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Making an AR-15 In the Wired San Francisco Office
An anonymous reader writes: Wired's writer Andy Greenberg writes about his experience fabricating an AR-15 lower receiver with the Ghost Gunner CNC mill. (That's the same device that was demoed in a Slashdot video earlier this year.) Greenberg points out that CNC millng isn't new, but reports nonetheless: "Aside from a single brief hardware hiccup, it worked remarkably well. In fact, the Ghost Gunner worked so well that it may signal a new era in the gun control debate, one where the barrier to legally building an untraceable, durable, and deadly semiautomatic rifle has reached an unprecedented low point in cost and skill."
Illegal or not?
one where the barrier to legally building an untraceable, durable, and deadly semiautomatic rifle has reached an unprecedented low point in cost and skill.
GOOD!!
Our ridiculous gun control laws become harder to enforce.
I fail to see the problem here...
~The grand unifying truth is that the State's power to change us now exceeds our power to change the State.
Actually from a regulator perspective it is. That is the serialized part that is considered a "firearm" every other part is just a gun part and not a firearm and thus not regulated under the 1968 Gun Control Act.
The whole discussion about making your own guns, sort of reminds me of the day I realized how easy it was to make beer. So easy that any 14 year old can walk into any random supermarket and buy everything they need to make a couple gallons of beer for less than it costs to actually buy the beer (as it should be!).
So all these prohibitions against selling alcohol to people under 21 are all pretty pointless, even kids without friends older than 21 can get their hands on unlimited supplies of the stuff with just a little thought and effort.
So the latest hopla about making guns is sort of a resurgence of the zip gun culture. Only the results are probably more accurate on the whole.
Why the hoplophobia?
You can make a damn effective single-shot shotgun with plumbing parts from the hardware store for about $12.
Legally, it is.
Everything else is spare parts and can be bought/sold/traded without tracking or registration. The lower receiver is defined as the gun and is the part with the serial number.
The day the Stasi come to collect your registered guns, the only part you have to account for is the lower receiver. Everything else not present can be explained away as sold at a gun show, traded with friends, etc. Or perhaps it's buried out in the woods. So if people can make their own LR and dig up the hidden bits, the confiscators are royally screwed without a major change in firearms regulations.
Have gnu, will travel.
Home brewing was illegal from prohibition until Carter legalized it which is what started the U.S. micro brewing revolution.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Kids want to get drunk now, not in a month.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
In America, it is incredibly easy to buy a gun - even if, for example, your ex-wife has a restraining order against you getting within 1,000 feet of her.
Given how easy it is to buy a gun, it is incredibly silly to prohibit making guns.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The tolerances on an AR lower contribute very little to the accuracy of the gun due to the design. The cartdrige is locked into the barrel with a bolt. Once fired it is basically a loose bunch of parts until they all lock together at the last moment. The precision parts are the ones you can buy online without any checks.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
We now have confirmation that a simple method of tool making employed for the last 200 years actually works. Will wonders never cease!!!! A-fucking-mazing!
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
No. Kids want to get drunk now _and_ in a month. I had a still and a fake ID at 16. Couldn't pass for 21 unless it was real dark. But back then we could get beer with an 18 ID.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So all these prohibitions against selling alcohol to people under 21 are all pretty pointless, even kids without friends older than 21 can get their hands on unlimited supplies of the stuff with just a little thought and effort.
I don't particularly mind kids who have forethought and can put in effort, get access to beer. If they're that smart, they're probably smart enough to not overdo it. No, it's the kids that don't think much about anything, and dislike effort, that should be kept away from drugs - including alcohol.
And it's similar with guns. Whoever thinks that making guns cheap and easy to fabricate without skills is a good idea, is nuts. I mean, if that's a good idea why not go beyond that, and give everyone who is unemployed and didn't finish high school, a bottle of Sarin gas in case they feel threatened by someone. Or a flamethrower. What could possibly go wrong?
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
See, I get that the gun advocates want to prove a point here. I do. But the government is not ever going to say "Oh, you know what, you're right. That's silly. Go ahead and make all the guns you want". I realize that this is the libertarian fantasy, but it's just that: Libertarians masturbating.
Instead, what's going to happen is the government is going to start regulating CNC mills (or something equally absurd) in order to control the problem. Yes, that's a stupid thing to do. What, you don't think the government is capable of doing cutting off its nose to spite its face? I think if anyone should realize that the government is capable of doing stupid shit, it's Libertarians. It's all they ever talk about.
So thanks, guys. As someone who likes gcode and cutting metal, you're now going to ruin it for the rest of us just to prove your fucking point.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
You can? That's interesting... Over here (NL) the parts that are the most tightly controlled by regulators are the parts that are deemed to be "essential" to the firearm, and "hard to replace" i.e. the barrel and bolt. Much of the rest can be replaced with sheet metal, rubber bands, and rusty nails.
By the way, if you can CNC a semi-auto lower, it shouldn't be too hard to whip up a full auto one. Especially for the AR15. Look up "lightning link", which is basically 2 bits of metal that drop into the lower of the older AR15s to turn a semi auto into full auto.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
If we legalize the making of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, then what are we going to do with all the money we spend on the Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco and Firearms??? Add even more letters to their TLA to justify its existence?
This organization needs to be ended and its responsibilities folded into the Department of Commerce and the FBI.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Exactly. Same kind of CNC mills we've had for 40 years now. Same kind of mills the REAL gun manufacturers use. Just a little smaller and cheaper and easier to program.
That's not very rational regardless of your protests. The man in the video came across much calmer and more rational and less aggressive than you. Why are you projecting your shortcomings on that fine veteran who is making a living after serving in the armed forces?
Or is you fear rational if its you with the weapon? Maybe you should seek some medical care?
So you have an aversion to a person enjoying firearms? Have you ever fired one? It's kinda enjoyable. The "sad sack" you refer to seems completely rational to me. He's just shooting a gun. You're the one being silly.
Ghost Gunner...may signal a new era in the gun control debate
Presumably he means a "new era" of debate in which gun-rights advocates are not resoundingly winning that debate. This week's news is that the Texas legislature approved campus carry and both houses of the Maine legislature approved constitutional carry. And those immediately followed the Federal Courts rollback of carry restrictions in DC. And last year Illinois legalized concealed carry.
I don't see how Andy Greenburg using a "Ghost Gunner" is going to reverse that trend.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
3D printers and the programs that drive them must be regulated. Otherwise, consider the dangers to society. Anyone would be able to circumvent laws, such as Arizona's legal limit of two dildos per household.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Its a felony to buy a gun with a restraining order; its right there on the form 4473. People who say its incredibly easy to buy a gun usually aren't talking about doing it legally. In California there is a 10day wait even if you're a woman trying to get a gun to protect yourself from the ex you had to get a restraining order against.
The world is more safe now than at any time in its history. I'm not implying that guns are the reason, just informing you that you should take that bullshit somewhere else.
Those parts you can buy mail order and online and ups will deliver right to your door, legally. Until that changes this is enough.
Just stay away from Gun Free Zones and you'll be fine.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
which doesn't make it more difficult, just means you get in more trouble if caught. To a lot of teenagers (and nominal adults) this is not a significant deterrent.
Whoever thinks that making guns cheap and easy to fabricate without skills is a good idea, is nuts.
It doesn't matter if it's a good idea or a bad idea. It's the world we live in now.
It was probably not a good idea to let murderous dictators and their regimes know about the equation E=MC^2. We would definitely be better off if crazy people lacked the information to make nuclear weapons. But that's not even a question worth considering, because that information is already out there. We live in a world where the knowledge of how to make a nuclear weapon can be found on wikipedia.
There is no good way to keep bad people from owning cars, cell phones, computers, kitchen knives, baseball bats, etc. Now guns are in this category as well. It is just a fact that in the 21st century, making a precise replica of a simple physical object is no longer hard nor expensive. Arguing whether it should be is pointless.
Not for long. The easy way out of this for the feds is to serialized the barrel. The barrel is 1) the hardest part of a gun to make and 2) the 'gun' part of the gun. COMBINED with the receiver you are mostly there.
I suspect the only reason that this hasn't been tried is that the NRA would cast the Evil Eye on it's clients, er, representatives.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's not fear. It's part of the socialists plan to allow an uprising of the proletariat to effect political change. They want what you have and will rise up to take it or just destroy it when the left wing decides its time for the change. They can instruct the police to look the other way. But there's not much they can do about the Roof Koreans (and others) who are still capable of defending themselves.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'd like to point out that a lower receiver is not a rifle, and it's not even the most stressed part of the rifle during use, it's just the part that the BATF has chosen must be serialized.
You still have to buy a barrel somewhere, and a bolt and a bunch of other furniture pieces and a bunch of small parts and have some technical knowledge to put it all together. Just managing to fabricate a lower receiver, which is basically just a hollow lump of metal with no moving parts, is more of a legal milestone than a technical one. What makes it interesting is not that it's the most important part of the gun (I'd argue that the bolt/chamber/barrel are) but that it's the part that the government decided must be tracked in some fashion. Which makes the lower receiver, from a regulation standpoint, "the gun", even though it's not.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I don't know if your internet get's blocked but check amazon for ar parts. I can buy barrels and bolts.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb...
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
For some rifles, such as the AR-15, the serialized part is the lower receiver.
For other rifles, such as the SCAR 16 and SCAR17S, the serialized part is the upper receiver.
On a Ruger Mark series pistol, the barrel is the serialized part.
I don't think the author realized that this depends on the weapon.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Seriously, just because you can fab something, doesn't mean it's a good idea.
QC that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It's easy to make a barel. It's just hard to make a good one.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
The barrel is 1) the hardest part of a gun to make
Not really.
And now the problem becomes tracking a 'gun' made up of several serialized, traceable parts. Barrels need to be replaced due to wear or when a weapon is re-chambered for different rounds. I'll guarantee that, should a system be developed to track multiple gun parts, it will be brought down by a relatively small group of gun owners switching parts around and submitting the required paperwork frequently.
Or I'll just design a rifle and name it an AR'; DROP TABLE Barrels;--
Have gnu, will travel.
Tools and objects that can be used to make 3D printers and the programs that drive THEM must be regulated!
Ban the monkeys all the way down!
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
So all these prohibitions against selling alcohol to people under 21 are all pretty pointless, even kids without friends older than 21 can get their hands on unlimited supplies of the stuff with just a little thought and effort.
~50 million lazy teenagers would suggest otherwise. Are there even enough teenage homebrewers to make a statistic? I bet the number doing it because it's their only way to get drunk is around 6. Just because a rule doesn't make something foolproofishly impossible doesn't make it worthless, otherwise why have any rules at all?
Only the results are probably more accurate on the whole.
Zip guns typically aren't accurate.
