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In a Security Test, 3-D Printed Gun Smuggled Into Israeli Parliament
GenieGenieGenie writes "After all the talk of printed guns and the problems they pose to traditional methods of perimeter security, we get a live demo courtesy of some rather brave journalists from Israel's Channel 10, who took the plastic weapon known as the Liberator past security into the Israeli parliament, and held it within meters of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I say brave because had they been caught pulling this stunt, which involved taking their toy out of the bag while sitting in the audience of a speech by the prime minister, they would have faced some real steel. Haaretz has the video (sorry, Hebrew only at the moment) [Google-translated version of the article -- Ed.] where you can follow the breach (from ~6:30) and see them pass the metal detector and the moment when the gun comes out. The movie also shows some testing of the gun in a police-supervised weapons range. Parliament security officials said that 'this is a new phenomenon and they are checking the subject to give it a professional solution as quickly as possible.' I hope this doesn't mean we will now officially face an era of ever more intruding security checks at entrances to events like this." Would-be Liberator printers, take note: the testing shows the barrel violently separating from the rest of the gun.
this will get compounded when these 3-D printed weapons are actually made up of parts which on their own have a look and feel and a different functionality. And imagine when they are able to get these 3-D weapons to be made of alternate, yet compatible parts. Things will just get a little more..... interesting..
Plastic guns? Been there, banned those... http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/100/hr4177
making weapons like this which will have the end result being a far bigger encroach on our freedoms are amazing, carry on being douches and winding up the PTB (powers that be/pointy haired bastards) so the rest of us suffer for your amusement, you winners
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
I hope this doesn't mean we will now officially face an era of ever more intruding security checks at entrances to events like this.
Too late. Bend over, Citizen. We need to search you for any remaining decency you may be hiding. If you don't, you're a filthy anti-american terrorist. Your freedom is very important to us... which is why we're taking it away.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Is the availability of 3D printing. The plastics needed to make single use firearms exist to make them much stronger than the "junk" used in 3D printers. Furthermore, a plastic bottle of 5 lbs of gun powder doesn't set off a metal detector either. You don't even need a 3D printer to make that.
The truth of the matter is if you are able to get within a few feet of someone, you don't need a 3D printer or any other fancy machines to make a weapon to kill said person.
You can machine a plastic weapon on conventional equipment too.
Nonmetallic weapons go back many years. Here's a WWII ceramic grenade:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_4_grenade
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
A 79-cent plastic water pistol filled with cyanide* is even more lethal, and just as easy to get past security.
Sure, the assassin will likely die from the cyanide too, but what are the odds of him surviving long with a one-shot gun anyway?
*(and sealed to prevent premature leakage; substitute other poison of your choice)
-- Alastair
Don't they also need a bullet? Or are there plastic bullets?
Isn't the middle east more of a 'bomb violence' neighborhood than a 'gun violence' one? It seems like there isn't much point in smuggling in the world's shittiest pistol when widely available techniques for bringing in enough explosives to spatter the audience far and wide are available...
What is all the hype with saying LOOK ITS MADE OF PLASTIC!!! I SMUGGLED IT IN!!! No kidding... its made of something they don't detect... I hope people who sit there and do this get executed. All you are doing is pushing the envelope for them to regulate 3d printers. Thank you for your contributions.
I don't see why 3d printed guns are such a big deal. It isn't like making a gun is difficult. People in prisons(limited materials) have made zip guns before. To me, it sounds like there's a group of people who feel threatened by 3d printers. They're probably manufacturing folk doing everything in their power to keep printers from catching on. I mean why else would people be trying to do so much anti PR against 3d printers? It is no great feat to make a gun without a 3d printer.
God spoke to me
The whole point about weapons is intent. It's never so convenient as portrayed by government, to be the simple presence of a weapon. Who is to say that the intent of person with the weapon is other than to preserve the life of the prime minister, the king, the president? Who gets to say that simply because a weapon is present that the worst possible scenario is the only possible one?
To the AC that asked about the 'bullet,' PLEASE, you've been misled. Maybe even consistently. The bullet is the part that comes out of the barrel at high velocity. What you (perhaps) meant to say is "Don't they also need ammunition?" It's a 'round of ammunition' or it's a 'cartridge.' Don't be misled by media morons and ask about 'bullets.' I've visited many gun stores where you can buy bullets. They're quite necessary if you're going to reload ammo. One store in Rapid City SD was particularly awesome. They had lots of 750 gr. .50 cal bullets–in a barrel. They were expensive, but then if you shoot .50 BMG, it's an expensive hobby. I still wish I'd bought a few, just as souvenirs.
Spending billions of dollars protecting the ruling class is never a waste.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They took a plastic gun with NO BULLETS through a metal detector! OMG!!!!!111!!!111!1!1! Wolverines!111!!!!!11!1
I'm going to a pull a stunt where I take a super soaker through security and get on Slashdot!
Here is an easy fix: remove parliaments.They are an unnecessary slow down for fighting terrorism anyway.
