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Sen. Chuck Schumer Seeks To Extend Ban On 'Undetectable' 3D-Printed Guns
SonicSpike writes with this snippet from The Guardian: "As the technology to print 3D firearms advances, a federal law that banned the undetectable guns is about to expire. The New York senator Chuck Schumer says he is seeking an extension of the law before it expires on 9 December. Schumer said the technology of so-called 3D printing has advanced to the point where anyone with $1,000 and an internet connection can access the plastic parts that can be fitted into a gun. Those firearms cannot be detected by metal detectors or x-ray machines. Schumer says that means anyone can download a gun cheaply, then take the weapons anywhere, including high-security areas. The Democrat is pushing the extension along with Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Bill Nelson of Florida. The effort was announced on Sunday."
From those who kill it in the name of defending it.
I understand the apprehension caused by firearms that can't currently be detected, but I don't quite understand what he's trying to accomplish in enacting a law that can't be enforced
We're about to find out how many in the pro-gun lobby are really pro-gun-business.
the only thing that will get hurt with a plastic gun made on a 1000$ printer is the one trying to fire it, and until you get get bullets and casings made from plastic it will still be detectable by eray and metal detectors
If only there was some way to ensure that the guns contained a large, metal object that would show up on an x-ray. You could make such an object out of a dense metal like lead to ensure that it showed up.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
And the ban is going to stop a crook or terrorist how now?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
One can either laugh or cry at the desperate attempts of our technologically ignorant leaders to hold back the inevitable. There is a spin that suggests that Canute was trying to get his sycophantic courtiers to see sense by showing them that he could not stop the incoming tides; perhaps a similar lesson is needed here.
..lethal at close range, just as undetectable!
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
It's already illegal to conceal carry without a permit, it's illegal to shoot someone else. Why do we need yet another law telling us that it's illegal to possess these weapons? If someone is going to 3D print a gun and use it to commit a crime, they really don't care if it's illegal.
Besides, all the government needs is one story about a poorly constructed 3D printed gun that exploded when fired and injured the would be shooter
When they ban (undetectable) guns, only (terrorists and) criminals will have (undetectable) guns.
I thought that the firing pin and the bullets were still metal and therefore detectable?
If it is made of matter, it is detectable.
The guns are undetectable, but they won't do anything without undetectable bullets.
They should forbid undetectable bullets made from frozen water, wood, glass, recycled plastic bottles etc. But that is redundant anyway as shooting someone with those types of bullets is illegal anyway.
The *bullet* is the real weapon, we talk about guns, but really you can set off a bullet without a gun. It is the projectile, it is the explosive, it is the payload, the gun is just a tube and a trigger mechanism.
So what are you printing when you print a gun? Just a shape.
I don't know much about firearms, but I feel like plastic based guns are not really new. If you can enter a "high security area" with a plastic gun. Then maybe it is NOT a high security area...
Venezuela enacted a complete gun ban several years ago. First they stopped sales of guns, then ammo, then banned ownership. Yes, people griped, but the results have been worth it. 1/1000 as much violent crime as they had before the ban. The streets are safe there.
Maybe Schumer should look at banning Glocks and other plastic firearms as well, the ones that are a constant menace to society.
The man is a moron who failed to research his latest publicity gambit.
A New Yorker explained to me that, in NYC, the correct pronunciation is Schmuck Schumer.
Better plastic guns can be built from blocks of plastic and hand tools then can be built using 3D printers. Why are they not freaking out about that. All these laws do is trip up good people exploring the capabilities of new technology. They do not address the issue of people wanting to use guns on others. We need to be addressing the issue of hate not method of gun construction.
Ever see charges brought up against someone?
It's always this huge list - and I saw a guy who was prosecuted for fighting and for every blow he landed, he was with assault and battery - all 10 times.
One fight - 10 counts of assault and battery
And of course, if you don't fall flat on your face, put your hands behind your back and cuff yourself, you will be charged with resisting arrest.
This is just another law to promote our incarceration-make everyone a criminal-industrial complex at work.
But it is sold to the ignorant public - with plenty of FEAR - that it is needed for their safety and their children's safety.
We can only hope that somehow the Tea Partiers tie this to Obama and the Republicans squash it - just for being something that Obama wants to do.
Schumer is Harvard educated. Between these asshole politicians (redundant, I know) and the MBA assholes (yes, another redundancy) they produce; why does Harvard have such a great reputation?
The really important thing about this silliness is it gets publicity and shows that the senator is protecting us all from this rather far fetched threat.
