers is potentially very appealing.

    That's a really ignorant statement, because it assumes criminals buy from sources where serial numbers can be tracked.

    In reality criminals don't care about serial numbers, because they are buying from illegal gun suppliers. Not having to abide by any rules, illegal guns are cheaper and easier to acquire and not traceable to boot.

    So being able to print out a far less usable gun holds zero appeal to the criminal element.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley