
Weapons made with 3-D printers could test gun-control efforts - jamessun
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/weapons-made-with-3-d-printers-could-test-gun-control-efforts/2013/02/18/9ad8b45e-779b-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_print.html
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DanielBMarkham
We've had a problem over the last decade or so: how do governments deal with
populations where the individuals have more and more power?

America has traditionally been more libertarian than most countries, so the
crisis isn't as bad here, but we still see the signs. We're outlawing doing
certain kinds of reverse engineering, we're making copyright violations a
criminal offense, and so forth. (Most of our government reaction has been in
the form of protecting large industries).

Some other countries are seeing crackdowns on where you can go on the
internet, who you can talk to. To those countries, individuals simply having
the power to gather information is too much for them.

I hate to make cataclysmic predictions, but I think the U.S. is going to get
pulled more and more into your house and head. Where you surf, what you
consume, what kinds of things you print on your 3-D printers. 3-D printing is
the thing that is going to change everything, because now we can _make_
whatever we need without having to rely on established patterns of commerce
(which the government can control).

If it helps any, I don't think this is some sort of deliberate power grab.
Quite frankly I don't think the people we have running things are anywhere
near qualified enough to be making the decisions they are, On top of that, we
have no examples throughout history of a government with the ability to
control and monitor so much of each person's life. There's no precedent.

3-D printing, to me, is the one tech that over the next 50 years or so will
dramatically change everything. Robots are a close second. Fun times to be
alive! (Or perhaps a more accurate word than "fun" would be "interesting")

~~~
jrogers65
It'll be even more fun when argiculture and currency become distributed. I
know that we already have bitcoin but imagine if it entered the mainstream.
The powers that be would be reeling since they would effectively no longer be
relevant and would have very little influence left.

Personally, I think that this is all going to cause today's authorities to
become increasingly violent until they collapse as a result of the new ways
making them obsolete. Then we just might see another golden age for humanity.
My forecast is thunderstorms followed by bright sunshine.

~~~
jstalin
I think you're right, particularly when it comes to currency. Currency is the
absolutely pinnacle of power of modern governments. Loss of that power means
weaker governments. Most people don't realize that for much of the USA's early
existence, currency was essentially outsourced to the Spanish Empire in the
form of silver coins.

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knowaveragejoe
More sensationalism about 3D printed guns. People, please - nobody is going to
be printing a functioning gun purely out of ABS plastic on a <$1k hobby
printer for a long time(if ever).

The only people who might be printing guns(requiring pretty rigorous touchup
after the printing process) are those with access with extremely expensive
printers that can print metal.

I sincerely hope this doesn't lead to regulating 3d printing into oblivion.
Just like the entertainment industry wishes it got the jump on filesharing,
I'm sure big manufacturing is prepping its lobbying efforts.

~~~
armored_mammal
Yes, the fact the article refers to > than 1k (but still not terribly
expensive) printers using 'advanced polymer' instead of ABS makes it yet
another article about using pure ABS plastic on a sub-1k printer...

I'll agree that metal is probably a requirement for a barrel. But barrels are
not controlled or restricted. Neither are magazines, which we know can be
printed already with some success.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I'd love to see some 'advanced polymers' that can handle the stress of a
caliber greater than .22LR(which is what Defense Distributed tested with),
while simultaneously being printed with the precision necessary from a printer
costing <$10k.

It's also worth pointing out you can already buy all of the components
necessary to assemble your own firearm, all without a serial number. I think
the deeper issue here is, as another comment pointed out, there are entrenched
interests promoting this hysteria to garner public sentiment for regulation by
making the scary applications glaringly obvious and overshadowing the
beneficial implications of the technology.

