Slashdot Mirror
Gun Rights Hacktivists To Fab 3D-Printed Guns At State Capitol
giulioprisco writes On January 13th Come And Take Texas (CATI) will be manufacturing 3D-printed firearms on location at the State Capitol. In 2013 Defense Distributed made public the 3D printable files (STL files) for the world's first fully 3D printable gun. Their more recent Ghost Gunner is designed to automatically manufacture publicly created designs with nearly zero user interaction. According to CATI’s website, “In the last year and a half Texan Gun Rights Groups all around the Lone Star State have walked, assembled, and engaged in Humanitarian efforts all while Open Carrying their Long Guns and Black Powder Pistols. This has succeeded in Educating the Public as well as Law Enforcement, to show that the presence of Firearms in Public is not only Safe but Highly supported.”
It seems to me that there has been a lot of media and public backlash against open carry. I'm not personally affected by open carry at the moment, but I'd be hesitant to visit any state where open carry becomes too prolific. My opinion is simply that when everyone open carries, I will have a harder time discerning who is a threat and who isn't.
You do realize what OPEN carry means, right? It generally means on the hip, outside the clothes, ie. in plain view. As in, you know EXACTLY who is carrying and who isn't. Now, CONCEALED carry is where the firearm is tucked away in a pocket, or a shoulder holster under a jacket, or inside the waistband. Concealed carry is when you don't know who is armed and who isn't. For gun control advocates open carry should be preferable to concealed carry, because you can at least tell who is armed and who isn't.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
As long as you aren't making a fully automatic weapon, it is perfectly legal today to make your own guns by any means (CNC, 3D printer, holodeck...etc).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The notion of a "reliable and somewhat accurate weapon" coming from a $2,000 FDM (fused deposition modeling, i.e., plastic extruder) is laughable and drastically oversells the ability of the technology. Oh, sure, you can produce a gun today that'll kill someone, but don't expect 3D printers to enable the next Continental Army.
Perhaps a gunsmith could say otherwise, but my understanding is that a "reliable and somewhat accurate weapon" requires metal. 3D printing of metal is going to stay expensive for a long time, maybe for good, if only because the power it takes to sinter/melt metal is high and isn't going down. A 40-kW laser in every tinkerer's basement isn't likely. I've seen FDM-like metal printers that are more or less wire welders on an XYZ base, but the results leave much to be desired. Even then, a printed metal part will still need a decent amount of post-machining, in which case you may be better off fab'ing your gun from solid stock.
(I use 3D printing (FDM, SLS, DLMS) in my day-to-day job, have experience with hobbyist 3D printers)
Actually, the data shows the opposite. The areas with the highest density of legal guns have the lowest crime. The most commonly cited example is Kennesaw GA.
http://rense.com/general9/gunl...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
As ratified by the States:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Original:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Initial proposal:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
Then there were a whole bunch of revisions that started
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people,
They removed the definition of militia because it was deemed redundant and they removed the religious objection clause because it was covered under religious freedoms.
As a side note, reading the Journal of the Senate from 1789 is kind of interesting if you never have. Not only are they doing the Bill of Rights but also establishing a whole slew of the guidelines for how sessions of congress should be run.
Austalia had a great "gun-ban" and their homicide rate DID go down (it wend down MORE here is the USA during the same period, but why bother with facts). Let's look at one of the consequences:
http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...
Choose Homicide, 1995 and Homicide, 2012. The number of gun homicides, by percentage, looks almost EXACTLY the same. Firearm usage in murder dropped from 18.38% to17.5% Wow. WHAT A SLAM DUNK! There might be a LOT of reasons for the decrease in homicide rate, but apparently less than 1% can be attributed to banning guns. Wow, that makes a difference, huh?
I know, Australia is also cracking down on knife crime too, and cops can hassle a person for carrying a Leatherman -- nice freedom over there guys.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
You've carefully elided the fact that homicide rate in Australia is about a quarter of that of the US. The reason the homicide rate in the US fell more, is because it had a lot further to fall - and it's still four times that of Australia! You might consider the trade-off worthwhile, the tree of liberty needing to be watered by the blood of innocents from time to time and all that, but we don't. Over here you look like a bunch of crazed loons.
The knife thing is about knives over a certain size (poor Crocodile Dundee!). I have carted around a Leatherman (the knife) plenty of times and have not been hassled.