Legally Build your own rifle:
https://ghostgunner.net/
https://thepiratebay.vg/torrent/8598235/DefDist_DEFCAD_MEGA_PACK_v4.4_%28Raiden%29_%5BZIPPED%5D
https://defdist.org/
AR-15s make great home defense weapons along with 12 gauge shotguns.
what are we going to do with all the money we spend on the Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco and Firearms???
Dunno but I can tell you it ain't gonna be spent on a director* or enforcement. If the duties of the ATF were folded into the FBI there might actually be sufficient budget to regulate firearms. That's a non-starter in the US.
(*OK after 7 years without one, congress finally appointed a director)
I know; I'm just using the SJW's rhetorical attacks against themselves.
Unlike cars, there is no public record of when they're resold, at least not in most states.
And it's not the receiver that would be matched anyway; it's the barrel.. and guess what? It's perfectly legal to replace the barrel on a gun, and then it won't match either. Regardless, that match can't be made unless the gun has been obtained, and you can't magically match a bullet to a registered gun and then track down the registered owner.
Guns are not traceable. They can possibly be matched, if recovered, but not excluded on anything other than calibur. It's more like blood type evidence than fingerprint.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
We brewed 'Schwanz sauger' wine. (From the Rhinelands of Hatch hall.)
It was as much to piss of the RAs as anything else. There was no rule against it.
Not like we didn't have a keg or two somewhere in the dorm every weekend.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The whole thing about gun regulations over there is to regulate without actually regulating, because they have this constitutional amendment that everyone is so hot and bothered about.
What things like this mill does is reveal that the emperor has no clothes. A fact that everyone with a bit of interest in the subject knew, but kept mum about to maintain appearance.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
And look like a twit, just like that dude. Don't know how he hasn't died of terminal stupidity so far.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
Try moving to Czech republic or Switzerland. Both are fairly liberal with gun licensing at least by European standards. Both also make some very nice firearms. Of course if NL is Netherlands, you also have fairly liberal gun laws by European standards. I've seen some pictures of gun shops there that had some very nice things. :)
I know you are being sarcastic...
But in countries with strict gun control, some might consider this...
That said; I think it's sufficient to just declare it illegal to print fire arms... Well, funded criminalswill always have fire arms, gun control is mostly about increasing the effort required to get a gun (and to keep one, as you must keep it secret). It prevents idiots from getting their hands on guns, 3d printing a gun certainly takes a lot of effort.
Not entirely true. A judge needs to approve this. I tried getting a restraining order against someone that was sending me harrassing e-mails but since they didn't have a history of violence against me or act on the threat it was not approved.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Since when is Very Bad Thing stopped legislation? It is the law of the land right now. Question 11.h on the 4473
Question 11.h. Definition of Restraining Order: Under 18 U.S.C. 922, firearms may not be sold to or received by persons subject to a court order that: (A) was issued after a hearing which the person received actual notice of and had an opportunity to participate in; (B) restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such intimate part ner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child; and (C)(i) includes a f inding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or (ii) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury. An “intimate partner” of a person is: the spouse or former spouse of the person, the p arent of a child of the person, or an individual who cohabit ates or cohabit ating with the person"
IANAL
FTFY
I art more snarky, and terse than thou. I art Slashdot!
It is a mill. It builds things according to instructions it understands. So what?
3D printers a danger to civilization? At one time the same sorts of worrywarts said that the printing press was a danger to civilization. Many today say the internet is a danger to civilization. Please do not let these nattering nabobs win. We want and need the ability to create objects from designs to be free and open. Trying to limit it is like trying to limit a compiler to only compile programs you like. It is counter-progress nonsense.
That I can print or mill a gun, hatchet, tomahawk or whatever does not in the least mean I am going to be murdering people. The stats on liberalized gun ownership show that each time violent crime drops.
The idiot politicians should have called the barrel the "gun" and not the lower receiver. It's a whole lot harder to make the barrel that's accurate and won't explode than it is to make a spring loaded hammer.
Anyone had a look at one of these? How good is it as a CNC mill in general?
You mean water heaters, 6 ft of copper tube, and a few pounds of stainless nuts?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
The barrel is 1) the hardest part of a gun to make
It depends on the gun. For rifles, it is true. For shotguns, you can literally take steel pipe of the appropriate diameter, and it works great.
The other problem with making barrels regulated is that they're one of the few parts of the gun that not only wears down, but does so at a rather fast and predictable rate - unlike the receiver. Consequently, making barrels regulated would meet with significant pushback from gun owners (and not just the NRA 2A absolutist crowd).
You can apparently make a 9mm submachine gun (albeit with unrifled barrel, so effective range is under 50m) with plumbing parts from the hardware store.
(We know that it's a real thing because the author of this book was imprisoned for actually making one after publishing it.)
Did you mean "fools and their 3D printers"?
BTW, did you know that a working gun capable of shooting full-power shotgun shells can be made out of two pieces of steel tubing and a nail?
It might seem easy. It might seem to make sense. But no matter what the thing is, guns, drugs, food, etc. you will never succeed in tackling a problem by dealing with the supply of something. Given sufficient demand, there will always be a supply or a near-equivalent alternative. History refuses to tell the story differently. Supply side restrictions always fail.
