# Anonymous Hiring of Contract Killers **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 14, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703 "2012-10-14T17:07:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/21 "2012-10-15T15:43:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > None of the materials used by 3D printers are anywhere near strong enough to make a gun out of… For certain definitions of [3D printer](http://optomec.com/Additive-Manufacturing-Technology/Laser-Additive-Manufacturing), this is not the case. This is a computer controlled welding process that can weld arbitrary shapes, form high strength tool steel and/or titanium. Discolosure: I used to work for the linked company. Pom is competitor. The surface finish is poor, And the heat involved makes it hard to control dimensions precisely, so there would be plenty of post-machining needed to get something that would work, and it is nearly the most expensive way possible to build a gun, but you can do “3D” printing with some metals. Aluminum was actually pretty difficult for us to do. It reflects the laser, so heat absorbtion was poor, and it conducts the heat away from the weld pool like a mofo. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/22 "2012-10-15T15:54:22Z")
Where would one get bullets for a 3D printed gun? Seems to me, in places where firearms are banned, bullets would be harder to replace than a gun. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/23 "2012-10-15T16:11:33Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > Where would one get bullets for a 3D printed gun? Seems to me, in places where firearms are banned, bullets would be harder to replace than a gun. Just print up some shells and gunpowder. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/24 "2012-10-15T16:14:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The gun is easy; the 3D printer that can print it is still a fantasy. None of the materials used by 3D printers are anywhere near strong enough to make a gun out of, that may be true today, but give it a few years. > [@](#): > > and any hypothetical printer that could do it would almost certainly be far more expensive than the guns it could print: One printer is more expensive than one gun, but the printer can make lots of other things too. Cheaper in the long run to use the printer. > [@](#): > > Why buy a printer to make a gun, when you could just buy the gun itself directly? Sales of guns are restricted or illegal in some locations, and traceable. Printing tour own is anonymous. > [@](#): > > And even if you do want to make your own gun for some reason, it’d be much easier to just set up a machine shop in your basement and do it directly: That technology, at least, already exists. Requires certain skills that not everyone has. Could you do it? Anyone can print from a file. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/25 "2012-10-15T17:24:45Z")
Indeed I have a friend who works in a place that makes parts for jet engines (amongst other things) and from the way he tells it for a large part of his job he controls some machine with 4 degrees of freedom that works with TITANIUM of all things (and it can do other metals too). As I understand it that is super state of the art so not really relevant to the gun thing, but just sayin’ ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/26 "2012-10-15T20:08:15Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > What specifically would you like a cite for? Oh, You just seemed to be an expert of this big money business. I was just wondering how did You became such and why You are so eagerly discouraging other people from that career choice. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/27 "2012-10-15T20:53:26Z")
There are no free-lance hitmen. That is a Hollywood myth. There are plenty of violent people willing to kill strangers for various reasons, but they are not freelancers who sit around their villa waiting for a phone call. There are your governmental dirty-work guys. The president wants somebody whacked, he calls SEAL Team 6, and the guy gets whacked. Or he calls in someone from the CIA or some agency you never heard of. And there are organized crime guys willing to kill anyone, but they aren’t full time “hit men”. They’re busy with regular crime most of the time and even if they get a bonus from their boss for whacking some guy, they don’t accept cash from strangers on the internet to kill some random dude. And there are people you meet at the bar or the crack den who would be willing to kill someone for a bag of crack or a bit of money. But these aren’t professional killers, they’re professional fuckups. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/28 "2012-10-15T21:31:56Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > There are no free-lance hitmen. That is a Hollywood myth. I think you are probably right, but one can ask why this is so. It seems one big problem for the would-be hitman is that like a prostitute or drug-dealer, he needs to be somewhat find-able by prospective customers. But unlike a prostitute or drug-dealer, the authorities have no tolerance at all for contract killers. The next question is whether the anonymity offered by the internet is a possible solution to this problem. Based on what others have posted, it (thankfully) would seem not. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/29 "2012-10-15T23:04:27Z")
so what has this thread dissolved into–there _are no HITMEN?_ OR is it like a union thing? or they subcontract under bigger criminal corporations? or…? i mean it’s a thing, right? contract killing? so how does one find such person? and in what real-life ways does honesty and security come in to play that the internet wouldn’t allow? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/30 "2012-10-15T23:35:46Z")
In real-life, when Tony Soprano wants a guy whacked, he doesn’t thumb through the back pages of Soldier of Fortune magazine. He gets one of his buddies and tells him to do it. And he trusts his buddy because he and his buddy have been doing crimes together since forever. Or if none of his direct subordinates are suitable for this particular job, he goes to one of his peers and asks for a favor, in return for which at some future time, and may that time never come, Tony will do a favor for his peer mafioso. There is honesty and security in the arrangement because all these guys are full time professional criminals who do crime together all the time, and know each other intimately. In no circumstance do they contact an outsider to do a serious crime like murder. Same thing with governmental dirty work. Security services are known from time to time to make people disappear. They don’t make people disappear by calling in outsiders. They are dealt with by insiders. If your government organization doesn’t have a cadre of ruthless killers on the payroll, you’re not exactly the kind of agency to hire an outsider, are you? How are you going to budget that? So if Vladimir Putin wants some troublesome person disappeared, he calls someone and that someone makes it happen using in-house assets. And of course, your crackhead who will rob your house for crack, or give you a blowjob for crack, or kill your grandma for crack could be considered a contract killer. But there is no telling what your crackhead hitman will end up doing. Bottom line, there are no Hollywood style contract killers, where you want someone dead, call a guy and offer him ONE MILLION DOLLARS and two weeks later the target ends up with lead poisoning. There are mobsters and soldiers and such that kill as part of their job description. But they aren’t freelance professional killers, they are salaried professional killers. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/31 "2012-10-16T04:25:29Z")