~~~
damoncali
_It's also worth pointing out you can already buy all of the components
necessary to assemble your own firearm, all without a serial number_

Not exactly true. Every legal gun has one part with a serial number that
defines the gun legally. Usually (always?) it's the receiver. There are some
grey areas where you can get an almost finished receiver free of regulation.

~~~
armored_mammal
The comment was referencing the fact that you can make a gun for yourself
without a serial number as long as you don't sell it or do anything with it
that is defined as 'transfer.'

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winestock
It's almost a year old, but Scott Locklin's comments are still pertinent,
especially since it discusses the AR-15 which the Washington Post article
discusses.

[https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/bad-
engineerin...](https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/bad-engineering-
journalism-reporting-on-3-d-printing-of-guns/)

~~~
knowaveragejoe
Thanks for posting this, very insightful comments on there.

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jstanley
Why is 3D printing a gun any different to making one with machining tools?
Surely the same laws should apply, and this is just an advancement of home-
manufacturing technology that has no real involvement with gun laws.

~~~
kabdib
It's relatively easy to manufacture most of an AK-47 using machines that are
affordable and that fit in a garage (the exception being rifled barrels, but
those are relatively easy to find). In the US, it's also perfectly legal, as
long as the firearm is not capable of automatic fire. If you have a CNC mill,
you can make your own AR-15 (again, you'll probably have to buy a barrel).

The "OMG people will print guns" stuff is just hysteria and grandstanding.

~~~
damoncali
You're overstating the ease with which you can create a rifle with machine
tools. While it can be done, it is both time consuming and very difficult to
do in a home shop, or even a proper shop.

 _If_ 3D printers could print materials with the appropriate structural
characteristics (a huge if), it would be much easier.

I have serious doubts about that happening in my lifetime. It's quite a trick
to go from printing ABS to printing hardened steel.

~~~
talmand
You seem to be assuming that the term rifle always implies something
complicated like an AR-15 or AK.

The most likely reason someone would go about creating a rifle in their garage
due to an oppressive government is because most likely all guns have been
banned and confiscated. In that situation, the ability to create a simple
bolt-action rifle would be of immense value to anyone fighting the oppressive
government. For that matter, a good shotgun that doesn't require rifling is
better than nothing. Another option is to make smooth-bore musket types, in
the past they were accurate up to 100 yards or so.

Considering that in the past rifles were created by hand with simple tools, as
compared to today's technology, I don't find it hard to believe that a small
group of dedicated people can figure out how to make somewhat quality firearms
in their garage with modern tools.

This talk of people making something like an AR-15 from a printer anytime soon
is just someone that's looking for something political out of it, a scare the
populace tactic.

~~~
damoncali
It is harder to make a bolt action rifle than an AR-15. The skill and time
involved are substantial in both cases, but creating a heat treated bolt gun
receiver that works is no joke.

But what is much more interesting to me is the interplay between technology
and the law. The lower receiver, the regulated part, will be printable
(usefully so) within a decade in my view. That makes it possible for someone
with basic skills to own a proper semiautomatic rifle without the government
even knowing about it. Would that cause regulation of other parts like
barrels? Maybe, but barrels are expendable parts...I'm pretty sure the NRA
would blow a gasket over that for more than one reason. Triggers? How? What's
a "trigger?" Guns, like information, want to be free.

It all puts gun control advocates in a bit of a pickle. In fact, it puts
prohibitionists of all kinds in a pickle. And that is a good thing.

~~~
talmand
Well, I was speaking more in terms of functionality, not materials. I didn't
mean to imply that making a bolt action rifle was easy, but I find it hard to
believe it is harder to make a bolt action rifle versus a semi-automatic
AR-15. I'm not a gunsmith, so I could be wrong but the difference in
complexity between the two seems to suggest this. I would have to assume that
making a single action revolver would be easier than a semi-automatic handgun.

Discussions of quality of the resulting weapon is a different matter though.

If we had printers capable of making a functional gun, then the government can
try to regulate individual parts all they wanted. It would make no difference.
It's only a matter of time before there's a simple way of making a high
quality rifled barrel of your choice of caliber. They would have to look into
controlling the materials required; metals, gunpowder, and so on. Even then
that's a losing endeavor, simply because how can you tell the intentions of
the person buying the materials? You can't.

This goes beyond weapons, the ability to create nearly anything you want in
your home with no one knowing opens up a huge can of worms that I feel that
most people simply cannot comprehend.

~~~
damoncali
The difference is in the complexity of the parts. A bolt gun receiver is much
more complex to build than any part on an AR-15, which is the closest thing
out there to a gun you can just bolt together.

But yeah, this genie is not going back in the bottle.

------
AnthonyMouse
>He suggests one way to prevent dangerous, illegal usage of 3-D printers is to
better control gunpowder, an idea that has come up in gun control in the past.

Isn't gunpowder pretty easy to manufacture too? Not with a 3D printer,
obviously, but with common materials and a cursory knowledge of chemistry.

>When I tell them the law that would stop these plastic guns from getting onto
planes is expiring in just a few months, people are appalled.

This is the essence of missing the point. The issue with 3D printed weapons is
that you _can't_ ban them. I have to imagine that it's already illegal to
bring a gun onto a plane, so he has to be talking about banning their
manufacture, which is the exact thing 3D printing will make moot.

Can we please at some point graduate from trying to prohibit anything with a
sharp edge and instead try to address crime and terrorism at the root? I
realize that isn't as profitable with campaign contributors or as rhetorically
effective in frightening the voters, but the point of a representative rather
than direct democracy is that legislators are supposed to make hard or
unpopular decisions when it's necessary.

~~~
talmand
Today's politics and laws are about emotion. A group has an emotional crisis
so a law must be written to address it. Most bad things in life are already
illegal, but there seems to be the desire to add more laws to address that
specific thing that bothers that specific group. Even though it is already
covered by a number of other laws. Politicians take advantage of this with the
typical "we must do something!" or "we must do this for the 'whatever'"
(typically children) rhetoric that addresses the emotion but tosses out all
logic. It's similar to the perpetual war concept by always pointing over the
border at "the enemy".

The problem is that your average person doesn't know enough of what's going on
in the world and probably cannot do so anyway, that's the point of a
representative government. That's another thing that politician's take
advantage of, a person's willingness to believe whatever an "expert" states.
Of course it's illegal to carry a firearm onto a plane, except for certain
situations (police and so forth), but when someone of authority says that laws
that prevent plastic guns from going on planes are expiring the average people
assume the politician means that it will suddenly be legal to do so. That's
not necessarily true, there are several other laws to prevent such a thing
from happening. But the authority figure in his rhetoric chooses not to
mention that.

As for almost all gun ban laws in place or have ever been proposed, if you
take a hard look, do nothing in terms of preventing any other laws from being
broken. Most mass shootings happen in areas where it is known the likelihood
of another gun being on the premises is low because the law makes it a "gun-
free zone". Gun ban laws tend to lean towards banning guns based on cosmetic
features, not the actual functionality of the weapons involved.

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jamessun
There are just so many interesting angles to this story. I'll start with just
one...

The government is always behind the curve when it comes to regulating
technology. The rise of text messaging has forced local and state governments
to create new laws to discourage/punish distracted driving. Airbnb and Uber
have disrupted the traditional hotel and taxicab industries respectively, and
have caused lawmakers to rethink how best to regulate those industries.

3-D printing is on the verge of becoming a mainstream technology and we'll
continue to see more issues like the one highlighted in this story.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right of the people
to keep and bear arms. Does it also allow us to print our own weapons? Does
the First Amendment to the US Constitution protect websites that provide
instructions and blueprints on how to print your own weapons (or parts of
weapons)?

~~~
damoncali
_Does it also allow us to print our own weapons?..._

The bill of rights restricts government, not the people. It is an important
distinction missed by many.

~~~
talmand
Hear, hear!

------
andmarios
I guess in the 90's someone could have written an article by the title
«Digital copies made with computers could test copyright control efforts».

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pegas123
3d printing guns might be bad news for opressive regimes. I grew up under one,
remember all the measures to regulate the use of xerox copy machines. A book
was an enemy of the regime. Imagine guns instead. Now, where to get enough
amunition?

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drofmij
You don't need 3-D printers to make guns. They can be quite easily made in any
machine shop - albeit with varying degrees of success.

Zipguns / improvised firearms have been a thing for a long time ->
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm>

Gunpowder is pretty easy to make as well.

Stop whining about 3-D printers it's not that big of a deal in regards to
guns.

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makomk
They're probably not going to test gun control as much as the press thinks.
Calibrating cheap 3D printers is hard, and chances are it's going to take
quite a bit of tweaking to print off a reliable magazine or other part on a
new printer. I can easily see would-be spree killers getting stopped mid-
massacre because their misprinted magazine jammed.

~~~
nathan_long
Calibrating cheap 3D printers is hard _right now_. That doesn't mean it always
will be. The good ones will get cheaper and the cheap ones will get better.

It used to be hard to get a computer to use a new paper printer at all. Now
it's almost always plug-and-play.

You could imagine a 3D printer that prints test objects, scans them in great
detail to find defects, and calibrates itself accordingly.

~~~
talmand
Exactly right. Computers used to be hard to build by hand years ago, you had
to solder your own boards for gosh sakes. These days you buy the components
off the shelf and stick them together correctly.

What is hard today will most likely be easy tomorrow.

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teyc
Gun control or the lack of it in the U.S. is ultimately due to regulatory
capture by the gun industry. I'm sure legislators will draft into laws
provisions that would make sure the legal gun industry retains its commercial
upsides over 3D printing.

~~~
jstalin
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the tens of millions of people who lawfully
own guns...

~~~
teyc
Let's briefly talk about gun ownership issues. There are two classes of people
who use guns. Those who have a practical need for it, and those who use guns
recreationally.

The second group are not dissimilar to people who drive Dodge because they
want to honor the "farmer in themselves", or people who'd never take their 4WD
off-road. It is the same people who buys Harleys and tattoo Harley Davidson's
logo. These are "aspirationals".

These aspirations don't come out of no where. There's marketing dollars at
work.

Harley Davidson's may be a way of life for many, and represents an important
social outlet. It doesn't take away the fact the Harley Davidson is a
commercial endeavour.

Private gun ownership is a billion dollar per year industry in the U.S. This
is not a niche market. (Harley Davidson's motorcycle sales was $771m per
quarter).

My thesis is that the NRA, being driven by commercial interests rather than
2nd amendment ideals, will come out in opposition to 3D printing of arms.

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vaadu
Can we stop calling the process 3D printing?

print·ing /ˈprintiNG/ Noun

1\. The production of books, newspapers, or other printed material.

2\. A single impression of a book.

Synonyms print - press - impression - typography

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
No, because it is a good name.

With 3d printers you are printing layers, like a conventional printer, but one
over the others. In fact you could even use the same heads, I could 3d print
wax with my printer and an Epson Inkjet head.

------
damoncali
Link to the mentioned site, Defense Distributed:
<http://defensedistributed.com/>

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ck2
Drunks often don't obey anti-drunk driving laws.

But we still have those laws for darn good reasons.

There is nothing wrong with having gun control laws.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
It seems like a different sort of a thing. The trouble with drunk driving is
that someone is doing something dangerous that could cause someone to get hurt
unintentionally. The trouble with guns is that bad people intentionally use
them to do bad things.

Stopping the drunk on the seventeenth instance of driving drunk makes good
sense, because it stops someone getting hurt on the ninety fourth instance.

Stopping someone intent on committing murder on the seventeenth instance is
too little too late. You have to stop them the first time, or make it so that
they don't find murder to be an acceptable course of conduct regardless of the
legality of the tools.

>There is nothing wrong with having gun control laws.

There is something seriously wrong with having laws you can't enforce. It
erodes respect for the law in general and it promotes demagoguery and a
dangerous trend of expansion in police powers as the law inevitably proves to
be unenforceable, law enforcement demands dangerous powers that still don't
allow the law to be enforced, and the new powers fail to resolve the issue
that the law is unenforceable generating a renewed call for more new and
dangerous police powers.

~~~
talmand
Another example following your unenforceable laws logic, drug laws. Look at
how many civil liberties have been tossed to the side in the ever expanding
drug war, even though most applications of these laws these days having
nothing to do with drugs. No-knock raids are pretty much the standard on
serving a search warrant now.