The problem itself must be tackled, not the tools, not the side-effects. You have to address demand. If someone wants to cause harm, they will, by whatever means are available to them be it a gun, a kitchen knife, or a number 2 pencil. Desperate people perform desperate deeds. Malfunctioning minds conceive malformed intentions. Start here first, not last, if ever.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
In US, the only part of the firearm that is controlled is the serialized part of the receiver. Usually it's the lower, though on some guns it's the upper. Everything else is just parts, and can literally be bought on Amazon or eBay and shipped to your door.
One exception is stuff that has to do with making guns full auto. The regulatory agency in charge of enforcing that law has declared a while ago that such parts are classified as "machine guns" all by themselves. It's not entirely consistent - for example, an AR bolt that has all the proper cuts for full auto operation is not considered a machine gun, but an AR sear is. Lightning link is considered a machine gun. In fact, at one point they classified a shoe string with one end tied to the reciprocating charging handle (e.g. on AK), and the other end to the trigger, to be a machine gun - and I don't mean the entire arrangement, but just the string "of the proper length" itself (this has since been rescinded).
Milling a full auto AR lower would be considered "manufacturing a machine gun", and is banned outright unless it is for law enforcement or military use (and then you need a bunch of licenses for that). OTOH, milling a semi-auto lower is perfectly legal so long as you don't intend to sell it; you don't even need to serialize it or register it in any way.
Except 14 rear olds generally live in their parent's house, and brewing takes a long enough time to risk discovery by said parents.
You would think the same would apply to inmates (whom live in a jail cell surrounded by cops). However, the prison wine keeps getting made alongside weapons. San Quentin even has a museum for some of the contraband they've found...
Show me on the 1st Amendment bobblehead where the moderator touched you...
because they hate us and want us to die. That is why they're flooding the streets with guns. 3D printers make it even faster and more effective. They are more effecting at making us constantly die. That is what this is about.
Yippeee! That means I can get the anti tank weapon I've always lusted for. Those SUVs don't stand a chance!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Whoever thinks that making guns cheap and easy to fabricate without skills is a good idea, is nuts.
We live in a world where the knowledge of how to make a nuclear weapon can be found on wikipedia.
Let me put your mind at a bit more ease... MOST of what you may need is on Wikipedia, including the theory behind how such a device might work, however, actually getting past the technical issues necessary to actually build a working device, including production of the fuel and building a working way to trigger the device are NOT straight forward or easy to do and really easy to get wrong. But the real problem for making a nuclear weapon is acquiring the fuel. It is tightly controlled and manufacturing fuel takes large amounts of equipment.
It's not impossible, but it's going to be pretty hard to do it w/o getting the attention of some powerful countries who are going to do their best to stop you..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Well you apparently live in a nominally sane world. Americans, not so much.
That is, in a nutshell, the whole underlying stupidity about this issue. The receiver is bullshit and it's legal status is just some bizarre American fetish. The barrel and breech - which are the hard parts (which the idiot Wired reporter had to ahem, purchase) and WHICH CANNOT BE MADE BY 3D PRINTING - at least for quite some time.
So this is just posturing plain and simple.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Look up STEN gun sometime. The Brits developed it as a SMG that could be easily manufactured just about anywhere (including your garage), Just In Case the Germans invaded the UK. It was later used by the British Army in WW2, and not really all that different from what you're describing here.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Surely bucking for a Darwin Award... Put the long gun away dude.... Conceal and carry...
He was just looking for attention and hoping he could get the cops to do something stupid while he was recording it with his cell phone.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Having a restraining order, felony conviction, conviction of a crime would could get you a sentence of more than 1 year, and having a misdemeanor conviction of domestic violence all make you a prohibited buyer and the NCIC check *should* catch it.
https://www.atf.gov/file/61446...
That is the 4473 form, which the buyer fills out when purchasing from a licensed dealer.
Face to face private transactions are legal where I am (and in many states) but as a personal thing if a buyer doesn't have a CCW permit then I pay the $20 to transfer it to them thru a local FFL.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
True, but none of the rest of the working weapon are regulated and can be purchased, sold and shipped freely. The part he made though, is highly regulated and CANNOT be sold and shipped freely. It's a matter of law...
The whole thing really stems from the stupid law though. But that's the problem with writing laws. It's really hard to craft a law that doesn't end up having stupid side effects like this. When you add to the difficulty of writing laws a political culture where "doing something" equates to supporting the "feed the starving children act" (or what ever non-descriptive title they attach for PR reasons) it's a wonder we don't get more craziness. (Case in point.. "The Affordable Health Care Act" which was ANYTHING but affordable or about health care).
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I am aware of how hard it is to actually make the fuel undetected, my point was that the information is freely available.
It's not like you can ban aluminum. You used to be able to ban metal of a particular shape, but now people have the tools and information to make metal whatever shape they want.
It's way easier to ban a material like uranium or plutonium than it is to ban shapes. At least currently.
Yeah, I'm aware of the Sten. Mechanically it's probably very similar (it's about as simple as an open bolt design can get). But the beauty of what Luty did is going through a set of premade components readily available in hardware stores (mostly pipes) to come up with a list that requires no milling at all, and no other application of machining tools. The barrel of that thing, for example, is literally just a piece of pipe that just happens to be of the right diameter; so is the receiver. Consequently, not only you can make it in your garage, you don't need any tools for it other than a metal saw and a file. This is one step beyond even the Sten, which still requires some machining and welding to produce.
Yep. If you want to hit 100% you need to use dececants.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
All that would have done is kicked this whole conversation 3 or 4 years down the road until we have 3d printers that can do barrels.
I mean... cheap, widely available 3d printers that can do barrels.
