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UK Police Seize 3D-Printed 'Gun Parts,' Which Are Actually Spare Printer Parts

Posted by Soulskill on from the well-played-boys dept.

nk497 writes "Police in Manchester have arrested a man and seized what they claim are 3D printed components to a gun. They made the arrest after a 'significant' discovery of a 3D printed 'trigger' and 'magazine,' saying they were now testing the parts to see if they were viable. 3D printing experts, however, said the objects were actually spare parts for the printer. 'As soon as I saw the picture... I instantly thought, "I know that part,"' said Scott Crawford, head of 3D printing firm Revolv3D. 'They designed an upgrade for the printer soon after it was launched, and most people will have downloaded and upgraded this part within their printer. It basically pulls the plastic filament, and it used to jam an awful lot. The new system that they've put out, which includes that little lever that they're claiming is the trigger, is most definitely the same part.'"

38 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. over-reaction? by Custard+Horse · · Score: 5, Funny

    FTFA: "The man was also arrested on suspicion of making gunpowder"

    He was probably making coffee...

    1. Re:over-reaction? by RalphMichaelDeLeon · · Score: 3, Funny

      That actually wasn't a 3D printer it was a pillow.

    2. Re:over-reaction? by RDW · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is England, so it was probably tea. It's an easy mistake to make:

      http://www.whittard.co.uk/tea/type/green-tea/gunpowder-tea

    3. Re:over-reaction? by auric_dude · · Score: 3, Funny

      Barista seeks Barrister?

    4. Re:over-reaction? by paiute · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm hearing every comment in this thread in the officious voice of the late Graham Chapman.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    5. Re:over-reaction? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's also worth pointing out that there is absolutely nothing illegal about triggers or magazines in the UK. My father owns several deactivated guns, all of which have real metal gun triggers (not simply trigger shaped bits of plastic) and at least one has a magazine. These are legal and have been certified as properly deactivated yet that process does not involve doing anything to damage/limit those components. (Chambers on a revolver are blocked as part of the process however.)

      So if it's not illegal to own real triggers and magazines, why is it illegal to make plastic things that look like them? Actual construction of a firearm out of plastic gun shaped bits should be illegal in a country where firearms are illegal of course. This is similar to black powder guns, or guns of obsolete calibre (for which ammo is not readily available), these do not need to be deactivated however if you make or acquire ammo for them from somewhere then you're in trouble.

    6. Re:over-reaction? by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 3, Informative

      I may or may not remember making gunpowder after school.

      After that explosion, it's hard to remember anything really.

    7. Re:over-reaction? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Funny

      So if you try to grow it yourself, does that mean that you have your own small gunpowder plot in the backyard?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    8. Re:over-reaction? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

      What happens when a person designs and builds a series of parts that are separately useful as something other than a "gun", but when combined in the right way does build a functioning "gun"?

      Is that you Francisco_Scaramanga?

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    9. Re:over-reaction? by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Informative

      indeed, when an unconfined handgun round goes off, the brass flies away from the bullet. at gun club I used to belong we'd sweep up powder residue and brass after matches and burn the pile since a portion of the powder is ejected from a gun unburned. every now and then a live round would pop and send the brass flying. but put that round in the shortest metal tube, maybe even inch beyond edge of brass (e.g. like a snub nosed revolver, which even has *air gap* before the short tube), and that's a whole different matter, that's a lethal weapon.

  2. Oh god by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...the U.K. has found another moral panic. Everybody pop some popcorn, asinine laws are about to get passed and massive propaganda campaigns will be starting. Fun for the whole family, as long as you don't live there and as long as it doesn't spread here.

    Last time I remember one of these "weapons" related knives, it was during the post-handgun knifing sprees, and the gov't managed to spin up its citizens so much with their knife amnesty programs that people were turning in unsharpened movie prop fantasy knives, kitchen utensils, and yard tools afraid they were going to get prosecuted for owning lethal weaponry.

    We'll see what they come up with for 3D printers. Maybe plastic/printer amnesty days

    --
    while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
    1. Re:Oh god by _KiTA_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Lets not forget a major part of this panic is due to old manufacturing companies starting to realize that if we can print something for 5 cents, then why would we pay $5 for it?

      While we're not at that point yet, we certainly will be in 5 years. In 10-15 years, we'll be able to print iPods. Once that happens... why buy an iPod, when you can download a crowd-engineered alternative that's better and cheaper?

      I expect some form of faux outrage to ramp up and 3D printing to be banned or seriously restricted soon. It's too disruptive for us us mere plebeians to be allowed to have.

    2. Re:Oh god by qbast · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, it's just like with movies and music - nobody wants content owned by big labels anymore because free stuff from garage bands is so much better. Oh wait, they don't and almost all downloaded music is actually pirated stuff.