"Thank heaven Senator Snort made that law against space alien invasions, else Mars Attacks might have come true!"
The only thing better is if it can be framed as "Think of the children!"
I guess they better make that illegal too. Oh wait...
What are the bullets made of? Are they detectable? Also: Don't we need plastic guns if Magneto attacks?
The solution isn't to ban a perfectly reasonable way to create a usable tool. The solution is to require the plastic-pellet company to use an additive that x-ray machines can detect.
My ceramic kitchen knives, which need zero metal, have a slight amount of metal purely so that they do get detected by metal detectors -- touted as a future-proof feature for any eventual law.
What's Senator Chuckles going to do when he learns that hobbyists can build armed drones? Crap himself to death out of fear?
First yes the gun may be undetectable but there are a few things it needs to be able to fire that are detectable. There needs to be a spring for the firing pin, the pin itself may be plastic but needs some type of device to make it detonate the primer cap. The bullet casings are also metal and will set off detectors.
So no Senator Idiot, what you have that is undetectable is a useless model of a gun. It would be more dangerous to print a 3d knife and sneak it in somewhere.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
the last thing they want is Americans coming to terms with the futility of patrolling for bears as it would eventually lead to putting the risk (i.e. lack thereof) into proper rational perspective & dramatically reduce the effectiveness of their tactics. the TSA's not their adversary (that's a comical thought), they're their best friends - effectively their marketing department!
Ooh here's an idea! Let's redirect a small percentage of the funds going to the TSA to enforcing safe driving and educating people on the dangers of poking things with sticks while standing on ladders. We'll save far more lives with far less effort. I guess a couple hundred thousand deaths a year isn't a big deal if some 24 hour news network isn't being hysterical about it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Are they 3D printing reliable plastic barrels now?
I guess I can see a very thick barrel surviving a few centerfire pistol rounds and maybe the same surviving many .22LR rounds, but I don't see them being at all accurate as I don't think the rifling would stand up.
Overall I see the barrel deforming from the heat of firing and possibly resulting in the same situation as you would end up with squib loads -- blocked barrel on the squib, detonated chamber/barrel on the second...
Stop relying on metal detectors and X-ray detectors to detect weapons, then.
Because for years there have been ceramic and other weapons that can walk right past them already.
If you want to make sure someone isn't carrying a gun, pat them down. And even that's not a guarantee.
Or maybe you could just outlaw them, and arrest anyone who has them, so you can be 99% sure, when someone approaches you, that they won't have been able to get a gun in the first place. Maybe that ought to be the first line of defence? And then after that, the other checks. And then realising that it's STILL not a guarantee without a full strip-search which is unreasonable and unpractical in all but the most secure areas (e.g. prisons).
Can't we all agree that when certain political figures speak (Chuck Schumer, Sarah Palin, Nancy Palosi, Charlie Rangle, Michele Bachmann, etc) that we should just all collectively plug our ears and say "Nanananananana" as the thing they are about to say is likely an appeal to the citizens of our country with IQ's bellow 90, to reduce our freedoms, increase government power and generally bring ruin to the country in the name of some un-realized threat that sounds scary but could never really cause us much harm?
Chuck Schumer is either:
a. an idiot and does not realize he can not stop home made weapons, they've existed since the country was founded, there's just a slightly new method.
b. fully aware that this legislation is pointless and is just pandering to make headline with whatever made up fear 20/20 came up with for this week.
I understand they can make plastic guns, but wouldn't the ammo still trip a metal detector?
Francisco Scaramanga wouldn't care.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I predict that this will be about a successful as all other attempts to ban information has been. But don't let that stop you. And just to help out, here's a link to DefDist's DefCAD Mega Pack v4.2 (Saito) again, the file I mirrored when the DOD tried to suppress it.
Liberty in your lifetime
how exactly do you enforce this little law?
1. Criminals aren't going to care since they're going to be SHOOTING people with the 3d printed guns. Adding some extra charge like owning a 3d printed gun on top of murder isn't really going to phase them.
2. The only people that would even vaguely care about this rule would be law abiding citizens that wouldn't use the guns for anything uncivil in the first place.
3. Given that only law abiding citizens are going to be effected by this law, do we care that they have 3d printed guns for the purposes of hunting, protecting themselves, or target practice?
4. Ignoring points 1-3 how will you actually catch anyone with one of these guns? They have no point of sale. No detectable distribution. Possibly they don't even show up on metal detectors. How exactly are you going to stop anyone from having one of these? All this will do is see some goof ball that goes hunting with a 3d printed gun arrested or fined despite not doing anything threatening with it. That's literally the best case this law is going to offer.