Because... we already have 3d printers that can do barrels.
See how this whole gun control thing doesn't work?
When I was in high school, small town...4,000 population, middle of the country. If you saw a pickup truck in the school parking lot, including teachers, 99% of the time, there would be 1 or two guns in a gun rack, on the rear window. One being a shotgun the other being a rifle. Also, if it was hot outside, the windows would be down, if it was raining, the doors wouldn't be locked. Guys ran around with a skoal can in the hip pocket & a buck knife on their belt. Not one incident of "gun related crimes" EVER happened in schools. You had a beef with someone, you took it across the street AFTER school, duked it out for a while, declared someone the winner, someone the loser. Few days later you'd be hanging out in town having a beer with the same guy. Try that now, they'd toss you in jail and throw away the key. So, that begs the question...WHAT has changed? Perhaps single parent families, everyone living in a sub division with privacy fences, who have no idea who their neighbors are, schools/federal government removing any mention of God from every day life, the increase of violent video games, children growing up with a lack of respect for their elders, or anyone else. SOMETHING has changed since the days I attended high school in the 70's, and NOT for the better.
New York Democratic Congressman Steve Israel, two and a half years ago.
http://boingboing.net/2012/12/...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/an...
I should buy a half dozen crates of Mosins and have a free gun zone.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The easy way out of this for the feds is to serialized the barrel.
You're not correct. Not only are you not correct, you don't know enough to understand how this will be skirted.
Let me explain.
This kind of idiotic thing would lead to sympathetic manufacturers making and selling 36-48 inch barrels that people will cut and re-crown at home to make their own unserialized barrels at home.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Besides, we already have hobby lathes cheaper than 3D printers that can do high quality rifled barrels. It may take a full weekend to learn how to do it, but probably nowhere near that for many.
It's almost as if people are pushing for 3D printer control, but I'd say the reality is attention seeking idiots looking for a 3D printing option that will offend and scare yet is not pornographic so can make it onto the TV news.
I should add that the metal powder laser sintered 3D printers by their nature leave the object full of tiny little holes. That's fine for some things but as cannon casters found out centuries ago it sucks for barrels - instead of a gun you get a gun shaped fragmentation grenade.
There's some stuff that is already made of metal powder in applications where those little holes are unacceptable, and that's dealt with by a second step - heat it up and squash all the little holes out (forging). Getting a home budget device to do both would be a bit of a challenge.
A year and a half ago:
http://news.slashdot.org/story...
Metal barrel and all, with at least 2000 rounds through it according to a later press release:
https://blog.solidconcepts.com...
So yes, like I said before, the machines already exist to 3d print functional metal gun barrels, but they're just not widely available yet due to cost. Serializing barrels as a form of controlling guns in the age of 3d printing is already an obsolete idea.
Haven't taken over yet but are already in control of the police? Pretty big flaw in your conspiracy theory isn't it? Why would someone bother to take over when they already run the place?
Interesting problem....
I'm very pro gun. I'm going to be buying two rifles (AR-15 and AR-10) and two pistols (two Colt 1911s, a .45 and a .22) and will be training for competitive shooting.... I do believe that the second amendment means what it says (The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed) but we made a really boneheaded move in not requiring background checks, and not implementing waiting periods across the board. When I'm ready to buy the firearms, I won't be opposed to a waiting period. I don't see either a waiting period or background check as any sort of infringement.
Also I think the whole "assault rifle" ban was ridiculous; why is it that if I put a semi-auto lower receiver into a plain-looking rifle it was okay, but if I put it into an AR/AK-style rifle that "looks scary" it is suddenly something which needed to be banned?
The interesting issue this presents is this: should we implement background checks for 3D printers capable of sintering metal, or CNC milling machines? Of course for a machinist who already has access to such a machine, it's simple to replicate a pre-original-ban AR lower receiver which is very easily converted to fully automatic (which should not have been banned since that IS an infringement but that's beside the point at the moment).
The bottom line is this: we need to not coddle psychopaths and sociopaths, we need to not ignore warning signs, but to commit and treat them. Don't let people with serious illnesses suffer and let anger or violent tendencies fester. Treat the actual problem - and if it takes implementing universal health care so they can actually get access to proper mental health treatment, so be it. Health care SHOULD be a universal human right - and yes it is an entitlement - EVERYONE should be entitled to full health care.
Why punish the tool, or act like the tool is the problem? The real problem is society telling everyone FUCK YOU WE DON'T WANT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE then suddenly act surprised when a teenager with serious psychological problems steals his mom's firearms and shoots up a school, or when a mentally ill adult decides to shoot up a workplace. Why are we so shocked when we keep rejecting universal health care, and keep rejecting treating the mentally ill?
At one point, there were shooting leagues in schools, where students brought their firearms in. What school shootings were there? The only shootings at that point were ones carried out by the government, not by The People. The mentally ill were locked away (which IMHO is nearly as bad as not treating them at all which is what we do now - we pretend they don't deserve "free" health care) to protect society. My generation? No school shootings, and yet guys often had rifles in gun racks out in the parking lot. No problems with it.... but now we're scared of our own shadows, and a kindergartener drawing a picture of a gun or playing "cops and robbers" and pointing fingers at each other and saying "bang" results in expulsion.
We have our priorities all wrong, we misplace blame on the tools rather than the evil and/or mentally ill people who carry out the evil acts, and we act all shocked when the people we denied health care end up hurting others.
