A federal judge in Seattle has issued a temporary restraining order to stop the release of blueprints to make untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed plastic guns.
Eight Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block the federal government’s settlement with the company that makes the plans available online. They also sought a restraining order, arguing the 3D guns would be a safety risk.
U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik issued the order Tuesday afternoon.
Sheesh. This has a snowball’s chance in hell of holding up. It’s not only prior restraint, which good luck defending, and it’s a dollar short and a day (a few years) late. Just like the one it’s trying to do a do-over. But it fills the conversation.
“National Firearms Act,” of 1932? '38? or thereabouts. It outlawed automatic weapons and silencers as I recall (probably more than that) unless you paid a tax and went through a mountain of paperwork.
Yes. We can thank government action (banning alcohol) for the widespread violence that followed, leading to the NFA. What reversed things was ending Prohibition.
We’re in the midst of the same war now with other drugs. These “wars” make a great excuse for passing laws that disarm peaceful citizens, but do nothing for violent crime.
Milling a gun takes a lot more skill than printing one.
With a printer it is easy to produce a lot of guns with no history at all, you didn’t have to buy them from anyone, no one knows you have them.
And plastic guns can’t be picked up by metal detectors. Bullets can so far but I imagine ceramic bullets with non-metallic casings could be made.
And nothing can be done about this. Those plans are already out there, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle now.
Interestingly Trump did not show support for printed guns, I assume this is because the political arm of the NRA is mostly funded by gun manufacturers who don’t like this idea and are in a quandary about how to oppose regulations on guns that don’t benefit them.
Milling a decent-quality gun takes a lot more skill than printing a shoddy one. But printing a shoddy gun is more difficult than making a shoddy gun through more conventional means. And printing a decent-quality gun is still impossible.
This is the village which infamously turns out an astonishing number and variety of weapons using little more than manually operated milling machines, drill presses, etc. Is there any factual data on the quality of their handiwork?
I assume that if 3D printers or plastics were at all relevant, they would be using them. Are they? What are their ersatz Glocks made of?
The tools available in a high-school shop class would be sufficient to make a firearm of some sort, and even more definitely a magazine.
The only aspect of firearms that a person good with his hands could probably NOT make at home is the ammunition.
I really don’t see how shell casings and primers could be easily made without industrial tools and chemicals (bullets would be easy, but powder would be tricky, though doable) A government serious about arms control would control ammunition as well as or even more than guns themselves.
If metal-printing can be refined, it will revolutionize gun manufacturing on par with what the plastic frame for handguns did when the Glock debuted. (And before anyone mentions the VP-70, I know the Glock wasn’t first. But it popularized the concept.)
A well-designed gun would “fail safe”: it could be designed (for example) with more material on the bottom of the barrel so that when it explodes, the bottom portion remains as one large piece while the top portion shatters to relieve the barrel pressure. Instead of more material integrated on the bottom of the barrel, the gun might include a scatter shield underneath the barrel, achieving the same protective effect. We’re not talking about high explosive, or even a very large amount of energy; a grenade has ~50 grams of high explosive, a .22 round has ~0.3 grams of propellant.
Currently shot shells have an aluminum or brass bottom that contains the primer cup and also fastens the bottom of the hull to the sidewalls. Sidewalls are made of extruded plastic or multilayered paper. There are also wads and shot cups incorporated. They contain anywhere from 3/4 to 1 1/2 ounces of metallic shot. Lead or steel are most common.
There were shells made completely of plastic, Wonda was the brand. They still had metal primers and metal shot though.
Back in the 60s, Daisy made a 22 rifle that used case less ammo. The propellant was molded on the base of the projectile and there was no primer. The rifle had a cylinder and spring assembly which produced a jet of hot air that ignited the propellant. Not a commercial success.
Others have and still are experimenting with case less ammunition. Here’s the Wiki but there are many obstacles.
Yup, and for criminals it’s easiest to get one off the street.
I didn’t read this entire thread, but some random thoughts about all this: Having been a moldmaker for the past half-century, I can say that mass-produced printed gun frames aren’t going to happen anytime soon.
I remember Kodak making simple plastic prototype parts this way in the early '90s; it was called stereo lithography then. The parts were so brittle that if you dropped them on the floor they would likely break, depending on the shape, etc. The technology has come a long way.
