
Gunsmith Uses 3D Printer To Make A Rifle - jessicaSFNY
http://www.webpronews.com/gunsmith-uses-3d-printer-to-make-a-rifle-2012-07
======
ef4
Any competent machinist can make functional semiautomatic weapons. This is
just the next step in making it even easier.

If the United States ever got serious about banning firearms, a massive
homebrew industry would grow up overnight. Gunpowder is not fundamentally
harder to make than methamphetamine.

People who quite rightly see our drug laws as pointless and ineffective
somehow often miss that a gun ban would be no more effective in the United
States. If you want there to be less drugs or guns, you have to attack the
demand side, not the supply side. Suppressing supply while keeping demand
steady just ensures higher margins for the suppliers.

~~~
grecy
> If the United States ever got serious about banning firearms, a massive
> homebrew industry would grow up overnight.

Do you have any stats or experience to back that up? It might happen, but you
are stating as fact something that's not been tested.

Anecdotally, in Australia where gun laws are very strict, it's difficult to
get firearms. Yes, serious hardened criminals still get their hands on them,
which certainly is a problem. The average angry Joe can not simply legally
purchase a semi automatic or handgun to walk around to his antagonists house
and shoot them.

With a murder rate twice any other developed country[1], the United States
clearly has a serious violence problem, and taking guns out of the hands of
the average Joe would surely help reduce it.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

Using the argument of "Hardened criminals will still get them anyway" is like
saying we shouldn't have a law against murder because some people will do it
anyway, so it's a waste of time. The point is to deter or make it extremely
difficult for as many people as possible.

~~~
nitrogen
_With a murder rate twice any other developed country[1], the United States
clearly has a serious violence problem, and taking guns out of the hands of
the average Joe would surely help reduce it._

The second clause does not follow from the first. Murder in the US is heavily
demographically biased, and most gun owners are not murderers. Furthermore,
will you be the one going door to door to collect everyone's firearms? It
sounds like you are saying, "Surely, we must do something. This is something;
therefore, we must do this."

 _Using the argument of "Hardened criminals will still get them anyway" is
like saying we shouldn't have a law against murder because some people will do
it anyway, so it's a waste of time. The point is to deter or make it extremely
difficult for as many people as possible._

No, no it's not. You are conflating possession of a tool with misuse of the
tool to commit a crime. The US has been trying to make it "extremely difficult
for as many people as possible" to do a lot of things, and failed
spectacularly. Now imagine that same level of failure applied to something
protected in the US constitution.

~~~
drhayes9
To be fair, this tool has only one use: it kills things.

Whenever I see arguments about how we should ban cars because they kill more
people than guns per year, I always think about that. Cars are good for all
kinds of things, and they happen to incidentally cause death. Guns are pretty
much only good for killing things.

I live in the U.S. I'm not saying we should uniformly ban all weapons, period;
I think the issue is more nuanced than that. But it seems hard to defend the
fact that introducing guns into a dangerous situation would do anything other
than make it more deadly.

~~~
lgbr
> To be fair, this tool has only one use: it kills things.

I disagree. A gun's primary use for law abiding citizens is that it
intimidates things. The most effective way to use a gun is simply to deter
crime.

You wouldn't say that the reason the United States and the Soviet Union
stockpiled nuclear weapons was because they wanted to level each others'
cities. It was simply deterrence.

~~~
jarek
> A gun's primary use for law abiding citizens is that it intimidates things.
> The most effective way to use a gun is simply to deter crime.

A purpose they are quite clearly failing at. So the question is what, if
anything, citizens of the U.S.A. wish to do about the fact that, empirically,
legality and availability of guns has not resulted in crime rates comparable
to comparable states.

~~~
learc83
That doesn't follow. There are no comparable states with a comparable history,
demography, economy, and culture.

It's possible that gun ownership deters crime, but that something else unique
to the U.S. is causing more crime than gun ownership is countering.

The only thing you could possibly do is to compare parts of the US to each
other, and in that case you'll find that locations with stricter gun laws have
_more_ gun violence.

You could conclude that gun laws cause gun violence, but that would be stupid
because many times gun laws exist because of gun violence. What's the
difference between my conclusion and yours?

