Isn’t the 3d-printer thing a bit ancillary to that consideration though, other than being a sexy headline that brings it into the forefront of the conversation? It’s really just a materials sciences question of getting plastics that are strong enough to make a viable-ish gun. I mean, in theory you could probably just machine the exact same thing out of solid blocks of plastic?
Absolutely, and with much better quality. The 3d printer adds in a whole sexy “download a gun” and “anyone can do it” angle. It’s the difference between calling someone a whore on the street and posting it to Facebook. I get your point though, if we were going to have a problem with plastic guns we would already have a problem with plastic guns. What the alarmists will never admit is that there really aren’t very many people (assassins and hijackers) in this world to begin with. But hey, sexy headlines.
Sure, and anyone with access to a machine shop and pretty good skills could fabricate a gun from blocks of metal. You still have to (a) have access to specialized, expensive machinery, and (b), have the remarkably rare skills in the first place. It’s a vanishingly small subset of the population.
It’s the fact that in a few years you’ll be able to buy one of these 3D printers at your local Staples for less than the cost of a smart phone that makes this worrisome. Both the (a) and (b) restrictions go away pretty quickly. The lack of skills requirement is the biggest thing, I’d guess – you just need to be able to download a file into a computer program; even my grandmother can do that nowadays.
A terribly trite but probably accurate analogy would be music piracy. Sure anyone with access to some specialized vinyl-pressing technology could have pirated lots of music back in the 60s, but very few people outside of a core group of hobbyists or an even smaller group of criminals had access to the gear and especially the skills to create the stuff, so no one worried about it. It wasn’t until the advent of cheap cassette tapes and finally easily digital reproduction that made music piracy something that anyone worried about.
I’d say that we’re just entering the cassette-tape era for home fabrication of guns right now. Ten or twenty years from now when the materials science allows for high-strength metallic-composites in home 3D printers, we’ll be looking at the capability to home-fabricate recoil-less rifles and easily equip an entire Montana militia group with anti-vehicular weaponry in a weekend. That’ll be fun.
I think his point was that since it’s plastic, it’s now within reach of those without specialized machinery. All you really need is the plastic and a good drill bit, everything else could be hand-carved.
I dunno. I consider myself to be a reasonably handy guy, but I wager it would take me man-months to properly sculpt a working receiver from a block of whatever using the Craftsman-level stuff in my Man Cave. Maybe my opinion of my own skills is too high, but I don’t think that the level of expertise necessary to do that kind of stuff is too common without some decent machinery with good tolerances, even given soft materials.
But let’s accept that I’m just much more inept than I give myself credit for and a guy with a hand drill and knife could whittle one up in a month or so. I think that still goes to my point – today a dedicated nut might find a way with grit and determination; with this new technology the worry is that casual nuts will just sort of do it on a whim.
Weren’t people doing hand-made single shot guns and such a long time ago? I remember hearing about “zip guns” and such when I was growing up.
For the broader population, this is obviously fairly different as it won’t be long until the quality of the printed weapons will be pretty reasonable. For the criminal element, is that really a concern, though? I haven’t gotten the impression that accessibility to firearms is the limiting factor for criminals in the first place.
You would just follow the 3d printer plans, but drill your own barrel. All you really need is a leaf spring for hammer tension, a hammer, a trigger, a notch on each that fits each other, and a firing pin. Drill a hole for the barrel, drill a hole for the firing pin, cut a breach so you can load it, and you have a working gun. Bushmen in Africa have been building muzzleloaders for decades using pipe and wire, the only fiddly part is the lock. Everything else is just a matter of whether it blows up in your face.
I think the big difference here is one of technical skill, tools, and know-how multiplied by technological progress.
Average person building their own gun from scratch in any time period:
Where do I start? What materials do I need? What tools? Did I make this right? Can I test it without killing myself? Etc…
Average person printing a gun someday in the future:
Download plan. Hit print. Wait. Go shooting.
At least, I imagine this is the concern.
You could, for example, always “pirate” music by just playing it yourself. That wasn’t possible for most people because they didn’t have the skill to do so. Now, anyone can copy and distribute music easily.
Sarkus
2755
The NRA sent me a recruitment letter today. Well, they presented it in the form of a “gun owners survey” they want me to fill out, but also asked me to join. Plus offered me a free knife if I did join. It was all official.
I am wondering who sold my information to them, though.
ShivaX
2756
Everyone has to remember the “downloadable gun” is basically a zip gun, which haven’t been that hard to make… well ever. The only difference is that “anyone” can download it. Of course anyone with a couple pieces of pipe can make a zip gun. And they don’t need expensive equipment to do it. I doubt 3D printers will ever really be affordable for a normal person, the usage is fairly limited. I mean do you really need to make your own forks?
