Sneaky Federal Bill to Ban ALL Guns !!! HR 1474

[drjoker]

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr1474/text

This bill seeks to ban all 3D printed guns. The following is the world's first 3d printed gun:
http://youtu.be/N3PMi2pz4NI

That gun at the beginning of the video is a "Liberator" and it fires .380 ACP about 8 times before it falls apart and is no longer usable. It is a single shot pistol and must be reloaded after every shot. The video makes a claim that is untrue. The Liberator is NOT all plastic. The design includes a metal insert to comply with the law that all guns must be detectable with metal detectors.

Remember when music used to be purchased in "Record Stores"? Now, almost all music is downloaded. Remember when movies used to be rented in Blockbusters? Now, many movies can be viewed online or downloaded; Hulu, Netflix, Crackle, Crunchyroll, etc. Soon, almost ALL physical objects will be downloadable with 3d printing technology. I own a 3d printer and it is truly mind boggling. Currently, the lower priced models only print plastic stuff, but with the metal object creating 3d printer patents (SLS) running out in 2014, consumer priced 3d printers that print quality guns and engines are only a year or two away. in 30 years, almost ALL guns you purchase will be bought digitally online then printed out on your printer at home (or at a local print shop if you don't own a 3d printer). I am not a psychic nor a lawyer so I don't know how the legal specifics will work out. Maybe you'll have your background check done at your local FFL, then purchase a lower receiver from your local FFL but print all the other parts at home? Or maybe you'll do an online background check by filling out some online form, then downloading a digital key that will allow you to print out on your 3d printer a gun with your name on it so that it's traceable to you? Or just download it with no background check as your 1st Amendment right and print it out as your 2nd Amendment right? I don't know how the specifics will work out, but I do know that ALL guns in the future will be 3d printed. Therefore....

A law that tries to ban 3d printed guns is an attempt to BAN ALL GUNS pre-emptively in the future with a law passed now. Please write your local congressman and senator to protest this bill. Write a snail mail letter NOW, not an email, and not a phone call. Nothing impresses a legislator more than a huge mountain of letters in their office! Tell your legistlor that you will not allow all guns to be banned in the future and oppose the language banning all 3d printed guns in the bill. You only support banning guns not detectable with a metal detector as this is the current law set to sunset soon and is expected to be renewed. (I actually don't support any gun ban at all, but we must be politically realistic) In other words, you only support the renewal of the undetectable firearms law with NO amendments. Please share this post with all your Facebook, Twitter, email, and blog friends. Also, call your local legislator, too, just in case they're about to make a vote on it and your letter will not arrive on time.

Thanks.

P.S. Here is an AR15 lower that is completely 3d printed being fired: http://youtu.be/ElgTP3c-XcQ
Check out this free online repository of 3d printed objects (but guns are banned on this website): http://www.thingiverse.com
The US Gov't censored the website with the downloadable guns so you'll have to use the infamous Pirate Bay and / or Bittorrent to download it.

 

[Ryanxia]

That would be a very interesting line of discussion what you said about doing an online background check and getting a 'product key' to download your gun.

There would be laws treating you giving that key to someone else the same as giving them a gun. But if you were 'hacked' it would be out of your hands. And even if they used the most complex encryption the government would find a way (by companies allowing them or by cracking like now) to monitor different keys/who's getting what. One hacker could potentially flood the market with product keys that would be equivalent to throwing guns off the turnup truck.

Of course the underground/black market will make all of this moot.
Sorry for the long post just thinking out loud (I do computers for a living).

 

[spottedpony]

I don't know how the specifics will work out, but I do know that ALL guns in the future will be 3d printed

My question is what inside information do you have that you "KNOW" all guns in the future will be 3d printed? just sayin...................

 

[hso]

ALL guns in the future will be 3d printed

Not germaine to this discussion anyway, but that's just fantasy.

Regardless, this sort of wrong headed legislation needs to be smacked down. I'm doubtful it could get through the House of Representatives, but it could get embedded in more important legislation and slip through.

What is your plan to oppose this and what reasons can others use in duplicating your plan?

 

[vamo]

Bill is going nowhere, if the mostly toothless feel good manchin toomey failed this will too. Not to mention this is certainly not a defacto ban on all guns, sure technology may progress to where 3d printers are the primary means of production ( I doubt it though plastic does have its limits as a material). However, if hypothetically 3d printed guns were banned gun manufactures would just continue to produce them via conventional means, worst case scenario guns are unnecessarily expensive due to people not being allowed to produce them with up to date technology.

 

[BullfrogKen]

You do realize that bills get introduced all the time that never go anywhere. They go into committee and die. This one's been there since April, and it's not moving out of there. In 5 months it's gotten a total of 6 co-sponsors.