Concluding that guns cause violence without real hard evidence and
subsequently banning them is like using the unproven gateway drug theory to
justify locking up people for smoking pot.

~~~
jarek
Ah, yes, the U.S. exceptionalism. No other country like it! No one else could
have an invasive dominant culture, a disadvantaged minority group, large
prosperity divides, and a God-given fear of groups of other people (you call
it "government").

Oh well. It's no water off my back if you guys are fine with answering my
original question with "nothing" and continuing shooting each other up as
price of freedom.

~~~
learc83
>There are no comparable states with a comparable history, demography,
economy, and culture.

American exceptionalism refers to the primarily used meaning of exceptional as
"unusually good." I never remotely said that.

America is different, not better. I'd also argue that you can't compare
Germany to Spain. Does that mean I think Germany is better?

You also didn't answer my argument. Can you point to another country with
comparable history, demography, economy, and culture that has passed a gun
ban. Or should I just go ahead and hand over my gun, based on your unsupported
fears?

~~~
jarek
> American exceptionalism refers to the primarily used meaning of exceptional
> as "unusually good."

I am aware. It's fun to use terms outside of their usual meanings sometimes.

I am not supporting a gun ban in the U.S. I'm asking what y'all wish to do
about your crime rate.

~~~
learc83
>I'm asking what y'all wish to do about your crime rate.

End drug prohibition.

~~~
jarek
Would be a start!

------
ChuckMcM
Doesn't pass the sniff test.

Chamber pressure in a .22 cal pistol is on the order of 20,000 PSI [1] The
tensile strength of thermoplastic at standard temperatures is 1/2 that [2] and
it goes down as the temperature goes up (its a _thermo_ plastic for a reason).
Firing a .22 caliber round using gunpowder would destroy the barrel on the
first firing.

Now I could believe you built the receiver and triggering mechanism on a
thermoplastic printer, but not the actual firing chamber.

[1] <http://www.lasc.us/SAAMIMaxPressure.htm> [2]
[http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/physical-properties-
thermo...](http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/physical-properties-
thermoplastics-d_808.html)

~~~
kwantam
The part that's 3d printed is the lower receiver. In an AR-15 style design,
the lower receiver doesn't handle any pressure at all, it just houses the
magazine and hammer/trigger/sear/safety, and connects to the upper
receiver/barrel assembly and the buttstock/buffer tube assembly.

People have made lower receivers out of aluminum basically forever. Aluminum
could maybe be made to handle .22lr type pressures, but certainly not .223rem
or bigger. A plastic lower is completely believable.

EDIT: to clarify, I meant if you wanted to make the _whole gun_ out of
aluminum you might be able to get away with it for a .22lr. Aluminum for a
lower receiver is absolutely no problem at all. Apologies for not being clear.

~~~
blangblang
If I recall correctly, the lower is also the only part of the assembled weapon
that requires registration.

~~~
mgarfias
Incorrect. The lower is the only part of the assembled weapon upon which a
serial # is applied and a tax is paid. It is also the # that is recorded on
the Form 4473 at the dealer when you purchase the weapon.

There is no federal level firearms registration (excepting NFA items), and
only a few states that do so as well.

~~~
mgarfias
Oh, and if you build it yourself (as this person has done), no tax need be
paid, no serial # need be applied, and all perfectly legal provided you have
not been restricted from purchasing a weapon through normal channels. That is,
a felon making a weapon is now a felon-in-possession, where a citizen with
full rights making one has not committed a crime.

~~~
jevinskie
It is recommended that you do apply a serial number because LEO may
incorrectly conclude that the firearm is illegal if they don't see one.

~~~
mgarfias
Yes, but there is no requirement to do so. Nor is that serial # available
anywhere to look up.

------
jff
I might be reading it wrong, but it looks to me like he printed a receiver and
placed all the moving parts and the barrel etc. in it. See "I printed a
modified version of the lower from cncguns.com"