All the major manufacturers have been making plastic handgun FRAMES for years. This has only been feasible with the advancement of CAD and CAM.
I’ve worked on several of the molds. But they are only molding the frames (and incidental parts like grips, etc.) – frames are the one part that is registered with a serial number. All the other parts (most of them steel) are just “gun parts” that anybody can buy and possess. All the finished mass-produced handguns have numerous metal parts, easily seen with a metal detector.
I have not seen any of the molds run, but I would guess they probably spit a frame out in 30 to 45 second cycles. Printing one takes hours. And the molds (if properly built) will likely run hundreds of thousands of parts before needing repair.
A good friend of mine who owned a mold-making shop (now retired) got all the Fed and NYS licenses to manufacture handgun frames back in the '80s and '90s. It was just a hobby item, they had no intention of selling any. They ended up making about 25 Colt .45 ACP clones out of titanium, all machined with CAD-CAM.
They spent a LOT of spare hours in the project, but it worked out. As it was, they were so worried about legal issues down the road they wouldn’t even sell me one.
It sounds pretty horrific but, when you calmly consider the science, you realize that there is tremendous pressure involved in the explosion and release of a bullet. It would destroy a gun made out of purely plastic material.
Also, the kind of 3-D printer you would need to make a full sized weapon would cost many thousands of dollars. We have a 3-D printer in the library that can make objects the size of a shoe, and it cost $9,000. The materials are very expensive and, because of the constant and precise movements needed to create something, they break down A LOT.
Finally, I find it very hard to believe that it could even create a grooved barrel to begin with.
Or if you’re a criminal, steal one out of someone’s vehicle or home.
It seems to me that this topic is one that mostly inflames gun rights opponents who have little knowledge of firearms. Sure, the technology will improve, but buying a 3D printer and using it will always be harder and more expensive than stealing a firearm or buying one on the street. As for gun shows, I’ve had a background check every time I’ve bought a gun at a gun show.
Under federal law, all sales by a FFL licensee require a background check. Sales by unlicensed individuals may or may not require a check depending on your state. This is the “gun show loophole” they lament about. But that’s another thread.
My state, Missouri, does not require a background check for sales by individuals. Some states impose an additional requirement in the form of a purchase permit which is required before any sale. Some states limit this to concealable weapons, some might require it for any weapon.
I’m aware of all of that, but thank you for fleshing it out. Based on common usage of the phrase “gun show loophole” in the media and elsewhere, it seems that many people erroneously think that many guns are sold at gun shows without background checks. It does happen if the seller is not a gun dealer, but my experience is that the vast majority of sellers at gun shows are FFL licensees, who always do a background check.
In my state ¶, ALL handgun sales must include a background check, even between non-dealer individuals. I realize not all states are like that.
I think it’s more about the effort involved. Kind of like copyright infringement of movies and music was already a thing back in the VHS and tape decks days ; but there were still a bunch of caveats and limiting factors. To copy VHS’s you had to own two VCRs (which was pretty damn rare) and there was still quality loss. You could record songs off the radio or movies off your TV but again, quality loss. Then the internet dawns and you have kids downloading movies and warez games but again : you kinda need a CD burner (which at the time is expensive, rare equipment) and there’s a **ton **of quality loss. Remember how warez crews used to push cutscene packs and music packs because those took a ton of space/bandwidth and a pirated game typically shipped without *anything *that could be cut out ? Good times…
But then you suddenly had high bandwidth and movies were released digitally and people could download DVD-quality movies under an hour and suddenly copyright infringement became a Big Deal.
Same with this. Yeah, people have been able to make their own guns for a long time provided they had metal and specialized tool and technical know-how and what have you. With a 3D printer you don’t even need to know how to model a 3D gun - just download that shit, hit “print” and there you go. 3D printers are getting affordable and, if not ubiquitous, at least somewhat common among the nerd crowd and they’re slowly spilling into the mainstream.
So a minor concern is slowly becoming a more pregnant, society-wide one. And that always comes with everyone’s favourite : the astroturfed moral panic ! Your kids are DnDing acid in raves because rap music is playing video games with the rock’n roll in it ! On their iPhones !
“NFA”?