- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Despite the tech-cool factor of the project, Tom’s Hardware does not condone making your own weapons system at home.
Despite the tech-cool factor of the project, Tom’s Hardware does not condone making your own weapons system at home.
Cue politicians calling to ban 3D printers in 3 … 2 …1 …
Already trying to
Sure, ban hardware stores after that.
Reminds me of a time when I went to a maker space open house, and they were showing all kinds of cool stuff, including fairly advanced 3D printers for time. They mentioned there was programming to halt prints of things like gun parts, so it would be very hard to make guns using them. I commented, “Besides, you can make better ones in the metal shop in the other room.” He replied, “Yeah! <brief pause> No!”
People have been making versions of zip guns forever.
Four Winds Shotgun is a good thing to know about. I don’t think you even need a machine shop.
Is that the sliding pipe gun? I think all you need is materials, a hack saw, and a drill. But with a machine shop, the materials list is just steel and some springs, and you can have a gun as good as any we had prior to the last century.
Stop. Giving. Them. Ideas.
(Kidding. Kindof.)
Philip A. Luty smiles
While I am fully opposed to a 3d printer ban (and abhor the efforts of Bambu et al to sneak that in), it is very important to understand why that is not a fair comparison and, if anything, sets a threshold that can be used to argue FOR a ban.
I’ve ranted in detail before so I’ll do the short version this time:
You are not going to make a barrel or springs yourself. And the good news is that you don’t need to. None of that is a controlled/registered part (for the vast majority of guns) and you can literally buy those at a walmart equivalent. And there at least used to be pre-packaged bundles available online for your ghost gun needs.
So that mostly leaves the receiver and fire control unit. I will bet you money that giving a rando off the street 24 hours to figure out how to go to the local communal machine shop and make even a frigging sten and they will fail miserably. Whereas there are videos (fuck vice for how they abused their workers but old-vice has a really good video where they literally made the gun Luigi allegedly used) of people going from 0 to glock in 12 hours of print time and 4-5 hours of filing. I forget if they actually made a silencer or not (since that is a really dark grey area legally) but that is also very printable.
And that is the big difference. How much that matters when you are considering a country where you can buy the same gear that Tier 1 Special Forces use to abduct (admittedly really shitty) world leaders for under a thousand bucks is a HUGE question. But from the “ghost gun” perspective? There is VERY much a big difference between having a CNC and machining a receiver+FCU versus doing the same with an Ender 3.
Why don’t they make firing chambers and barrels out of plastic? Are gun makers stupid?
Washington state already started making moves against it, as an attempt to prevent 3D printed firearm components. Specifically, it requires 3D printers sold within the state to have firmware-based scanning to cancel prints it suspects are used for firearms, alongside criminalizing the possession of files ruled as ‘firearm compoments’.
One bill is in the House, the other passed into law. Gonna make it a real rough ride ahead for tinkerers into 3D printing, especially if we’ve gotta design around “Oh boy, I sure hope my pencil holder doesnt get flagged as an illegal item.”
Edit: One of two bills passed: HB2320 and HB2321. HB2320 is currently law, and HB2321 is awaiting presentation to the House.
I’m imagining a bunch of first amendment challenges to these laws
In this shithole? Good luck. They do whatever they want regardless of whatever rights you think you have.
Yea that’s true
California is joining in too with AB-2047 and New York has AB-2228 requiring a criminal background check for buying a 3D printer.
Good fucking luck. That’s completely impossible
One passed, the other has yet to be presented. These legislators have no clue how they’d even do it, but circumventing the scan is also made illegal.
So yeah, flashing Open-Source firmware is something they dont like either, but fingers crossed they just choose to not allocate resources to enforcement. Wouldn’t be surprised if this 3D printed missile mentioned in the article above comes up ad a taking point during the legislative hearings.
Sounds like something that wouldn’t be worth going out of the way to enforce. But rather used to tack on extra charges when someone commits another crime where the extra level of investigation would uncover the flashed firmware. Not that it would do much to deter or prevent what they’re afraid of from happening.
Doesn’t matter if it’s passed or not. It’s not possible to implement, and therefore completely unenforceable. Legislation cannot change the fundamental limits of software.
This is either a blanket ban on all 3D printers, or none of them.
Or a way to arbitrarily charge anyone or to add to anyone’s charges in case they own something that fits the bill.