Sooo do we start instituting background checks for ANYTHING which can be used as a weapon or manufacture a weapon (CNC milling machines, die grinders, billet metal, pressure cookers, knives, plate glass, tubing, anything which is combustible, etc.) or do we fucking wake up and provide free treatment to the mentally ill and start locking them up if necessary?
I say we start treating the mentally ill, and if they are a threat so society keep them locked up and provide competent treatment until they are mentally stable, and stop blaming inanimate objects for society's failings.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Just to clarify, making a gun is legal in the US, for anyone legally able to possess one.
Provided that the gun in question is not automatic. Automatic means either that specially trained ATF technicians are able to coax it into firing more than once with a single pull of the trigger, or that it uses an open breech design.
Open breech means that the gun rests with the bolt back. Pulling the trigger releases the bolt to move forward into battery, where the gun fires. Special parts are needed to cause the gun to stop after a single shot, and the easy removal of those parts makes the gun automatic, even if those parts are present.
By contrast, in a closed breech gun, the trigger releases a firing pin or striker, starting the cycle. Special parts are needed to prevent the gun from firing again until the bolt returns to battery. Removal of those parts turns it into a nightmare machine, unable to reliably contain the pressure of the burning propellant.
But a closed breech allows a disconnect in the action, requiring that the trigger release for each cycle. Without those parts, or with worn parts, the gun is an automatic. With those parts, it is semi-automatic, or self-loading. Or, a lever allows the user to select between the two, making a select-fire gun.
To summarize:
Open breech = automatic (by decree)
Closed breech, disconnector = semi-automatic
Closed breech, no disconnector, or selectable disconnect = automatic.
Private ownership of automatics requires special licensing of the owner, and a special tax stamp paid on the gun. Those stamps have not been issued since 1986, but owner licenses are available.
An ordinary person can also get licensed to manufacture automatics, but because the ATF won't issue a stamp for their product, they can't make an automatic for personal use. They can only use that license only to make guns for entities that do not require NFA stamped guns, which basically means military and law enforcement.
Or, a person can get licensed to possess an automatic, and purchase a pre-1986 stamped gun. (Note that conversion devices like the Lightning like and the Drop-In Auto Sear [DIAS] count as guns here, as far as the law is concerned, even though they aren't guns.) Expect to spend about $10k getting started in this hobby.
Luty's SMG is an open breech design. Don't even think about building one. But the book is a good read. It will help you understand how the Taliban held off two global super-powers mostly using guns they made themselves. In caves. With hand tools.
Note 1: Conversion of an AR-15-clone is simple. Drill one hole in the right place, drop in one part, one spring and one roll pin, potentially swap out a few other parts, depending on the exact design of your clone, and you are done. But drill that hole without proper authorization and you are looking a 10 year felony sentence.
Note 2: Since we are living in a post-Constitutional, post-Rule of Law era, any owner of a semi-automatic gun can be arrested and charged for NFA violations at any time. The ATF technicians have years of experience getting guns to double fire, and access to soft primers that will fire nearly unprovoked. They also have all the time in the world to tinker with your gun, and they get paid a salary to do it. They will get your gun to double fire at least once, and away you go.
See that "Preview" button?
Getting a gun license here in the Netherlands is fairly hard, you need a background check, an endorsement from a gun club, and issuing the actual license is up to the chief of police and can be refused on any ground; you don't have an automatic right to a license even if you meet the formal criteria.
But once you have it, life is good. The only valid reason here to own a firearm is sport and hunting, so there's no discussion about "good" or "bad" guns, and the criteria for guns are very simple: a few rules like no full auto, no folding stock, but other than that any gun is legal if it fits in one of the recognised sports disciplines. That means AR15s or AK47s, and none of that 6 round mag crap: you can get a 100 round drum if you really want one. On the other hand, I know someone who had to turn in his rifle, not because it was scary, but it was a weird Italian training carbine with an odd size and caliber, and it didn't fit any of the disciplines.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
There is no good way to keep bad people from owning cars, cell phones, computers, kitchen knives, baseball bats, etc. Now guns are in this category as well.
That's missing the point of gun control. For example, anyone can own a car but can't legally drive one without a licence. Okay, they could illegally drive one, but that carries risk for them. More over, cars have many uses that don't involve killing people or animals. Guns, and particularly some types of gun, are designed specifically to cause injury or death.
It's more like chemicals and other dangerous substances that you need to jump through hoops to get. Sure, you can fabricate all that stuff yourself if you really want to, but most people don't so the controls work well. Sure, anyone can make a gun*, but it requires effort and skill and risk taking and most people don't bother. If an easy kit is available they might, so it makes sense to look at limiting access to it.
What really screws things is up the emergence of 3D printers.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
People with this attitude express it with the fervent hope that it will happen. I suppose mainly, so they can experience going out in a blaze of glorious he-man bullets, Peckinpah-style.
That's missing the point of gun control. For example, anyone can own a car but can't legally drive one without a licence.
Eh, kind of. The state typically reserves the right to seize unlicensed cars, and only a person with a driver's license can register a car in their name. In many places in the US, the cops can legally walk right onto your property in order to ticket you and finally tow away your vehicle for lack of registration, even if the tags are not visible from the street.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They don't number the barrels? Isn't it imperfections in the bore of the barrel that leave a signature on a bullet? Or is that just an issue with short barrels (ie handguns)? Can rifle bullets be matched with the barrel that shot them?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
> I know you are being sarcastic
:-)
How could you tell?
> 3d printing a gun certainly takes a lot of effort.
