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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
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
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.
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.
The plastic bullet/cased 762 I mention in the other reply can easily kill - not out to hundreds of yards like a metal bullet in the same chambering, but plenty far out. A small rod approximately .3 inches in diameter, weighing 4 or 5 grams, with a pointed front end moving at mach 2 or so is not something I would want to have pointed at me.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
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.
Wouldn't it be a little hard to get your shark past the security checks?
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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.
Then you need to stand up and be heard that you will not accept your government tightening its grip and abrogating your freedoms in a misguided attempt to stop a very vague threat that simply can't be legislated or regulated away.
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.
Especially when they're using our money to protect themselves from us.
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.
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
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"!