    3. Re:Oh god by harrkev · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Printing an iPod??? Not a chance. Printing an iPod case? Sure.

      Sorry, you cannot print electronics. Well, you *CAN* (some have experimented with this), but your iPod would have the size and consistency of a phone book. Even a simple processor these days consists of tens of millions of transistors. Same for memory.

      I can envision two scenarios for printing electronics:

      1) Print just the board yourself. This is certainly feasible, eventually. However, assembly of something the level of a iPod requres soldering which simply cannot be done at home. Try soldering a BGA with 1,000 pins. This CAN be done is a toaster oven (but not by beginners), but requires a lot of knowledge to get it to work. Add in memory, caps, resistors, etc., and the odds of getting something out without any defects seems unlikely.

      2) Print the entire circuit yourself. It is possible to print transistors, but not to the scale needed. I would guestimate that thousands of transistors on a sheet of paper would be possible, but that is still a far way off from printing millions. Modern transistors can most closely be compared in size to a red blood cell. That sort of scale is difiicult to achieve with billions of dollars of equipment.

      Printing of electronics will be awesome when it comes, but it will have limits. Expect some fantastic hobbyist inventions, but it will not be able to even come close to commercial products.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    4. Re:Oh god by nitehawk214 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Foam tips... could catch on fire... Incendiary arrows! Police, arrest this man!

      Wait, the schoolyard that only allows nerf toys is in Toronto! Arrest those children, immediately!

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    5. Re:Oh god by cyberchondriac · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's no such thing as a "real" Klingon Bat'leth, for starters. Second, those kinds of weapons are props and do not hold an edge very well. Swords made for Renaissance faires are well known not be to be up to actual battle standards. But what's to stop someone from putting some nails in a cricket bat and going to town on someone with that? Going to ban cricket too? How about wood saws and hacksaws? Axes? Hatchets? Sledge hammers?

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    6. Re:Oh god by tmosley · · Score: 5, Funny

      I was about to make a comment about how modern music is garbage, and that people only download the stuff made a long time ago and probably that they already owned at some point, but then I realized that there are a bunch of damn kids on my lawn again.

    7. Re:Oh god by harrkev · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, I do have a master's degree in electrical engineering, and I design silicon for a living. I think that makes me at least a little qualified to answer. I am also capable of making a point without having to resort to personal attacks and insults. That is the sort of thing that you do when you do not know enough to actually use facts.

      The problem with electronics is one of scale. To get millions of transistors, you need TINY transistors. Tiny transistors = machines with extreme precision, and an incredibly clean environment. Current technology has 28 nm process as the mainstream, with 22 nm being more cutting edge, and right now, anything smaller is "bleeding edge" with yield problems.

      So, given this, I would consider 250 nm to be a nice goal to be able to do anything "real." 250 nm is 1997 technology, and ten times larger than current processes (along one axis, 100 times bigger for 2D items). This is about the same size as some larger viruses!!! Can you imagine a home device capable of the precision of the size of a virus? How much would that cost?

      Now, home electronics DOES have a lot of DIY-type stuff. Things like the Arduino come to mind. How about an FPGA (since you are an expert, I am sure that you already know what an FPGA is)? The humble FPGA is one of the greatest things for a DIY-electronics enthusiast. If there is to be a real home-electronics revolution, it will likely come from making your own boards, maybe with a few hundred transistors for analog and interface stuff, along with an FPGA to do all of the heavy lifting. Still, soldering a large FPGA is not for the timid.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    8. Re:Oh god by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is about the same size as some larger viruses!!! Can you imagine a home device capable of the precision of the size of a virus?

      And now the police in the UK are shitting themselves even more because someone's going to 3d print a virus.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
    9. Re:Oh god by harrkev · · Score: 3, Informative

      I should also like to point out that 3D printing has existed for over 15 years. It just took that long to get the price and size down enough for home use. However, the seeds were there almost two decades ago. I actually held a 3D plastic model in 2000. The technology existed then.

      When it comes to making tiny transistors, there IS NO OTHER METHOD besides the conventional silicon fab.

      There were some experiments to print circuits using modified ink-jet printers (in theory, all you need is a conductor, an insulator, and an 'N-type' and a 'P-type" semiconductor). These actually worked (nobody said that they worked well, or were capable of any type of speed). Even assuming that this technology takes off and gets millions of dollars in research, there are fundamental limits in this type of technology. You will not be able to "spray" transistors at the size that we are talking.