So lets recap:
1. Criminals are not effected by this law.
2. Law abiding citizens are effected and really only the ones that are especially deferential to government rules since anyone that is even vaguely disinterested in following them can simply choose not to with almost no risk.
3. No thought is being given to what the intention of the law is or how it will actually work.
4. Indifferent to everything else, you can't catch people with these guns or stop them from having them... so why are you making something illegal that you cannot enforce?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You are not allowed to have an undetectable gun.
Ok, but how do you enforce that? How do you detect something that is undetectable?
Gee. The bullet is brass copper and lead. The barrel is steel. I guess old school guns with wood stocks would be undetectable as well according to the periodic table in Mr. Schumer's world.
For less than $4000, anyone can get a gunsmiths metal working setup, and build any gun they want. In fact its perfectly legal for anyone to build an firearm with no serial number as long as its not an NFA restricted weapon like a machine gun and it is not for sale or transfer.
that there was also 3D printable and x-ray invisible ammunition.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Sorry to post this as an Anonymous Coward...
Anything can be detected via X-Ray even dangerous liquids type...
Olympus have this technology an it's working...
The "undetectable" idea is very misleading, per agenda.
I am in the field of security.
Both current xray machines and the nekkid body scanners are able to detect these, metal or not. Additionally, handheld metal detectors will hit on a nail. You might beat a walk through metal detector though, and you will notice TSA and others are already moving away from these.
They should just make killing people illegal. Surely that will stop someone from using any weapon to do it because criminals always obey the law.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
A metal detector won't detect plastic. But X-ray machines do, as the plastics used are high density and they show up. The truth is that one can likely defeat most x-ray machines just by developing a firearm that doesn't LOOK like a firearm.
States and Cities do not have the authority to restrict firearms. People have the right to keep and bear arms, and it shall not be infringed, period.
The Senator, in his efforts is in violation of his oath of office. By affirmation of oath, he is contractually bound to common law under the U.S. Constitution, and any act contrary to that is Treason, as it is an act of rebellion and Insurrection against the United States of America.
If the Senator does not like it, he can resign, but while in office he MUST obey the true law.
I would like to propose a long needed update to the rules of formal debate - the Digital Millennium Godwin Act
in essence it states that as any attempt to rationally scrutinize the cost, effectiveness, conflicts of interest and/or civil rights implications of any policy, action or proposal of government at any level progresses the probably of some tool saying "NINE ELEVEN!!!" approaches 1 with a curve resembling the half-lives of triple-digit actinides...
I'll print whatever I want.
Please note that while they mentioned the main bill sponsor is a Democrat, ALL of the bill sponsors are Democrats.
As we have seen through history the only real fascists have always been liberal.
Do not make the mistake again in thinking just because the Democrats espouse support for popular things you believe in, that you should vote for them - they will just continue to clamp down tighter the longer they are in power!
I support gay marriage and other social issues too, but supporting the Democrats is the wrong way to bring about changes in that arena - in order for the government to make any social change, it means they MUST reduce your rights and ability to make choices in some way.
The better way to bring about social change is the way the gay marriage movement has done so, by winning hearts and minds through the media - NOT through force and telling people what they must support from on-high.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yep; everybody knows its far more dangerous to be between Chuckles Schumer and a TV camera, than to be in a place where plastic "undetectable" guns are allowed and available.
Where are the laws to prohibit this behavior as well?
How will this deter someone intent on trying to sneak something onboard a flight? Answer: it won't. Just like gun free zones prevent people from becoming victims. Someone intent on doing harm will ignore this law like they ignore the others. This law is a movie law, it dates back to Die Hard and the "invisible" glock. Schumer is a moron who thinks he knows what is best for you.
is your strength, not mine.
There's no reason for a law to need to be that long and not in clear English.
Treaties and budgets yes, but not laws.
Nice try Troll
In nearly all of Europe after WWII there were guns, grenades, and explosives all over the place. They seem to have done a good job at makine most (but not all) of them go away and not be widely available
You've never been to Finland, have you?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Better idea:
All new laws have an automatic 10-year sunset clause, and renewals also sunset after 10 years.
That will guarantee that stupid laws eventually go away, and that lawmakers will concentrate on laws that really matter.
There are more than 20,000 firearms laws in this country. 99% are as stupid and useless as this one.
Which bring us to the question: what constitutes readable by the 'average' person?
To me, readable means short enough that most people are capable of reading all laws that might affect them before leaving high school.
I would love to see something like that.
