The guys a few rungs up the ladder will not be printing their guns, that is admitted. But they can afford a tank if they want one.
Yep, which is one of the reasons why this FUD around 3d printed firearms is unjustified. The guys a few rungs up will buy cheap AK-47’s and sell them at a large mark up if they can make a profit that justifies the risk.
Guns on earth outnumber cars by about 40 per cent, and as this thread focused on access by criminals Kim Jong-un or Venezuela would probably be happy to do some trade with those pre-established global black markets.
To be clear, I think firearms are a net negative in the world, but topics like this take up a lot more news time than their relative risk would justify. For ugly, unreliable and downright dangerous to the user firearms additive manufacturing does nothing but fan the flames of Gun Control, which IMHO is possably directed at influencing the electorate more than anything else.
Provoking wedge issues is a good way to drive single issue voters to the polls and pro-gun voters are more reliable.
The attorney generals of are suing Defense Distributed and a federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against Defense Distributed prohibiting them from allowing for download the plans for the 3D printable weapons.
The claim is that the Trump Administration did not follow the Administrative Procedures Act in their actions. Previous court cases regarding similar changes were deemed nonjusticable, so not sure why the TRO would be issued here. This doesn’t even touch the free speech line of argument that the code itself is speech.
And of course, since it’s being threatened, the plans have turned up all over the internet and are free to download. Can’t stop the signal, Mal.
But who is a criminal? Let’s say I’m in a jealous rage and want to go kill my ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Or I decide to give up and end my life. I live in China – I have no idea whatsoever how to obtain a gun.
So, even if I were to concede that True Scotsman criminals know how to get a gun anywhere in the world, the fact remains that guns are significantly harder to acquire in some countries than others for non-scotsman criminals, and we see the effect of that in homicide rates, successful suicides, accidental deaths etc.
Talking about a hypothetical what-if is a very different thing to “hysteria”.
By that token I’m also hysterical about flying near a spinning black hole’s event horizon.
OK, but if you’re a factory worker in China who wants a gun so you can shoot your wife and her lover, you’ve got a few more steps besides pressing a button on your 3D printer.
You’ve got to download the plans. Obviously this is impossible to stop completely. But it will surely be possible to make it really hard. The internet makes certain forms of pornography easy to distribute, but not so easy to do without getting caught. If you’re a guy who makes guns all the time, you’ll know where to get plans. If you’re a guy who just wants a gun by 5:00 today so you can shoot your wife when she gets home it’s going to be harder if you can’t just google that shit.
You’ve got to get bullets. Maybe you can print the brass, but you can’t print the propellant or primer. Sure, ammunition is cheap and plentiful and easy to get. Today. But what about tomorrow? Again, yes of course you can reload at home. This won’t stop your hard-core gun nut. But it’s going to stop the guy who needs a gun by 5:00 today.
It’s also possible to just equip every goddam 3-D printer with a gun-detection algorithm, and if you try to print a gun they call the cops. Color printers already have mechanisms to stop counterfeiting, so you can’t just print out $100 bills. Just make it a law that every 3-D printer sold in America has to have anti-gun features. And of course this could easily be circumvented by someone who knows what they’re doing. Is that going to be the guy who needs a gun by 5:00 today?
As for the notion that “untraceable” guns are going to be a huge problem for law enforcement, the reality is that 95% of gun crimes aren’t solved by tracking down who owns what gun. They’re solved by looking at the victim, and figuring out who had the motive to shoot them. If you need a gun to shoot your wife, a 3-D printed gun isn’t going to help you get away with your crime. When they, you know, can look through your browser history and see your google searches for “How use 3-D printed gun murder wife?”
This isn’t sophisticated software or hardware. You can make your own printer for $100.
We’re presuming theoretical printers that can print high-quality guns - and we’re presuming that everyone has them, even normal folks and idiots. They’re not hobbyist projects; somebody is selling the things.
Many of the commercial printers are just copies or modifications of the opensource RepRap project
https://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap
Your phone, your computer and this website are based on opensource.
The commercial printer Cody Wilson used is the expensive way to do this but it is just a 3 axis CNC hot glue gun. The only thing that makes it seem high tech is that it is new and most people can’t even change their own brake pads.
And yet, I’m still quite confident that when home 3-D printers switch from being hobbyist items to being as common as microwave ovens, it will be because you suddenly start finding them on the shelves of Walmart.
