6 ms·

This is not 'printing a gun', this is printing two passive parts that you could just as well have whittled from wood or cast or put together in a hundred differ

by 0x12 15y ago

This is not 'printing a gun', this is printing two passive parts that you could just as well have whittled from wood or cast or put together in a hundred different ways. The 'load bearing parts' of a gun are the barrel, the breech and the trigger mechanism. For the sake of the argument let's pretend that the title is right and that you can 'print a gun'. You could always make a gun, all you needed was a lathe, some tooling, a hacksaw a file, some steel stock and a bunch of patience. Printing a gun is just another way to get to the goal, possibly an easier one but one with its own unique challenges. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm The differentiating factor for a gun from printed ABS is not that you've made it at home, but that it is very hard to detect the gun itself (you'd have a hard time not using metal at all, especially for the parts mentioned above and then there is the ammo). You can bet that if you get caught with one trying to board an airplane that there will be very serious repercussions, you won't be able to say you left it in your carry-on luggage by accident. Well, you can say that but good luck to get anybody to believe you. So, printing a gun is not the same as buying a gun, it is the same as making a fire-arm at home through conventional means. On another note, the design of a working firearm, especially from unproven materials, is not something you muck around with unless you know your materials science. A gun that explodes when fired could have some pretty nasty effects on you and bystanders.

ctdonath 15y ago
The article focuses on a particular gun, the AR15. After much wrangling, settled law dictates that the "lower receiver" _is_ the gun; all the other parts are incidental. Sure, the lower receiver alone is little more than a big paperweight, but it's the unchanging core to which all other variable components are attached to form something functional. And no, you can't just "whittle it from wood" etc., it's a pretty serious chunk of milled steel (there exists a "plastic" version, but that ain't generic plastic). Yes, some jurisdictions aside you can make one AR15 lower receiver on your own without any paperwork, fees, checks, or permission. Understanding is that nobody going thru that much effort is going to waste it by doing something stupid (if there's criminal intent there are many far easier ways to acquire one). The issue here is: where's the line on making one? You can make one yourself legally, but if you hire someone else to knowingly make it they'll need an expensive big-hassle manufacturer's license. The key is "knowingly", as up until recently it was pretty obvious to the machinist what he was being asked to do. Now, with "printing", you just upload the pattern for what is otherwise just another odd-shaped chunk of metal, a computer & machine crank one out, and the result gets sent back to you with a minimum of comprehension by any humans involved - are _you_ "making" it? or is the printing house "making" it and, in effect, selling it to you? The legal line has been blurred.
- 0x12 15y ago
  Anybody that wishes to pretend that the legal line has been blurred will find themselves sooner or later in an excellent position to try to prove that to a very unrelenting judge. If the legal fiction is that the lower receiver of that gun is the gun, then legally that didn't change so the method of manufacturing it is not relevant. Hiring someone to produce it while obfuscating the intent is not gray, it puts you in the docket. The printing house is acting on your explicit instruction, and if they don't review the orders (hard to do, after all, you can't know each and every prohibited item) then you are still on the hook. Trained machinist or 3D printer operator the change is only in the material of the produced item. As for not being able to whittle that part from wood, there are many kinds of wood that are much stronger than the ABS wire that a 3D printer uses. And if it can't be made out of those kinds of wood then it certainly can't be made out of plastic printed ABS (if you expect the gun to function).
  - anelson 15y ago
    While I agree it would be unwise to test this legal question in court, I think it is fair to say this is a murky legal question. The BATFE, the federal law enforcement agency responsible for enforcing US laws regarding firearms manufacture, have a history of arbitrary rulemaking in defiance of simple logic (for instance, in one famous rulemaking BATFE ruled that a shoe string would meet the legal definition of 'machine gun' if used to repeatedly fire a gun with a single pull of the trigger [1]). Given this environment of legal uncertainty, it's not at all clear that BATFE would not pursue the 3D printer operator who produced the receiver. In this case, charges against the 3D printer operator would likely be unlawful manufacture of a firearm, possibly in addition to charges related to interstate transfer of a firearm. Given the creativity of some US attorneys, perhaps a conspiracy case would be made alleging the buyer of the printed part 'conspired' with the printer operator. I would also suggest a lower receiver could probably be made from materials weaker than you might imagine. The lower receiver does not bear any gas pressures from the firing of the cartridge, though the holes for the roll pins which hold the hammer and trigger in place would probably start to 'egg' after a round or two. In any case, the legal question has nothing to do with how reliable the resulting firearm is; only whether it meets certain vague and broadly-interpreted legal definitions. [1] http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring-machine-gun/ http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring-machi...
georgieporgie 15y ago
This is not 'printing a gun', But it (kind of) is, specifically with regards to US law. I mean, that's the point. There is a huge market for AR-15 upgrade parts, and everything else can be acquired easily with no regulation. And yes, this could be made at home with old technology, but it requires a fair amount of dedication and skill. Downloading a file and clicking 'print' is a significantly different process.
- 0x12 15y ago
  > But it requires a fair amount of dedication and skill To specifically address that point, you could use a 5 axis machining center and a standardized control sequence ('G-codes') to do the exact same thing. I think the bigger difference is the amount of funds that needs to be put on the table for the machine itself. Once you have the rig set up for a part the major operations are mounting the blank, hitting 'start' and removing the finished part (assuming it can be made in one pass).
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    you could use a 5 axis machining center That's extremely expensive equipment that you're not going to have at home without a lot of dedication and investment. You could always send something off to eMachineShop.com, but that's still not really comparable to the not-so-distant future where we'll all have easy access to local 3D printers.
    - 0x12 15y ago
      Fine, so cast it using the lost wax method and clean it up. There are literally a hundred different ways in which you could make this part for pennies and some of those methods would be much more rapid and much cheaper than 3D printing.
      - georgieporgie 15y ago
        Are you seriously trying to suggest that carving the part plug, building a box, acquiring appropriate sand, packing the part into the sand, acquiring and melting metal, pouring said metal, then finishing the part's surface is anything like the ease of downloading, printing, and waiting? Yes, building a 3D printer is an investment now. But cheap, common 3D printers are going to become a reality, and soon.
jerf 15y ago
"You could always make a gun, all you needed was a lathe, some tooling, a hacksaw a file, some steel stock and a bunch of patience.... Printing a gun is just another way to get to the goal, possibly an easier one but one with its own unique challenges." A sufficiently large quantitative change is a qualitative change. Also the debate is ultimately not about this one thing today, but about a future in which one can download and print an open-source AK-47-equivalent with only slightly more difficulty than printing a picture. I'd contend this isn't "printing" or the definition of "making it yourself" that you'd consider here in 2011; it's a new semantic category that very few people are prepared to grapple with, least of all the law. I'd contend the law is yet to catch up with what computer programs permit people to do, it really isn't ready for how computer programs will increasingly freely impinge upon the real world. There is simply no legal category to handle this question, and many conventional ethical ones can't handle it very well either. The only solution is to go back to first principles, but most people can't really reason on first principles.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Can you please clarify how "printing" and making by hand are different, besides one being easier?
  - tree_of_item 15y ago
    "A sufficiently large quantitative change is a qualitative change." I think this is pretty clear: making something by hand is very different from having a magic button to do it for you. "You could have whittled it out of wood!" completely misses the point. Unless you also think the creation of high level programming languages was not a qualitative change over the days of punch cards.
    - sliverstorm 15y ago
      The creation of high level programming languages is not analogous to easier gun making. It would be more analogous to easier gun making accelerating the pace of firearms development and resulting in firearms that are orders of magnitude more lethal.
sliverstorm 15y ago
I find it sad that manufacturing your own firearm is seen as magical enough to warrant an article like this one. Thank you for not being caught up in forgetting that things can be made with your hands.
- 0x12 15y ago
  Home made semiconductors, that's hard! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM Mechanics is easy.
tnc 15y ago
To keep up with your point: There is one guy who got arrested in Brazil because he protected his house with improvised guns made with mousetraps. http://translate.google.com.br/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=pt-BR&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Foglobo.globo.com%2Fcidades%2Fmat%2F2011%2F07%2F15%2Fem-goias-ladrao-que-invadiu-casa-morre-com-tiro-no-peito-ao-acionar-armadilha-924914164.asp&act=url http://translate.google.com.br/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&#38...