Many^H^H^H^H All of the mass shootings were in "gun free zones"
Even in a complex society, what reasonable steps should a citizen take that are sufficient to ensure that he remains a law-abiding citizen?
You've never been to Finland, have you?
Or France either. My in-laws are French and are as much gun nuts as anyone from Texas.
With caseless ammunition (or muzzleloader-style loose powder) and high density ceramic bullets (with a plastic shell to "grab" the rifling") you could get past a metal detector.
and one can cultivate a layer of adipose tissue to help conceal any oddities
Yeah, but where are you going to find Americans willing to be suicide bombers? ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Did Senator Schumer really get a perfect 1600 SAT score?
Seastead this.
I have no formal legal training whatsoever, and I'm able to understand all of the Federal and State statues I've cared enough to parse. They're written in plain English, in spite of claims to the contrary, the biggest PITA with reading the law is jumping all over the place trying to track down the various definitions. Law A defines what X means, then Laws B, C, D, E, and F all cite X and refer you back to Law A for the actual definition.
Legal statutes are certainly easier to understand without training than the various computer languages we discuss here every day. How many people do you think can sit down and decipher something written in C?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
To summarize the above: Non-metallic guns currently suck, even/especially 3D printed ones. They suck so badly that I actually want criminals to use them, because it'll mean that they've sunk far more resources into the gun for less benefit than nearly every other course of action with the goal of committing violence with intent to harm.
I don't read AC A human right
In an related announcement, Sen Schumer's office also wants a new law recalling the 'F word' and all sticks and stones in the US. "People could get hurt" a spokesman for Schumer was quoted as saying.
Organization? You must be joking..
Heck, I'd completely forgotten about that useless fucker.
Like I said somewhere else, it's not causing much terror if people can't even remember it. Not even playing the same game as the 9-11 gang, let alone in the same league.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Schumer smokes crack.
Do you know that your own source demolishes your claim. You said that that Schumer is "one of the most hardcore authoritarians in the Senate"; however, when you check all the Ds and Rs, Schumer is rated less authoritarian than EVERY R senator except Olympia Snowe, who is a moderate who already left the senate.
One of the grand ironies of Libertarianism, is that these days the right is increasingly dominated by authoritarianism. (Take the above website to see the hugely robust difference between R and D senators. Bear in mind that R senators tend to be more moderate than their house colleagues.)
I'm Libertarian myself, but am not a sucker for the right-wing entertainment complex. As such, the GOP has little to offer me, since it has turned into an apocalyptic cult. Fortunately, the wing-nuts in the left (and they are just as barking mad) do not control their political party.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I think you confuse "ineffectual" with "not completely 100% effective".
There is no need for corrupt senators to extend useless bans. Just a few days ago the AFT claims that 3D printed guns explode, so just say no! Problem solved.
Criminals and The Government. The distinction between the two groups is a bit of a gray area though.
Short of banning 3D printing altogether, there is no way make this happen.
And as far as banning 3D printing, technological genies don't stay bottled.
I've a nasty suspicion you are all too right!
Until the bullets are plastic as well, are these really "undetectable"?!!
Where can I get one????
Oh, you mean there's those 3d printed guns which are still as dangerous to the firer as what's being aimed at... the ones with no steel barrel or springs, and still needs a metal cartridge and screws. And they are so bulky it isn't even funny, and they still throw xray shadows, right?
Nevermind. I'll stick with my Rugers.
a lot of technical and military explosives have metal powder or metal fibers added to make them detectable by x-ray or metal detectors, since it's required by law in many countries.
something like this could also apply to guns, but then it would make sense to apply it to ALL firearms - if they can't be detected by standard methods, they're illegal.
why not? if you're intentions are illegal, you don't care in the first place, otherwise you just pop in the detectable plastic and are done.
i don't see the problem in plastic guns as long as standard-off-the-shelf firearms are carried aboard planes by oblivious passengers checked by lousy trained, ignorant, tired or bored security staff....
Have you ever heard of someone getting in trouble for anything similar?
Some jurisdictions have really oddball laws.
Could it easily harm someone or something if misused?
I guess this is the rationale behind banning circumvention devices and setting the burden of proof in cases involving reverse engineering for interoperability.
Have you ever heard of someone getting in trouble for anything similar?
Yes, just for running a software development business. Every patent is like a separate law banning the public from performing a particular process, and I gather that it's hard to keep up with the flood of patents that the USPTO issues.
Again, step 1: Take a civics course.
Unfortunately, it appears my high school civics course was crap, as it didn't go as far as teaching people how to understand and apply the law to the point where one could defend oneself pro se in small claims court.