Yeah, I recall a case where a few people were shot in a parking garage in NYC a few decades ago. A little hazy on the dtails, but the news article suggested some Soprano types were taking out some goon; there were two innocent bystanders who happened in on the scene and the idiot(s) decided to leave no witnesses. One was killed trying to hide behind a car. The author of the piece suggested that the guys were typical mob screw-ups; and that odds are they would never be found unless it was “sleeping with the fishes”. The author suggested the higher-ups in the mob seriously disliked screwups who killed innocent bystanders and brought attention and heat down onto them… and because hitmen were typically insiders, to avoid publicity the guys would disappear nice and quietly. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/32 "2012-10-16T04:32:27Z")
wasn’t that Iceman guy a contract killer? dude was like made of the fabric of nightmares. ---
**Author:** ![DxZero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DxZero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DxZero)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/33 "2012-10-17T04:11:28Z")
> [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > wasn’t that Iceman guy a contract killer? > > dude was like made of the fabric of nightmares. He was used exclusively by a particular mob family (well a couple of them, in a cooperative fashion). I guess there was nothing stopping him from freelancing though I don’t know that he ever did. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/34 "2012-10-18T20:35:45Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > Indeed I have a friend who works in a place that makes parts for jet engines (amongst other things) and from the way he tells it for a large part of his job he controls some machine with 4 degrees of freedom that works with TITANIUM of all things (and it can do other metals too). > > As I understand it that is super state of the art so not really relevant to the gun thing, but just sayin’ Does your friend work in South Dakota? If so, then I had a large part in designing their first machine. The second larger one, they did themselves. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/35 "2013-10-06T09:45:54Z")
The recent Silk Road bust got me thinking about this issue again. It occurs to me that one way around the “trust” problem is the use of a reputable escrow agency. Silk Road was apparently taking in millions of dollars a year in commissions. So it’s easy to imagine a new Silk Road emerging with more paranoid founders who don’t slip up and get caught. After a few years the new Silk Road captures more than 1% of the global drug trade, generating more than $50 million a year in revenue for its operators. Of course people will not know the exact revenue figures of the New Silk Road, but they will know it is profitable enough that it has a strong incentive to maintain its reputation. At that point, the New Silk Road could easily decide to start offering escrow services for assassinations. Thoughts? (Yes, I know this is an old thread so go right ahead with the jokes about zombie assassins or whatever) ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/36 "2013-10-06T10:04:40Z")
Aside from mob and gang enforcers and goons(who will not take freelance) there are no assassins out there in western society(aside from the cops/CIA/SEAL Teams yadda yadda). Assassins are ALWAYS undercover cops, always. Also since assassinations leave gobs of physical evidence and angry family, along with an obvious lead for investigators(who wanted this guy dead?) they are way different from drug deals. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/37 "2013-10-06T10:05:23Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > ~ After a few years the new Silk Road captures more than 1% of the global drug trade, generating more than $50 million a year in revenue for its operators. According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and European crime-fighting agency Europol, the annual global drugs trade is worth around $435 billion a year, with the annual cocaine trade worth $84 billion. I think you missed a zero off the revenue figure, or is it two? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/38 "2013-10-06T10:12:57Z")
If I wanted to remain in the shadows as a colourless criminal mastermind I would eschew adopting such a title as **Dread Pirate Roberts** as my online persona. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/39 "2013-10-06T10:13:02Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Aside from mob and gang enforcers and goons(who will not take freelance) there are no assassins out there in western society(aside from the cops/CIA/SEAL Teams yadda yadda). At the moment, there are probably not. But wouldn’t a reliable escrow system open the door to such a profession? > [@](#): > > Also since assassinations leave gobs of physical evidence and angry family, > along with an obvious lead for investigators(who wanted this guy dead?) they are way different from drug deals. Yes, they are different from drug deals. But different enough that they could not be facilitated through an escrow system? ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703/40 "2013-10-06T10:15:37Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and European crime-fighting agency Europol, the annual global drugs trade is worth around $435 billion a year, with the annual cocaine trade worth $84 billion. > > I think you missed a zero off the revenue figure, or is it two? Well, if 4 billion a year passes through a hypothetical drug market, and that market charges a 1 percent commission, that’s 40 million a year in revenue. I imagine a higher commission would be charged, but still I think the order of magnitude is about right. Maybe I was a little low. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-hiring-of-contract-killers/637703.md?page=3)