Slashdot Mirror
Working Handgun Printed On a Sub-$2,000 3D Printer
Just a few weeks after Cody Wilson and friends successfully fired an instance of their own 3-D printed handgun design, Sparrowvsrevolution writes, "a couple of Wisconsin hobbyist gunsmiths have already managed to adapt Defense Distributed's so-called Liberator firearm and print it on a $1,725 Lulzbot 3D printer, a consumer grade machine that's far cheaper than the industrial quality Stratasys machine Defense Distributed used. They then proceeded to record their cheaper gun (dubbed the 'Lulz Liberator') firing nine .380 rounds without any signs of cracking or melting. Eight of the rounds were fired from a single plastic barrel. (Defense Distributed only fired one through its prototype.) In total, the Lulz Liberator's materials cost around $25 and were printed over just 48 hours."
The Lulz Liberator uses more metal parts than the original Liberator...so at least this would be harder to sneak past a metal detector.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
How long until this design graduates from a single-shot?
Sure, so other than that...
weapon smugglers won't need to smuggle weapons any longer. Just smuggle the printer and the raw materials. What will become more valuable will be the specs for any new weapon design. Welcome to the future....
according to the guys they claim the usual home printer abs is stronger than the stratasys abs+.
though it wouldn't be that far fetched to believe the stratasys just uses it so they can keep tighter stranglehold on the consumables..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
In 1994 a friend and I assembled a .22 from hardware store pipe, a hacksaw, a drill, some nails, and springs. It had a hammer and a trigger. We followed no plans...we just knew you needed a barrel, and something to smack the rim of the bullets we had...and we improvised. It worked fine, but you have to unscrew the barrel to to reload its single shot.
It may be a fun proof of concept, but about the only things it is good for are generating political hype and drawing attention to the inventors.
People fail to realize that it's much easier and cheaper to make a home made gun using existing tools and materials. Just because someone now made a [not very good] one using a 3D printer, everybody seems to be freaking out.
Further well-grounded and thoughtful discussion on the matter can be found here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plastic_3d_gun/
Yes, yes, we know everyone who's really attached to their guns is paranoid about impending tyranny. You don't need to remind us.
Yes. Anybody with a cheap Harbor Freight welder and Chinese 7" mini lathe can produce a gun. Total cost of the tools is about 1/2 that of the Lulz 3D printer, and you'd be able to make actual guns, not these fragile plastic toys that everybody is losing their shit over.
Everyone is freaking out like before this you needed to be God himself to create a firearm. How long does it take a gunsmith to build a gun from scratch? Compare that to the time it takes to design one in AutoCAD or whatever and then 3D print it and assemble it. It's probably pretty comparable and the metal one doesn't look like a bad sci fi prop. I bet I could design a working rifle that would fire a couple bullets from a trip to the hardware store, or especially a shotgun! You need a barrel, aka steel pipe. Then a handle so solder/glue basically anything on. Then you need an end cap with a semi-sealed firing pin to strike the bullet so a piece of scrap metal and a spring. Tada, gun (at about the same reliability level).
Until then I am not impressed. So you can print a plastic tube with a handle. Wow. Now for the trip to a "hardware store" to buy some bullets. Oh wait, I am not in USA, there are no bullets for general sale here, unless you are a registered gun owner.
Tyranny is already here. It is just masked in Bureaucracy. All you need to know is that the Powers that be, have already targeted "enemies of the state", simply because they oppose the Bureaucracy's over reaching power.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I just told you we don't need to be reminded that you're paranoid. Christ
Silly, paranoid people! Why, it's like they believe they live in a country where:
Silly, paranoid gun owners!
Thank God we live in America rather than that paranoid, nightmarish, Orwellian police state!
No, the fundamental tenet of gun rights advocates is that self-defense, which includes the right to own the tools of self-defense, is a basic human right. That fact remains true whether tyrants can survive armed populations or not.
Now it is true as a matter of history that one point the "Founding Fathers" considered was that a nation that relied on a militia (armed and trained body of citizens) for its defense, rather than a standing army, had a built-in defense again its government going tyrannical.
Guns are already cheap and easy to make. That's the whole design philosophy of the AK-47 -- you can already get them for around $50 in some parts of Africa.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You left out the need for some decent metalworking skills. What's special about the 3D printed gun is that anyone who's computer-literate can download the specs and hit "print".
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Video author made this real, multi-shot gun out of $10 worth of scrap metal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av0pEqR5KWs Shall we ban metal now as well?
Call me when you start printing plastic ammunition. Until then, this isn't all that much of a threat as far as I can see.
