Do-It-Yourselfers And 3-D Printer Guns

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There was a thread recently on THR about someone who 'printed' a stripped lower receiver of an AR and assembled the rest and it worked pretty well according to him. It's pretty neat but I think it still falls under the manufacturing category and would need paper work with (otherwise it would be just another illegally built gun that people can do now with standard equipment).
 
Ryanxia said:
There was a thread recently on THR about someone who 'printed' a stripped lower receiver of an AR and assembled the rest and it worked pretty well according to him. It's pretty neat but I think it still falls under the manufacturing category and would need paper work with (otherwise it would be just another illegally built gun that people can do now with standard equipment).
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And where in the USC does it it say its illegal to build a gun fro private use?

Oh thats right, nowhere.

It only says you cannot build them for sale without a MFG license.
 
As this topic grows in familiarity and spreads throughout our media, I wonder if it will be the catalyst that produces momentum for another round of gun control legislation. Such legislation might of course have all kinds of 'other' regs within. But as for 3D printing, the antis and their surrogates in the MSM won't likely have too difficult a time of selling the image of 8-year old Skippy downloading the data and printing up his own machine gun. 'Soccer moms' might not have the information on hand to see through such propaganda.
 
will be able to turn the project’s CAD designs into an operational gun capable of firing a standard .22 millimeter bullet, all in the privacy of their own garage.
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OHH NOO!! Anything but the .22 millimeter bullets.... Would those even break the skin?


Also, while it has been discussed here before, I think the idea of this article is interesting. Bring the law to people's attention and informing them of their ability to manufacture their own firearm.

On the flip side, it could be the beginning of a great downfall. As much drama as the 2nd amendment gets, I would hate to see the govt make a law restricting what we can print. This may be a way to restrict the 1st amendment too - we know congress has no problem passing laws that infringe on the bill of rights as it is...
 
As the article mentions, government restrictions on the owning of computer printers would be ridiculous, and impossible to enforce. Especially the type of printer mentioned in the article, which is actually capable of replicating the parts needed to build another printer just like itself.
 
Really it is the idea that is scary to the mainstream which garners it attention.

Because in reality this has already been being done, there is firearms that can be built from the least expensive CNC machines out of cheap metal flats.
Machines that could be purchased for around the price of the more prefessional printer they are using in this project, and built for much cheaper than that.
People have been doing this and it has always been legal for personal use, the mainstream just doesn't realize it and associates firearm sources with large manufacturers.

There is also instructions out there that allow anyone to make something like a submachinegun. The guy that made such information available through this website in the UK was harassed a lot by authorities before he died: http://thehomegunsmith.com/

Taking it down to a $1,000 plastic printer that does it for you would be a new milestone, but they are talking about a single shot .22lr in this. While it could certainly get beyond that, it is not really a huge step considering anyone can make a single shot .22lr from a tube of metal already and a couple bucks in materials. A tube of metal that holds the round hit with something like a spring or elastic propelled nail is a free or really inexpensive thing done decades ago by children.
They created 'zip gun' laws in some states to ban it (and zip gun laws are really cosmetic.)

The delivery of the 'sales pitch' by the guy is what makes it seem innovative. Indeed it could become what is envisioned by them over time, especially as materials improve.
It would also be possible to create a design where something as simple as a tube of metal is added to increase the strength beyond just the plastic.
If the plastic can be close to necessary strength, then plastic reinforced with metal would work longer. At which point you could have semi-auto guns that could fire several magazines able to be printed inexpensively.




It should be noted that guns made by this machine would be illegal as handguns unless they include rifling in the bore.
Plastic rifling would not accomplish anything, and may reduce effectiveness and longevity of the design over smoothbore. However may legally be required.
 
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These printers have been around for many years. The cheaper, more affordable ones only cut plastic. For the better ones you would need to consider large loans so they would barely be worth the effort. Here are some of the cost and capabilites of them. I use Solidworks and they have offered this for at least the past 5 or more years.

http://www.additive3d.com/3dpr_cht.htm
 
The guy in the video seems to be flaunting if not vaguely taunting the legislative body about the idea. Might be poor choice of delivery on this subject.

When he describes how the 'wiki weapon' only needs to be designed for a single use, "it only needs to be lethal once"... it only brought to mind that composite pistol in the movie 'In the Line of Fire' that was designed to evade metal detection and for a single assassination use.

600px-ITLOFPlasticGun-1.jpg

So going back to the tone in which he's delivering, pitching the idea to the world; it's not going to be a difficult thing for the antis to suggest that, once the data is available on the internet, 8-year old Skippy or mental-job-Joe can print up his single use composite pistol and walk right through a metal detector to assassinate _______________ .

There wouldn't be any purpose or value in an attempt to regulate the printers as GCBurner states, but what they can't print could be the target of new law. Just like there has been no attempt to regulate the plain old hacksaw, but what is highly regulated is the amount of barrel you are allowed to remove with that saw.
 
The threat of such legislation is that it may outlaw the liberty to make undocumented homemade weapons freely.

Most people in the United States over 18 have the current legal freedom to make their own personal firearm, no permission, license, or documentation required.


In outlawing what people can print, the specific wording of such legislation may remove that freedom, making it illegal to build your own firearm without government permission.





Edit to add, I believe it is already illegal to make a firearm that does not contain enough metal to set off a typically calibrated metal detector.
The legislation goes into more specific detail on the exact amount of metal used for calibration.
Something similar applies to knives as well. Which has resulted in ceramic knives being made intentionally to set off metal detectors even though there is no functional need for material that would set one off.

So there is already a law that outlaws all plastic guns.
 
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