In 1985, using your own Laser Printer to print leaflets took a lot of effort and money. Apple's first LaserWriter cost just a shave under $8000. Add the cost of a Mac, you're well over $10,000. And this is in 1985 dollars.
Choice of software, at the time was painfully limited. MacDraw wasn't even around yet. So you could use MacPaint (painfully) and get low quality images on your laserwriter. You could use MacWrite, or Microsoft Word (such as it was) and get lots of neatly formatted text in multiple fonts and styles.
3D printing is only going to get cheaper and easier. The state of 3D printing today is the worst it will ever be.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Add even more letters to their TLA to justify its existence?
I thought we already did that and now it is the BATFE with explosives being the recent addition.
Time to offend someone
You sound similar to a friend of mine. He won't sell to someone unless they have a CCW, go through a FFL holder, or he personally knows them. The first firearm I ever purchased I bought from him but we had been friends for over 10 years at the time so it wasn't like he was selling it to some random person. I still have that SKS and it makes for a fun story when you tell people that you bought it from a cop.
Time to offend someone
You can already basically get a flame thrower shipped to you house for very little, and there is nothing stopping you from getting it. As far as poison gas goes it has been know for a long time that mixing bleach and ammonia is a bad idea.
Time to offend someone
People with this attitude express it with the fervent hope that it will happen. I suppose mainly, so they can experience going out in a blaze of glorious he-man bullets, Peckinpah-style.
Whereas in reality they'd hand over their toys and just get on with their otherwise mundane lives.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Luty's SMG is an open breech design. Don't even think about building one. But the book is a good read. It will help you understand how the Taliban held off two global super-powers mostly using guns they made themselves. In caves. With hand tools.
The Taliban's success against foreign armed forces was because they fought a guerilla war, rather than try to take them on in open conflict. This is an eminently sensible strategy, but it tells you nothing about how effective home made guns are compared with manufactured ones.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Sounds like you have a few tens of dollars burning a hole in your pocket.
Time to offend someone
A relative of mine was in court once, asking for a restraining order. She encountered a young woman with a broken arm who was crying because the judge hadn't granted a restraining order against the guy who broke it, and the young woman was frightened for her life.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You could easily make one, it isn't like the directions are hard to find.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
No, not really.
There are a number of lathe or hydraulic press attachments available. And lathes are much more comon than CNC mills or a single purpose Ghost Gunner mill. You could buy the carbide buttons and a pull rod and take a community college night class to get access to the machinery easily if you don't have it in your home shop like I do*.
*My lathe is a bit short for rifle barrels, but I can do pistols just fine.
Have gnu, will travel.
The "unprecedented storm" already happened a few years ago, when a guy was convicted of "transferring a machine gun" because the semi-auto rifle that he owned malfunctioned and fired 3 rounds before jamming on the range. ATF actually "investigated" his rifle by sticking rounds with progressively softer primers into it until they could "reproduce" it. ATF also refused to provide the details of how they tested the rifle to conclude that it was a "machine gun", and when the guy sued to compel them to disclose those details, the court ruled against him - so to this date, ATF expert's word on the stand that they identified the gun as full auto somehow is all that is known. The guy got 30 months of federal prison.
Note that this is a failure mode that literally any semi-auto firearm firing from a closed bolt is capable of - all it takes is for the firing pin to get stuck in a forward position (for example, because of accumulation of carbon due to firing) and a sufficiently soft primer. It will also consistently cause a jam almost immediately, so it's not actually useful for any practical purpose.
I think what he means is that to fight a guerrilla war, you need to solve the logistics question, and that includes firearms. The fact that firearms like this one can be easily produced without pretty much any industry whatsoever, and only a few basic tools that only need to be imported once, allows the guerrillas to arm themselves, leaving only ammo to worry about. It's not just Taliban - Chechens employed a homemade SMG called "Borz" in 1994, and if you go back even further there's Sten and its various clones and derivatives (Blyskawica used by the Polish resistance in WW2, Pleter and Zagi used by Croats in their independence war and in Bosnia etc).
Sure, anyone can make a gun*, but it requires effort and skill and risk taking and most people don't bother. If an easy kit is available they might, so it makes sense to look at limiting access to it.
What really screws things is up the emergence of 3D printers.
That was my point. Guns are in the category of "can not keep people from getting", *because* of the emergence of 3D printers.
The OP said:
Whoever thinks that making guns cheap and easy to fabricate without skills is a good idea, is nuts.
As if it was some decision made by a person in a position of authority. All it takes is one nut to figure out how to do it cheaply, and the toothpaste is out of the tube, and there is no putting it back in.
Now that the building blocks for this technology exist, what were the odds that 0 people out of 7 billion would figure out how to make cheap guns and release this information to the public? 0%.
That's my point. It doesn't matter if it's a good idea or not. All it takes is one person to do it, and then we live in a world where it's easy.
You can't even ban 3D printers, because not only do we have 3D printers that print out their own parts, you would just be uniting the gun nuts and the maker movement.
I don't really have a need for more than one AR-15. The mill alone costs more than a new AR-15 from Colt. It costs twice as much as the Armalite products. It's cool to say I did it and all, but I didn't really. I bought a bunch of parts and did a little bit of milling on one of them. I "made" the gun in much the way that I "made" my motorcycle because I changed the tires and the oil.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
Show me a country where things got better after the peasants were no longer allowed to possess the means to defend themselves.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
The point of gun control is people control. It's not about lowering crime, it's about ensuring that politicians do not have to fear armed rebellion. Just remember, the worst school massacre in US history didn't involve a gun, just a pissed off school employee with home made explosives and a baseball bat. James Holmes could have killed FAR more people in that movie theater if he'd just gone to Walmart and bought some bike chains, kerosene, and matches.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
And corrupt politicians (and the violent thugs who serve them).