The reason a 3D printed gun is a big deal is because it cannot be tracked. Normal weapons made for consumers and the military have unique tracking characteristics such as the number of rifle ridges in the barrel, the position of the firing pin, etc. These signatures can be used by law enforcement to track down the type of weapon used in a crime -- if not the exact brand and model, then at least the approximate style and manufacture of the gun. The forensic marks on a bullet can be compared to rounds fired out of an individual weapon to prove whether that weapon was used to commit a crime in question.
Now we're entering a world where anybody can create a gun in secret with no identifying marks and then melt it down after use. Law enforcement authorities are justifiably freaking out over this. But nobody said that the police had a right to have easy jobs...
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Is it paranoia if it is true?
What is the opposite of paranoia? You know, seeing danger and not believing it is real?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
At that point, it becomes more of a parenting issue than a gun control issue.
I don't have guns in my house, but I still taught my kids basic gun safety using water pistols. They know not to point at anything they don't intend to shoot, and to always treat a gun as if it were loaded and ready for firing.
In the words of Dr. Seuss..."it's fun to have fun, but you have to know how."
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's a lot easier and cheaper to just buy them second-hand out of the classified ads in the newspaper. I really don't understand why people think they have to 1) have millions of dollars in funding, 2) need fake passports and visas, 3) need to smuggle their weapons into a country already awash with them, 4) need to be willing to commit suicide to be effective. I blame Hollyweird to some extent, but mostly I think that people are just too stupid and lazy to spend 30 seconds to think about any of those points to realize how absurd they are.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Very funny.
But no. With a regular gun-fired bullet, they can sometimes limit the make and model of a gun down to a handful. And if they're lucky, they can get a close enough match on the bullet.
It's not all the time and it's not perfect, but ballistics can narrow things down well enough or at least omit certain suspects' guns from the pool of possibilities.
Sure, a lot of what they show is just Hollywood stuff. Especially the "how" in they do it. But that doesn't mean everything is bogus.
Let's see.... Nothing you posted was actually what your article said. None of it. It varies between misrepresentation to outright lie. Why can't you just use the truth in your arguments? Really? I know there's problems. Everyone knows there's problems. Making stuff up just makes you look legitimately paranoid.
1. Misrepresentation(A crime was committed, but it wasn't that, paranoid confirmation bias at work)
2. Outright fabrication
3. Was with a warrant, so no.
4. Being sued with a claim doesn't make it true. The complaint includes accusations that representatives were "rude". Really?
5. That's not what happened and that's pretty clearly intentionally a misrepresentation of the investigation's purpose, and only reflects your paranoia. I cannot understand how you'd possibly misconstrue the purpose that far, other than paranoia.
6. Oh no, someone has an opinion that's different than yours. And she's a politician. That's tyranny.
Christ this post is just doubling down on intentionally misreading everything. I used to be sympathetic about the damned IRS thing until everyone started pretending it meant something besides what happened.
DC man saves a kid's life from a violent animal. And get fined $1,000. Because we're "Common Sense" like that..
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/19/dc-man-wont-face-gun-charges-shooting-pit-bull-att/
The NRA still does a lot of firearms education and training. The rabid anti-gun folks stand in the way of these efforts at every opportunity however. Firearms-related accidents are good for the anti-gun agenda
Check out the Eddie Eagle program:
http://www.nra.org/Article.aspx?id=1353
Now, try attending a city council or school board meeting and proposing that you have the NRA come in and give a firearms safety presentation to the school kids.
In many places, people will be screaming at the top of their lungs at the idea of having anything NRA-related coming anywhere near the schools.
The NRA didn't suddenly get "whacked out" and shift its focus. The 1960s is when the big push for new federal anti-gun legislation came along. The last thing the federal government wanted at the time was a bunch of well armed black people demanding equality.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/culturing-science/2013/01/29/killer-cats/
did you even read it? as all? can you read? are you just blindly linking cause some else who didn't read it told you it was bad?
Are you stupid?
His fine has to do with the 3 unregistered weapons he had. Normally he would go to jail, but since he saved the child he is just getting the fine.
This is reasonable.
From the article you didn't bother to read:
"
As part of the agreement, Benjamin Srigley, 39, was required to pay a $1,000 fine but will not have criminal charges filed against him for the three unregistered firearms and the ammunition that investigators found in his possession, said Ted Gest, a spokesman for the office of the attorney general.
“We took it into account that he saved this boy’s life,” Mr. Gest said.
Possession of an unregistered firearm or ammunition in the District is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, and prosecutors said Mr. Srigley could have faced up to seven criminal charges in the case.
"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on