Some Reps introduce bills because it gives the appearance they're actually doing something. Steve Israel (D) from New York City introduced this one. He currently serves on zero committees. He's serving on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which by the way is a position Rahm Emanuel held before going to work for the President.


What that means is the bill's sponsor is too busy running re-election and fundraising campaigns for House Democrats that he doesn't serve on committees any longer, or has the time to help gather support for bills he's introduced.


There are times to get motivated, organized, and act to oppose proposed legislation.

This isn't one of those times.

 

[two gun charlie]

I agree , I wouldn't lose any sleep over it , what is a Moderator Pluribus ?!

 

[BullfrogKen]

The Staph's idea of a joke.


One can never truly leave.

Just when I though I was out, they pull me back in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU

 

[Carl N. Brown]

The link is useful the next time some one claims "no one wants to ban, we just want reasonable control".

 

[drjoker]

vamo,

Yes, you're right. Such a ban on 3d printed guns wouldn't really ban guns but just increase prices. For example, what if CNC technology and other modern machine tools are banned in the making of guns? What if your local gunsmith made all your guns? In the 1700s, this was true and in today's dollars, the "Glock" (most common handgun) would cost $1500 in today's dollars. How many people on this board would no longer own a gun because it is too expensive? Banning the poor from buying a gun... is that gun control? Is gun control constitutional? I invite you to think about it like that.

Also, to those that say this bill won't be passed, think again! This bill IS ALREADY A LAW that is about to sunset. This bill is just supposed to renew the existing law. However, the legislator who introduced the bill sneaked in some extra language to ban 3d printed guns in addition to the original bill banning plastic guns. The bill passed into law once and it may pass into law again.

Please write your legislators and don't allow this unconstitutional robbing of our human rights. Thanks!

 

[Tirod]

Inserting new language into a old law makes it a new law. The 3D part isn't current, it's not law.

There are a few issues here - given some caution is needed, overstating things isn't. It's not a major problem yet, printing 3D guns is more expensive than just buying one. A bit of good old fashioned make do in the garage could fashion a gun - legally - and the owner use it. It would be more durable than the plastic junk coming out of a 3D printer setup. If you would like proof, get an appointment with your local PD and visit their display - most have the usual assortment of zip guns and NFA items they have confiscated, many are very old.

Why spend $1,500 on a printer and churn out a program in an obtuse programming language when you can buy most of the working parts of an authentic M16 for less than $600? A sheet metal receiver and some rudimentary shop work would have it functioning, and again, it would be legal. The average citizen's right to construct a firearm on a personal basis is at present completely unfettered. Banning 3D would only prevent us making bad ones at this point.

Possessing the tools, materials, and knowledge to fashion guns that can function can't be outlawed - it's really so basic and simple every step is common knowledge and entirely in the public domain. Let's survey the cluttered collection of stuff in my basement. Drill press? Yes, I can bore a barrel blank, button rifle it, and then thread the end for the barrel extention Stoner style. It only needs two lugs, and setting the head space by screwing in the extension would be simple. Pin in place. Mount that into a tubular receiver that with a slot for the bolt handle cum ejection port. Bolt is a heavy lump of metal shaped with lugs, drilled thru for firing pin hole, holding said pin in place. It only protrudes when it's locked.

The receiver tube is fixed to a stock with a trigger assembly, likely the most difficult part. Use a drop in AR 15 trigger assembly and be done with it. None of these parts requires heat treating or tempering, just shaping, other than springs.

Those of us who attended gun shows in the '80s or actually read the ad contents of the Shotgun News then are more than well aware of how easy it is to actually make a gun for our own legal use. Today's shooters building their own AR15's also know these facts, just surf the web ads for 20% to 80% receivers. Finishing one on the home workbench level nets you a working AR15 with no serial number - the precaution is that the intent is to never sell it. If you do, years later, then some mark needs to be put on it. By no means does that make it necessary to "register" it or anything like it. No one need know other than you. If another citizen never sees it, it literally doesn't exist, even if they do, so what?

I'm not saying the issue of attempting to ban something before it's even done is legal. What I am saying is that the whole issue of 3D printing is really overhyped. Again, why bother spending the money to make junk when a simple used household "appliance" and bit of effort could make guns of far more robust construction?

What I read in the overwrought hyperbole of making 3D guns is the important fact that we already can, and do, legally. It's being brushed aside with no mention, as if we can't. In that regard, it sounds like an agenda, crying wolf about not being able to do something that is actually a common habit with others in the hobby. 3D, schmee D, you can construct your own gun anyway, it's perfectly legal. We need to make that more well known, instead of ignoring it.