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
What the hell does that have to do with anything? Who's not allowing anything? Regulation is used to do things like keep felons, drunks, and the mentally unstable from having weapons, in this case guns. Feel free to spare me of any "slippery slope" bullshit.
What I can do is say that every country has become better when peasants no longer need to defend themselves...like in the US, where carrying a gun around is probably overall about as likely to save your life from an attacker as carrying a grounding rod will save you from getting struck by lightning.
Well uranium can be mined in a lot of places where people live. There are places in the US where simply walking outside and picking up a couple rocks will net you a few ppm of uranium. Finding abandoned mines and picking up some of the tailing will often net a pretty decent concentration.
I only point this out because getting a decent purity of uranium from rocks is probably the least of your problem if you need a particular isotope.
why would the perp leave it behind at the scene of the crime?
Because registration has very little to do with crimes. It's about printing out a list, going down the street and telling people to please hand them in.
Have gnu, will travel.
Barrels are not serialized.
Bullets can be matched up to a point. What you're describing are known an individual characteristics, which are the unique properties of each barrel. Those properties change through regular wear and tear, or by deliberate action such as running a file or other abrasive down the barrel. My hunting rifle is a tack driver, but over time it will start getting worse and worse due to wear. In my case, it will happen quickly as the rifle is a magnum. If I were a suspect, the cops would need to get hold of my rifle quickly before I go for target practice because the properties of my barrel would change. In my case, I'd go to the range and fire off a munch rounds in quick succession, heating up the barrel so it wears faster. My rifle is uncommon enough that just based on the class characteristics, it may be enough to stand up in court.
On certain rifles, such as anything from Savage or an AR, it's pretty easy to change out a barrel, or even change the caliber entirely. I can change out a Savage barrel in about 20 minutes.
Of course, this is assuming that you have a suspect and a rifle to test.
We had a freind who was in the war. He knew guns and we thought he liked them. But he said one day that he saw no need for assault rifles.
We asked him why. It turned out that he had been a tank commander, and thought anything smaller than a 100mm bore was too small for practical use!
8-)
"high capacity mag"
If you're referring to a 30 round magzine, that would be a "normal capacity" magazine for an AR-15. Something that doesn't ship standard from the factory (50 round drum, etc) would be a "high capacity" magazine.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Looks like they sidetracked the porosity issue by using Inconel 625 - very high strength titanium but very high price so still a bit tricky for hobby use.
Who's not allowing anything?
Promotes banning things, then says "who's not allowing anything". Many laughs were had. Sadly, every person who wants to ban guns says "I don't want to ban guns". Just like how politicians say "I want to protect freedom" when voting for / signing a bill that takes away freedom.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Speaks to the third person of the original post, then sets up a straw man. Many faces were palmed. Sadly normal people who enjoy shooting for sport or collecting guns for craftsmanship and what not are drowned out by you morons who don't realize that regulation!=ban.
Read it again because I never said ban anything. That's your paranoia, sonny.
And since we're a few comments deep and we've clearly pigeon holed each other...what the fuck would satisfy you (who's handle means "dead bell" for god knows what reason (yeah I'm one to talk) and I assume is the type to make a youtube video of carrying a rifle into Wendy's to make a statement)? Every newborn infant gets an AR15 for the right hand and an AK47 for the left? And of course the doctors and nurses need to be strapped in case the kid's a terrorist? Or should we also replace fire extinguishers with sawed off shotguns for good measure?
Seriously (as if thats possible at this point..) what's your end game? The US already has the most guns per capita IN. THE. WORLD. Nearly 1-1. Its like 50% more than the next highest country which I think is freaking Serbia, a country thats never 5 years out from civil war. Stop being such a pussy when you already have everything you could possibly want and have to invent boogey men to fight.
Gun shows in most states legally bypass many of the regular laws. Has that changed?
That is a lie. The ONLY change a gun show allows is a Federal Firearms Licensee to transfer a firearm at the gun show instead of at the business location. Every law is still in force and enforced even at gunshows.
Yes, but it was my understanding that there is a lot of 'wink wink' going on at gun shows. The laws are present, but not enforced. My only evidence of this is a undercover 60 minutes-like documentary. Has that not been your experience?
I've bought and sold at Gun shows. The ATF usually sets up a booth there and police are present providing security at the doors. FFL's have to log in and out every firearm received and sold/transferred with a to and from. If the to isn't an FFL they have to have a matching 4473 form, and the ATF audits them. People have and do go to jail for innocent paperwork errors. If there is anything intentional suspected then their business gets shut down until the investigation is over. Personal buys and sells are not wink/wink because there is likely as not undercover agents there as well. The 60 minutes documentary had the journalists actually committing several felonies and were(cough*David Gregory*cough) not prosecuted because of who they are.
The real reason for the whole gun show loophole propaganda is to get people who don't know about the laws and realities to push to make it illegal for private individuals to buy, sell, gift, and inherit guns to each other without going through a federal licensee/dealer. This raises the prices of guns by at least $100 per sale, and creates a de-facto gun registry so that later they can tell you like Dianne Feinstein wanted to "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here."