So granted, they got a piece of plastic in the shape of a gun through security. The article says "a plastic pistol shooting live ammunition" but doesn't say whether any ammunition was actually present. Why is this important? Because the ammunition contains metal, (and propellant. Surely they're testing for chemical agents) and I'd be interested in whether they could get *that* through security. I suspect not.
Overall, I can see where this could cause a furor, but it'd be just as easy, for instance, to get an all plastic/rubber crossbow into the chamber, with the added advantage that an arrow can defeat Kevlar soft armor. (An arrow tip is just a bit of metal, which could be disguised as a variety of innocuous things.) There's always a way, given enough determination, which is why experienced security personnel are on the lookout even in a supposedly secured location.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You cannot stop someone willing to loose their life to take yours.
It strikes me that a 3D printed gun doesn't need to actually look like a gun at all. Indeed, a 3D printed gun could use colors/markings and form of existing toy guns (a nerf gun that fires real bullets!), or perhaps it could look like a toy dinosaur that actually shoots bullets from its head. Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but it never occurred to me during all these discussions about 3D printed guns. Something like this puts security/police/secret service officers facing people armed "toys" in a terrible position.
I would not chance a brain dead stunt like this to test the security of a high school in Nebraska.
I say brave because had they been caught pulling this stunt, which involved taking their toy out of the bag while sitting in the audience of a speech by the prime minister, they would have faced some real steel.
These were journalists, not the "3D printed gun crowd". So they were likely just looking for a story that gets people all panicked and hysterical over nothing.
Surprised that didn't happen in the USA, with the all the propaganda from the government with an agenda to disarm the public.
I hate the fact that 3D printers are getting pulled into this debate. I want a 3D printer. Not to make guns, but to make dollhouse parts for my daughter. At $500 or so for a very low end 3D printer, I figure that I could recoup the cost of it in a few days just making the bedroom set for the Chipmunk family. A plastic bed and and some plastic furniture worth about 10 cents sells for $30. Crank out a few of those and my daughter is happy.
It has been said before and I guess I will repeat it. Who is going to buy a $7,000 3D printer to print a single shot gun? Yes, it may get to the point where composite printing materials will accommodate multi-round fire arms, but we aren't there yet. Get a chunk of high impact plastic, drill a bore, insert round, nail and spring. You now have a low x-ray cross section zip gun. No 3D printer required. This is a non-issue.
I may have missed something in the translation but I saw no mention of ammunition getting past security. Unless the ammunition was also made of plastic then a metal detector would still find a loaded firearm.
Try again with a loaded plastic gun, let us know how that works out for you.
Now, assume for a minute that even a loaded 3D printed gun can get past security. What do we do about it then? Perhaps we should arm the good guys inside the security perimeter so that they can shoot back should a bad guy with a gun get in.
Gun free zones are free killing zones. Every mass shooting I can recall, except one, happened in a gun free zone. Problem is that when (not if) a murderer gets inside that gun free zone there is no one that can shoot back. When armed good people are present someone might still get killed but it's also quite certain the murderer will be among the people shot.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The average person, given all the tools and parts, can't fabricate and assemble a better weapon. The printed guns are craftable by an average person with no skills.
It's the sudden availability of crafters that breaks the previous firearm security concepts, not the abilities of the gun itself.
I don't get this fascination with using computer controlled additive manufacturing to produce shitty firearms. If you want to use computer controlled manufacturing to produce firearms, better to get a CNC mill and use subtractive methods. Golmatic used to have a gallery of CNC manufactured firearms parts (out of steel, which actually works!). Looks like they're using trains now.
piece....
Now, how accurate is that pistol? At what distance can you be assured a 90% (my cutoff for reliable, accurate shots) hit percentage? If they get within 4 meters but it's a six foot pistol...
Heinlein was right, and right again. In the (near) future, everyone will go naked. Or in transparent clothes, perhaps. Oh, the Horror!
inside the parliament of terrorist countries to allow bearing weapons.
This is nothing but scaremongering to spook the masses about the evils of the latest technology. Of course the article fails to mention that people have been improving guns out of secondary materials in places from prisons to school yards for decades. They also fail to properly highlight the fact that the 'gun' blew up when fired and would have maimed the person actually attempting to use it.
The only person that should be scared by this article is the person foolish enough to spend several times the cost of a proper gun on a plastic gun they build themselves that will blow up in their own hands. Meanwhile criminals will continue to bypass the law and get their guns the same ways they always have.
Governments are scared of technology that allows people to be creative, particularly if they can share that creativity. It fosters an independent spirit, and that's something that questions authority.
Here's a security suggestion, stop commiting injustice against Palestinians since the inception of Israel in 1949. Nip injustice at the source. No justice, no peace.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
then making something plastic is the way to go as sometimes... a single lucky shot is all you need.
Igw's point still stands. While I'm sure it'll happen at some point, nobody to date has been killed, or even faced a serious assassination attempt, by an assassin attempting to use a plastic gun. Not even the CIA's rather incompetent and rather silly attempts to assassinate Castro, at one point attempting to poison his cigars, has attempted the use of a plastic or otherwise non-metallic firearm.