~~~
Kallikrates
The receiver is the only part of the rifle that is controlled. Everything
other than the receiver can be bought on the internet without background
checks or registering of serial numbers.

~~~
jff
Yes, I know that part, I was simply pointing out that he did not necessarily
print out a barrel or trigger pin or any of the other many parts needed to
make a whole pistol.

------
tjic
A long post on the topic of CNC, printing firearms, and more from a few months
back:

[http://www.popehat.com/2011/10/06/the-third-wave-cnc-
stereol...](http://www.popehat.com/2011/10/06/the-third-wave-cnc-
stereolithography-and-the-end-of-gun-control/)

------
sneak
To be clear: he made a lower receiver, a very simple part and the one that has
the serial number stamped onto it, it is the "gun" part as far as the legal
authorities are concerned.

Every other part (upper receiver, barrel, magazine, trigger, hammer, etc) are
just "parts" that one can order untracked.

Making an entire functional weapon is still beyond the scope of most
inexpensive printers.

[http://www.quora.com/3D-Printing/How-much-does-it-cost-
today...](http://www.quora.com/3D-Printing/How-much-does-it-cost-today-
June-2012-to-purchase-a-3D-printer-that-can-print-all-of-the-parts-to-
assemble-a-functional-AK-47) (my question about this on Quora.)

------
ryanmarsh
I love how HN jumps immediately into a gun control debate and almost
completely misses the fact that what he printed is a long way from an AR-15.
It's just a piece of metal called the lower receiver. When I say lower
receiver, I believe he built just the shell not the trigger assembly or
bushings. In addition, the bolt and barrel (the upper) weren't manufactured.
But lets assume for a minute that he printed the entire thing from scratch,
how is this any different than the fact that anybody with a good machine shop
can produce a full AR-15 by hand?

------
jakeonthemove
Well, it's definitely possible to print a silencer, a pistol shouldn't be that
much harder. I'm afraid that this would make the governments impose stricter
laws on 3D printers, which is not a good thing...

~~~
duaneb
I'd be more scared if they could successfully manufacture lethal ammunition.

~~~
aidenn0
Then you don't understand the current market. Most ammunition is amazingly
easy to come by and the trade of it is fairly unregulated.

~~~
duaneb
Wow, in that case this is very scary.

------
Strallus
Seriously, what happened to real journalism?

Articles are now being written based on a handful of unverified forum posts.
Really?

~~~
jessriedel
1) Betabeat isn't the NY Times.

2) Betabeat only reported that this forum existed and that someone had made
these claim, which is indisputably correct. You may think it's not
particularly news worthy, but online journalism is a big places and there's
plenty of room for everything.

3) Would you rather this article _not_ be written?

------
sp332
Man, they didn't show you _that_ in Star Trek...

edit: to be specific, they glossed over it instead of confronting a scenario
where an enemy hijacked a replicator to make whatever physical or chemical
weapons they wanted at a moment's notice.

~~~
simcop2387
Actually it was touched on in a number of episodes (which i don't feel like
digging up) but in more than once instance they mentioned that the replicators
had safety systems that prevented unauthorized creation of at least some
dangerous materials, (from what i recall, poisons were mentioned in one,
weapons themselves i'm not sure).

~~~
pyre
True, but what could be poisonous to one species, could be nutritious to
another. The idea that 'poisons' are easily identifiable is pure fantasy.

~~~
angrow
Everyone on the Enterprise can breath the same air and eaet the same food.

And if something is poison to even just a few of your crew, you forbid it and
tell everyone else to eat almonds instead of peanuts. :nerdingout:

~~~
sp332
A lot of things were "forbidden" by social pressures. Alcohol was freely
available (or maybe a simple security override, I can't remember) but no one
drank real alcohol.

------
cubicle
1.) Blogspam. OP is [http://www.webpronews.com/gunsmith-uses-3d-printer-to-
make-a...](http://www.webpronews.com/gunsmith-uses-3d-printer-to-make-a-
rifle-2012-07)

Does HN have any mods?

2.) Have blue has a blog, he's written two posts about this:
<http://haveblue.org/?p=1041> <http://haveblue.org/?p=1321> It appears to be
down right now, though. Cache links:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DlBe32...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DlBe32HJ0UsJ:haveblue.org/%3Fp%3D1041+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a)
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Z_5bOF...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Z_5bOFtsttMJ:haveblue.org/%3Fp%3D1321+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

3.) He printed a AR-15 lower receiver, which is the part, under US law,
considered a "firearm". The high pressure components (barrel, bolt) are all
made from conventional manufacturing processes, using steel.

Lowers are typically made out of aluminum, but they don't really experience
any great stresses, so it's perfectly possible to make them out of plastic.
(There's a number of commercial lowers made out of fiberglass:
<http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=65134> (I'd link directly to the
manufacturer's site, but it seems they're better at making guns than they are
at securing web servers)) As he notes, people have even carved them from wood.