      Now, if I wanted to prototype a million-transistor digital circuit right now without takint it to a real silicon fab, let me list the ways that this can be done today. 1) Simulate in software. 2) Put on an FPGA. All other methods (including hardware-accelerated simulations) are combinations or enhancements of the above two approaces. There is no thrid approach, even in the labs, as far as I am aware.

      Let's look at building a custom chip in a 28nm process. The mask costs are easily over one million dollars. This means that the very first chip that you get back will cost over $1,000,000. The 2nd might only be $50, but the first one is the expensive one. If you find a bug, hopefully the problem is small enough that you can re-use most of the masks. If not, expect to hand over another million for a re-spin. So, if your design is risky and you are not guaranteed that it would work, paying $250,000 for a single prototype made by some other method would be a bargain! Yet there is nobody out there offering to prototype an ASIC like this.

      The old saying is that what we have in our homes today was in the labs 20 years ago. There is nothing in the lab right now that looks promising for making your own high-density circuits right now, other than the FPGA. Low-density? Yes. Hundreds or maybe even thousands of transistors? Maybe. Millions of transistors? No way that I can forsee.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
  3. Kudos to the police for realizing... by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...a 3D gun is much more likely to be viable than a picture of a gun.

    "During the searches, officers found a 3D printer and what is suspected to be a 3D plastic magazine and trigger which could be fitted together to make a viable 3D gun.
    It they are found to be viable components for a 3D gun, it would be the first ever seizure of this kind in the UK."

    --
    No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
    1. Re:Kudos to the police for realizing... by mark_reh · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'll teach you how to make a better "gun" than you can with a 3D printer.
      1) gather components: a bullet, a block of wood, a rock.
      2) drill a hole through the block of wood that matches the diameter of your bullet.
      3) place bullet in the hole in the block of wood. Congratulations, you're done.
      Fire the "gun" by hitting the back side of the bullet with the rock.

      The "gun" described above doesn't require a 3D printer, knowledge of CAD software or metallurgy.

    2. Re:Kudos to the police for realizing... by Zemran · · Score: 4, Funny

      You need special glasses to fire a 3D gun and only people wearing those glasses can get shot by one.

      --
      I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
    3. Re:Kudos to the police for realizing... by Feyshtey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes. And a 3D gun that's exponentially more viable is as easily created by a water jet cutter, or plasma cutter, or oxyfuel cutter, or a laser cutter. Any of which requires roughly the same level of training to utilize as a home 3D printer. Granted those technologies are much more expensive, but there are 1000's of them in use in machine shops in the US and Europe. All one needs is the file that defines the part, and the ability to access the machinery.

      Now you may be able to argue that the ease of access to home 3D printers makes it possible for more whacko's to get their hands on printed guns. But they will have shitty little pea shooters that might work once without blowing up in their faces. Whereas the 10s of 1000s of machine shop owners/employees out there are just as likely to be whacko's, and capable of producing things much more dangerous than some idiot in his basement. You're worried about a 15 round magazine being printed? How about a vulcan cannon?

      Hell, a marginally talented machinist with knowledge of firearms can make a damn effective weapon out of some pipe, using a lathe and a drill.

      So where's the moral outrage against the people with machine shops? Cutters? Drills? Maybe laws should be passed to regulate the purchase of pipes?

      The guy that fixes your uber eco bicycle as every tool he needs to kill you and everyone within 50 feet of you. But you are freaking out about a chunk of plastic.

      --
      "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
  4. Speaking as a Brit by sa1lnr · · Score: 5, Funny

    I love that the Greater Manchester Police site has suffered the curse of slashdot. :)

    1. Re:Speaking as a Brit by daremonai · · Score: 5, Funny

      If this is what the Greater Manchester Police are like, I'd hate to meet up with the Lesser ones.

  5. The process is the punishment by mc6809e · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They punish someone with the legal process, knowing they can't convict, but sending a message to anyone with a 3D printer that 3D printer owners can expect trouble from the state.

    1. Re:The process is the punishment by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 4, Informative

      Is that meant to be a prediction, or a statement of fact? If you read the article it becomes clear that they had search warrants as part of a targeted investigation into organised crime, and apparently were surprised to discover the 3D printer at one of the searched areas. Given that they arrested someone because they think he was making gunpowder, and because you can't make gunpowder with a 3D printer, it seems that they believed (correctly) that someone was trying to manufacture ammo and got a judge to issue a warrant on that basis. When they discovered the printer, they made the obvious logical conclusion - someone who is illegally making guns, and has a 3D printer, might be experimenting with 3D printing plastic guns. What else would he use it for?

      It may turn out in the course of events that the printer was used for something else, or making tools used to help make ammo rather than making gun parts, or something else. But ownership of the 3D printer is incidental. There isn't even any way they would know he had such a device, as far as I can tell.