The Liberator is printed using the same ABS plastic that Legos have been made from for decades. Just like legos, there have been developed processes for making parts out of ABS plastic that, while it isn't 3D printing, is fully up to making all the parts used in a Liberator.
While if you're making 1-10(estimate) of these firearms it's probably cheaper manpower wise to print them, there's nothing about the designs that prevents the use of conventional molds to pop off a few thousand liberators at a drastically reduced cost. These processes were available in the '40s. They've had well over 60 years to create a plastic gun, perhaps at greater expense, but in the realm of assassination the use of rifles and bombs that run in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars is accepted. Worst case, you might have to do some subtractive piece work - use a drill or router to 'clean up' a piece.
Conclusion: The Liberator is the best 99% plastic gun yet(firing pin is still metallic), but it's still a single use zip gun of such anemic performance that you're probably going to be better off making a zip gun that has metal parts that look innocent that you can fashion into a firearm once past security. Or using a bomb, poison, rocket, longer ranged rifle, knife, garrote, bare hands, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
use a shotgun insert meant for shooting smaller caliber ammo. they're made out of metal and some are 7 inches long and rifled. uncontrolled as well.
of course, can't smuggle it then as easily.
The way you could get around this would be multiple assistants before your assassination attempt, or perhaps multiple visits.
You sneak the ammo and the weapon in separately. Heck, smuggle the ammo in 1 round at a time, stash somewhere, like a planter or the bottom of the trash bin in the restroom, not in the bag. Not many people look deeply in those.
If you're caught with a round, go 'How'd that get there?', shrug and toss into trash.
I don't read AC A human right
Going by it's grandfather, the FP-45 Liberator, a WWII metallic version of the modern one, but with a similar barrel length and lack of rifling, "about 25 feet", 7.6 meters.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a lot less though. Even the WWII gun was at least strong enough to be reusable a dozen times or so...
I don't read AC A human right
"I hope this doesn't mean we will now officially face an era of ever more intruding security checks at entrances to events like this."
Good job US of A, it's your love for guns that will result in all your packages to be unpacked to see if you have guns or not. Let's not forget the cavity search.
ps: Captcha was "Molests"
The next time you get cavity-searched at the airport, I hope you think your 3D-printed guns are worth it.
How did they get the bullets in?
Even though I know I have more chance of being hit by lightning while scuba diving than I do of being killed by terrorists, the thought of being treated like an escaped child molester by the TSA is enough to keep me from ever visiting the USA. Even transiting is a nightmare for non-US citizens, so I won't even do that.
There are some places in America I'd quite like to visit, but not enough to be willing to put up with the insanely degrading security theatre.
A "gun" could be constructed from tape, a tube (plastic or metal), a rubber band and a push pin, nail or some other hard piece of metal. It only has to work well enough to reliably fire a bullet in the general direction the weapon is pointed. The components could be smuggled through (or can be sourced beyond) virtually any security checkpoint in the world and assembled. Smuggling the bullet would be another matter but I assume that a small .22 calibre could be gotten in disguised as a pen or something.
When poorly printed, yes it can break any number of ways.
However when correctly printed and supervised, it can work for many rounds.
It's an assassin weapon, pure and simple. Assassins who would use something like that are suicidal anyway. You aren't going to shoot the president of a country, surrounded by well armed security, and live. No way.
If the US can't find sixty billion dollars a year to spend on airport security but can find one trillion dollars a year to spend on blowing the crap out of foreign countries, the US needs better accountants.
The US wouldn't need sixty billion dollars a year to spend on airport security if it stops spending one trillion dollars a year on blowing the crap out of foreign countries, the US needs better leaders.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
There's an increase in the level of imbecility in the American public: http://now.msn.com/more-passengers-trying-to-take-guns-on-planes-says-tsa
You could sneak in a footlong, rather thick machete made of ceramic zirconium oxide with heat treatment in and that would cut through the podium let alone the prime minister. No metal detector in the world picks that up and it's lighter, harder, and immensely sharper than traditional knife metals too. It's about a $50 weapon to make.
around a few words from an ancient document that bears little or no relevance to the times we live in and even less going forward.
The media has raised stupidity to an art form and created millions of performance artists in the process.
Find it here on Haaretz's English website.
Sounds stupid to me. You mean to say that the journalist couldn't have shown that you could smuggle a plastic gun in through security by using, say a water pistol or something? The Israelis are notorius for shoot first as questions later. He's lucky he didn't get shot, unless that was his intention or those in charge new the test was being conducted, which kind of invalidates the test in the first place.
you mean like in that movie "In the Line of Fire"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Line_of_Fire
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107206/
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/In_the_Line_of_Fire
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/%28In_The_Line_of_Fire%29_-_Composite_Pistol
eventually, parts will be printed, perhaps with different yet compatible material, where each part could function on its own in an innocuous way, yet, these parts assembled with become a weapon. And worse, several weapons could be smuggled in a way nobody would know because several people could have various parts and just meet up somewhere and assemble them.
Here's the kicker. You will more than likely be able to print bullets somewhere.