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ATF Tests Show 3D Printed Guns Can Explode
Lucas123 writes "The ATF has been testing 3D printed guns over the past year and, not surprisingly, has found that depending on the thermoplastics, 3D printers and CAD designs used, some can explode on the first attempt to shoot them. The ATF published videos this week of the tests on YouTube showing what looked like a Liberator model of a 3D gun exploding upon being fired. Another model, created with the popular ABS polymer and an advanced printer, could fire as many as 8 shots. The tests were published at a time when a law passed in 1988 banning the sale of guns made entirely of plastic is set to expire next month." I hope they post the videos when they do the same tests on Solid Concepts' 1911.
metal guns explode, too.
Once they have these minor inconveniences ironed out I look forward to printing my own hand grenades, flame-throwers, rocket-launchers, heat-seeking missiles, and battalion of robo-troops to deploy them on my 3D-printed floating island in the pacific.
Dammit - printer jam. brb
Sent from my ENIAC
So the same contractor who built the health care website builds 3D printers now? Joking aside this would not be a very good test if the agency regulating guns came out and said the ones you make yourself without regulation work better than the ones we regulate, now would it.
The plastic gun sale ban is the motivation here. The ATF doesn't care how many people get hurt by bad, homemade guns. The ATF cares about making their own jobs easier by keeping the plastic gun ban in place.
That said, I think most plastic guns are a horrible idea. But, that's why I don't buy nor use them. I have no problem with others doing so while safely away from me.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
So they can show that 3d printed guns are bad and should be outlawed.
WTF, how is this even news?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
It looks then like we don't need to pass any laws around 3D printing of guns, since according to the feds it's a self-correcting problem.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think its entirely appropriate for government to determine safety standards and inform the citizenry when something doesn't comply. With the manufacturing of /everything/ by 3D printers, the vast majority of the populace has no way to determine which designs are safe and stable and which are junk because most of them are not engineers or materials scientists. I think that testing and rating designs for potentially dangerous items, not just firearms, that could cause grievous harm due to catastrophic failure is good role for government to act in the common good.
Keep the designs free for all, but provide a central database where I can reference a rating performed by experts. I wouldn't mind my tax dollars going for that.
I can think of many tools that if used wrong can kill.
3d printers just get bad press because manufacturing is afraid of losing out on money.
Anything that is new will get bad press if people will lose money.
Examples: MPAA/RIAA hated the Internet for sharing songs. So they sued grandmothers for millions and won.
Cable companies are afraid they'll give you too much bandwith and never pay for TV again. So they restrict usages like jerks.
Newspaper is worried that free online newspaper will put them out of buisness. So Murdoc makes threatening claims.
Petroleum giants are afraid of the electric car, so anything something slightly goes wrong with a Tesla, it makes press.
Energy Utilities are afraid of solar, so solar gets all sorts of negative press that it will never fly or be a solution.
It just goes on and on. People with money are afraid of losing their cash cows, so instead of doing what's good for society, they do whats best for themselves. And part of the equation today is,"You can only get away with so much in USA politics. If you can't make a bull shit propoganda story why something is bad for society, people won't elect the crook next cycle." And really, that is about the only thing that keeps the USA from going from suck to blow. So any time someone paints a bullshit propoganda story to you, be a good citizen and dismantle it.
God spoke to me
If you have a properly made gun, it takes a pretty bad malfunction to explode, and then usually they don't actually explode in any normal sense of the word, they just distend and crack. Guns are made to be reliable, since the agencies that buy them tend to value that.
"Liberator"..... as some friends of mine pointed out, takes the name of a gun that was dropped in Nazi occupied germany; and essentially encouraged people to use it...once... to shoot a nazi and aquire a real gun. :)
I think the idea is just that, this obviates the need for manufacturing outside and air dropping in, if any geek with a modest personal investment can make them by the 10s or 100s.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
the middle east is already flooded with c4 filled rifle ammunition which will destroy the rifle and likely the person holding it too. if you're over there be very careful what ammunition you're using, especially in your little plastic liberator.
This is an ugly piece of plastic made by people just to give the proverbial middle finger to the government.
The fact that an ugly piece of plastic does give the middle finger to the government is what makes it an important political statement.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It was in their shotgun import study they did maybe 3 years ago. They were arguing that they should ban a whole bunch of models of shotguns from import because 3-gun (a sport with over 250,000 competitors, nationally sponsored "pros", and its own TV channel) and plinking were not sports by the ATF's headache inducing butchering of the English language. During said mental gymnastics, they made the claim that plinking was instead a "past-time, and not a sport." I'm sure Major League Baseball, as America's National Past-Time, would be saddened to hear that the ATF thinks it is not a sport.
; )
When I say "properly made gun" I mean "Basically every commercial firearm made today." I am certainly not going to claim that no gun could ever have problems, particularly something knocked together by amateurs in their basement (like printed guns) but it turns out that the kind of guns you go and buy in a gun store and pretty damn reliable. That is what is in demand, not just with private shooters but more importantly with police agencies and governments, who like to buy a lot of guns.
There are plenty of regulations and tests in that regard. They see what happens if you jam a round in the barrel, then fire another in to it, They are required to fire a proof load (a deliberately overpressure load) without any problems, and so on. If you are interested, go check out the SAAMI standards (they do cost some money).
I don't think you appreciate what goes in to building a gun. They are made to be pretty robust. The barrels are made of thick, strong steel, often hammer forged (not meaning with a blacksmith's hammer, but a massive pneumatic device) and can take some real abuse.