It really isn’t a huge issue. A one shot gun of questionable reliability isn’t a big issue. The only real issue is for things like airport security and again, we’re not printing Glocks here.
Building your own zip gun is certainly easier than crafting machined parts in your garage, but it’s still substantially harder than downloading a plan and hitting “print” to get a gun. Psychologically, the zip gun just seems like a cobbled together piece of junk that’s liable to blow off your own hands as much as shoot a round. (There’s a reason zip guns aren’t made all the time, besides the fact that you can buy a handgun very cheaply.) The printed gun, although technically less robust than a “good” zip gun, just looks better.
Right now, the main barrier to 3D printing is the price and scarcity of the printer. Once that’s overcome, it really won’t take any special skill at all to make your own gun at home.
But why would anybody prefer that home-made gun to picking one up at a gun show or private seller, etc? If you want a gun, I get the impression that availability isn’t an issue, even for people who aren’t supposed to have them (based on the current state of gun control laws). The question is “is this 3D printed gun cheaper than getting a regular gun”? As long as a 3d printer costs more than buying a pistol at a swap meet or whatever, it’s a non issue, practically speaking.
The fact that it’s made of plastic is kind of interesting for security purposes, and I suppose this does make it easier to get a plastic gun, assuming “plastic gun” was what you wanted in the first place.
Well, obviously “plastic gun” is a great lede for a story because it immediately conjures up images of shifty charcaters sneaking guns onto airplanes or courtrooms.
As for why anyone would want a 3D gun versus just buying one, I can think of a few reasons.
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Less of a paper trail. Yes, I know that right now the tracking of gun purchases and serial numbers is easy to get around, but never underestimate the allure of “living off the grid” for fringe people.
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Easier destruction. It’s plastic. Commit a crime and need to get rid of the evidence? Plastic is a lot easier to get rid of than a hunk of metal with serial numbers and distinctive rifling in the barrel. This is the epitomy of disposable.
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Need to outfit a whole crew of bad guys quickly? Print away!
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As for cheaper, wait a few years and we’ll see how much the price comes down for consumers. I don’t know if it will get to parity with a cheap handgun, but it’s not going to stay out of reach for consumers forever. Look at regular printers now and check out how much they cost when they first started out.
I think that’s the concern: since there is little if any legitimate use for a home-made plastic gun which wouldn’t be much better served by just buying a real gun, what are its illegitimate uses? I.e., bypassing security checkpoints, criminals acquiring them in states or countries with strict gun-control laws, etc. As I mentioned upthread, I saw this news story on BBC; our European brethren have a very different take on gun ownership rights than Americans do - and a much harder time acquiring them. The technology is too immature with limited availability to be a real threat now; but what about in 5 years? 10? 20? 3D printers are just going to become cheaper, more widespread, and more capable as time goes on.
Hmm, that will actually be damned interesting, how this affects Europe. From most reports the criminals are just as active, but they use knives and bludgeons for the most part.
RichVR
2762
Good luck with that. Streisand Effect power +1.
I suspect you will want to eat those words with a dash of crow in the not-too-distant future. A good-quality consumer 3D printer is about as expensive now as a color inkjet was in 1984 ($3500), and you can buy low-end hobbyist 3D printers today on Amazon for about $1500.
As for what you’ll use them for… well, I can come up with a bunch off the top of my head for home, garden and hobby uses (I can easily imagine printing out an entire WH40K army). It’s a little harder to imagine viable business models, but here’s one: My wife is sewing some new curtains for our front room right now and she’ll probably go to some home furnishing store to buy curtain rods this weekend; she is liable to frown at the handful of decorative end-caps that they have at the store, not liking any of them. I can imagine buying the metal curtain rod and then coming home and going to the manufacturer’s web site to browse the 50 end-caps that they have available (their large selection is why we bought that type of rod, right?) and then printing them off at home.
ShivaX
2766
It’s entirely possible, but even then I’d question the value for most people. And again, its not like firing a single bullet is a big technological accomplishment. If you really wanted to you could do that pretty easily, which is all the printed gun really does. Most people aren’t all that concerned about a single bullet, you can’t really hijack a plane with it or whatever. As far as Europe, it might be a bigger issue, but again… probably not. If you can get access to gunpowder or bullets making a single shot weapon isn’t all that difficult.
All it really takes is a tube, as people have known for quite some time.
If you can make one out of steering wheels and fire them with homemade powder, I don’t see a printable gun really being an issue in the long run.