Also I would reasonably expect there to be a standardized system for downloading models. Which is to say you’ll buy them from the Amazon eThing store. And if the government doesn’t want you buying gun models from the eThing store, (and the government means it), then you won’t be buying gun models from the eThing store. (International governments might have a controlling effect here.)
Does this mean that enterprising/murderous people won’t ‘jailbreak’ their printers to use unauthorized third-party models? Of course not! There’s nothing a sufficiently motivated murderer can’t do. But I still consider it quite probable that when your ten year old sneaks into your room, swipes the credit card he stole from you, and tries to 3-D print a howitzer, he simply won’t find the model he’s looking for in the for-sale list on the printer’s screen.
Textbook example of special pleading, but you obviously haven’t been to a Fry’s lately.
https://www.walmart.com/browse/electronics/3d-printers/3944_3951_37807_1225137
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=3d+printer
This is not rocket science, it is a few stepper motors and a hot glue gun. It may be magic in your mind but it is far from it.
Sigh.
From the OP:
Call me crazy, but I’m not sure a printer would qualify for this hypothetical if you have to assemble the gun before use - that sounds like ‘expertise’. So in my mind we’re talking about pushing a button, pulling out the result, sliding in a clip, and firing away. Moving parts in place and all.
We’re not there yet.
I better sell my IKEA and LEGO stock, but I wouldn’t call you crazy just not well informed about mechanical topics.
Okay then, I’ll play along and concede that you can, today, buy a device that lets you push a button and pop out a loaded gun. Fine.
Would that mean that 3-D printers that can print high quality guns would have no effect whatsoever on anything? Because I don’t think that people are getting their guns from printers at the moment.
Strawman, the printer doesn’t need to pop out a loaded firearm, it’s not like the commercial ones come pre-loaded. In fact you typically have to disassemble the commercial ones to clean them too.
What is so special about a 3d firearm that renders a user incapable of doing these trivial tasks? But lets be clear, a 3D firearm would be risky to your health to fire, and the whole fear about 3D firearms is silly.
This is not rocket science.
Lets be clear, the technology breakthrough that allowed this type 3D printer to happen was simply some very smart person realizing they could attach a hot glue gun to a 3 axis CNC machine.
The rest is just trial and error using existing technologies.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” is only true in this case if you haven’t spent time on mechanical pursuits.
Just trying to figure out what you consider non-straw. So it pops out unloaded, fine, that still matches the hypothetical. Or does it pop out as a pile of parts and springs and pins and such? Because I’m not sure that does.
What, why? Aside from this being in complete defiance of the hypothetical, why are 3-D firearms inherently unsafe?
(I mean, more unsafe than any other firearm - they’re all unsafe by design, at the end with the hole in it.)
Of course it’s silly, because 3-D printers that can print firearms that satisfy the conditions of the hypothetical aren’t common or readily available, assuming they exist at all. But if such 3-D printers did exist and were widely available, at the very least it would give police in countries with strong gun control a lot more opportunities to arrest people.
The firearm, that is related to the 9th circuit’s ruling can be printed with the devices I shared.
3-D firearms inherently unsafe because of the manufacturing process. But to be honest I don’t want to tutor someone who thinks that simple assembly is a barrier for the average person. I have seen lines of 11 year olds learn how to work these printers at a Makers fair.
Random first result from google, while this exact printer is too small some of those from walmart, frys or amazon are not.
Like I said this is not rocket science.
Good, this is a response to the OP.
So implicit in this I think you agree that the classic argument that “If you know what you’re doing / know the right people, you can always get a gun” is completely besides the point. Ease of acquiring a gun varies considerably by location and circumstances. Gun policy makes a big difference.
I would agree with you that even in a world with incredibly sophisticated 3D printers, there are still hurdles in acquiring a gun, it still will be much harder than just buying one at wal-mart.
The question is, will it be easier than existing options for the hypothetical Chinese factory worker? And, just an IMHO, the answer is “yes”. For example, porn is easy to find/download in China, despite it being blocked by the great firewall. It’s harder to block data than physical objects.
Firstly I have not used the word “untraceable”, nor alluded to this issue in any way (in case anyone following the conversation thinks that’s at me).
But the objection is ludicrous on its face. No, very few people are going to mention the specifics of what crime they plan to commit, they’re just going to type “3D gun model”. And they don’t need to do it in the moment of rage, if they’re cheap and easy enough to make then many adults may already have one in their possession.