    2. Re:The process is the punishment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You're missing the reason why they raided this place originally. It wasn't because he was a guy who owned a 3d printer, it was because he was associated with criminal gangs in Manchester and they were raiding him and others to confiscate the proceeds of crime. This was one of the things they found, alongside ~$3.5m in counterfeit goods, $500k of drugs and $50k in cash and 50 people arrested.

      When you find a 3d printer in the garage of a suspected gangster, you don't assume anything and investigate everything. Last year, a member of one of these Manchester gangs, already wanted for double murder, lured a couple of unarmed female cops to a house to investigate a break in, and then killed them with grenades. This is a fucked up part of the UK.

  6. Re:Thank god by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, mostly they dont. This is a good thing, given that they shot some guy for carrying a table-leg (thought it was a gun), and another for being on the underground (obviously an act of terrorism - only terrorists would go underground).

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  7. Re:Police seize $1000 in Cash by Justpin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Thats not funny, SOCPA 2005 prohibits carrying more than £2000 of cash on you without good reason with the penalty of forfeiture if you can't prove where it came from. In fact a few years ago the London police went for a smash and grab of safe deposit boxes, it was all declared illegal except people went and started claiming it back with receipts.

  8. Toy guns and fabric softener? by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also, if a plastic trigger is illegal, that would make every plastic toy gun, every water pistol, every cap gun, illegal. And every seller, maker, importer guilty of manufacturing/importing/distributing illegal firearm parts.

    Nearly every cleaner, weed-spray, bug-spray bottle in my laundry has a trigger on it.

    --
    Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
  9. Re:smug retribution by qbast · · Score: 4, Funny

    Clearly the only answer is 'more guns'. If other 14 years olds (hell, why not start at 8 years?) all were carrying, this tragedy could be avoided.

  10. Re:smug retribution by qbast · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unfortunately you can't just legislate it away. That doesn't work, has never worked, and will never work.

    Well, it works very well in Europe. So while this particular case is example of police idiocy, the law in UK is not crazy. But I agree that it would be extremely hard to do in USA.

    Doesn't stop them from trying, though.

    I'm not going to get into it beyond that though - I'm not an expert, but it doesn't take an expert to recognize that something is broken. I really don't think just taking them away is the answer. As other incidents have spotlit, the act will not change, only the tools. Children (and adults too) committing violence against their peers and authority figures is the symptom, the gun (or knife etc) is just the vehicle, and the real problem is something else that I can't really identify personally. People are losing hope, getting restless, frustrated, and angry. We need to determine (and fix) the cause of that, not the results. But good luck with that, because the people in charge only care about looking like they are fixing things. Which only compounds the problem.

    With that logic every kind of weapon should be legalised. Why bother banning nerve gas and explosives ? After all this will only change tools, not the act itself.

  11. Re:Simple solution by cdrudge · · Score: 3, Funny

    Or that you can use replacement gun parts to make printers.

  12. Re:More Apt than you think? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Informative

    While it does indeed take more knowledge to operate the lathes and such, currently that tool set can produce far more capable devices, and I'd imagine that at least the CNC cutter shouldn't be that much more complicated to program than the printer.

    It's actually put it the other way round for now. I have a bit of experience in CNC milling and a bit of experience in using a 3D printer (the type in the $1000-$2000 range). I think that puts me in a reasonable position to judge since I'm an expert in neither field so know how far a bit of knowledge can take a person.

    Honestly the 3D printers are harder. Don't get me wrong, they're fantastic machines and I love them, but they are not easy to use. After receiving instruction on how to use it, getting reliable prints out of it still took considerable work. Even after figuring out that much I (and ecen much more experienced people) still have the odd problem with parts sticking too hard, not hard enough, curling up, etc.

    And don't get me started on how the slicing process can go bad...

    I think the main thing is that the 3D printers are cheap and small and clean devices so you can have one without having to dedicate serious space (I don't own one, but I live in a place which could easily accomodate one. The same cannot be said about a machine shop). You also only need one, rather than a quite large collection of tools.

    It's also that the barrier to entry is lower in that there's a nice library of 3D things to print online and the slicing process for the printing is simpler the software to do the printing is more readily available.

    So, they're not necessarily simpler to use (that really depends on the shape being produced), but they are much, much, much more accessible.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  13. Re:smug retribution by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But if he did it with a box cutter would you blame the parents for leaving the box cutter out? Because that also happened just this week. Is that "negligence causing death" too? Do you want those parents jailed then?

    Perhaps it isn't the tool that caused the violence, it is the person using the tool!

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  14. Re:smug retribution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    You are wrong.

    US: 4.7 per 100,000
    UK 1.2 per 100,000

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate