
3D-printed guns are back, and this time they are unstoppable - cinquemb
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/3d-printed-guns-blueprints
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whamlastxmas
3D printed guns are a stupid debate. A couple dollars worth of pipe at any
hardware store can be made into a zip gun that fires shotgun shells and it
would be tremendously more effective and reliable than anything 3D printed

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shiftpgdn
You are tremendously underestimating how far 3d printed guns have come in the
last year or two.

In specific the Glock lowers are good for hundreds of rounds (vs having to
load a shell at a time like a zip gun) and are just as accurate and useful as
the real thing.

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LyndsySimon
I think you might be underestimating what a "zip gun" can be.

Yeah, a "bang stick" is a couple of pieces of metal pipe with a nail for a
firing pin. It works once with a 12ga shotgun shell - but a Sten SMG can be
made from the same sort of materials, and is an effective SMG. They cost about
$10 each to make in 1942.

Plans are dead simple to find:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sten+plans&ia=images&iax=images](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sten+plans&ia=images&iax=images)

Here's a thread on another forum where a guy builds an AK receiver (which is
much more difficult to get right) from a shovel:
[https://www.northeastshooters.com/xen/threads/diy-shovel-
ak-...](https://www.northeastshooters.com/xen/threads/diy-shovel-ak-photo-
tsunami-warning.179192/)

Check out this 9mm machine pistol, produced by R9 Arms:
[https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/08/11/mystery-9mm-m...](https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/08/11/mystery-9mm-
machine-pistol-seized-europe/)

There's one problem with that - there is no such company as "R9 Arms". These
things have been showing up all over Europe for the past few years, and
they're definitely a "professional" product... made by a company that doesn't
exist. The best guess is that they're being made somewhere in Croatia, but to
my knowledge that's based only on the fact that several were seized there
shortly after they appeared.

The fact is, it's easy to make a firearm. It's actually easier to make a full-
auto firearm than it is to make a semi-auto - a semi-auto is effectively a
full-auto with an extra design step to include a disconnector that prevents it
from continuing to fire.

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didibus
Putting aside any discussion about whether it should or should not be allowed.
The article claims the sharing of the 3D prints can't be stopped. But I find
that untrue. Wouldn't similar means as taken for child pornography be able to
block the distribution in a similar way? Maybe you couldn't stop it
completely, like child porn still finds its way out, but it could be made much
more difficult to share. I don't see anything particularly more difficult
related to the fact they are CAD models. Maybe identifying a gun model from
non gun CAD models would prove more challenging then for images?

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Fjolsvith
In the US, creating and sharing an image of a gun part would never meet the
same level of harm criteria of creating and sharing an image of child
pornography, thus allowing 1st amendment protection.

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didibus
I was more interested in the technical side. Since I felt the article was
claiming it couldn't be blocked due to its decentralized nature. Though maybe
I misread, and they meant it couldn't be stopped in the legal sense.