by 0x12 15y ago

ctdonath 15y ago

The article focuses on a particular gun, the AR15. After much wrangling, settled law dictates that the "lower receiver" _is_ the gun; all the other parts are incidental. Sure, the lower receiver alone is little more than a big paperweight, but it's the unchanging core to which all other variable components are attached to form something functional. And no, you can't just "whittle it from wood" etc., it's a pretty serious chunk of milled steel (there exists a "plastic" version, but that ain't generic plastic). Yes, some jurisdictions aside you can make one AR15 lower receiver on your own without any paperwork, fees, checks, or permission. Understanding is that nobody going thru that much effort is going to waste it by doing something stupid (if there's criminal intent there are many far easier ways to acquire one). The issue here is: where's the line on making one? You can make one yourself legally, but if you hire someone else to knowingly make it they'll need an expensive big-hassle manufacturer's license. The key is "knowingly", as up until recently it was pretty obvious to the machinist what he was being asked to do. Now, with "printing", you just upload the pattern for what is otherwise just another odd-shaped chunk of metal, a computer & machine crank one out, and the result gets sent back to you with a minimum of comprehension by any humans involved - are _you_ "making" it? or is the printing house "making" it and, in effect, selling it to you? The legal line has been blurred.

0x12 15y ago
Anybody that wishes to pretend that the legal line has been blurred will find themselves sooner or later in an excellent position to try to prove that to a very unrelenting judge. If the legal fiction is that the lower receiver of that gun is the gun, then legally that didn't change so the method of manufacturing it is not relevant. Hiring someone to produce it while obfuscating the intent is not gray, it puts you in the docket. The printing house is acting on your explicit instruction, and if they don't review the orders (hard to do, after all, you can't know each and every prohibited item) then you are still on the hook. Trained machinist or 3D printer operator the change is only in the material of the produced item. As for not being able to whittle that part from wood, there are many kinds of wood that are much stronger than the ABS wire that a 3D printer uses. And if it can't be made out of those kinds of wood then it certainly can't be made out of plastic printed ABS (if you expect the gun to function).
- anelson 15y ago
  While I agree it would be unwise to test this legal question in court, I think it is fair to say this is a murky legal question. The BATFE, the federal law enforcement agency responsible for enforcing US laws regarding firearms manufacture, have a history of arbitrary rulemaking in defiance of simple logic (for instance, in one famous rulemaking BATFE ruled that a shoe string would meet the legal definition of 'machine gun' if used to repeatedly fire a gun with a single pull of the trigger [1]). Given this environment of legal uncertainty, it's not at all clear that BATFE would not pursue the 3D printer operator who produced the receiver. In this case, charges against the 3D printer operator would likely be unlawful manufacture of a firearm, possibly in addition to charges related to interstate transfer of a firearm. Given the creativity of some US attorneys, perhaps a conspiracy case would be made alleging the buyer of the printed part 'conspired' with the printer operator. I would also suggest a lower receiver could probably be made from materials weaker than you might imagine. The lower receiver does not bear any gas pressures from the firing of the cartridge, though the holes for the roll pins which hold the hammer and trigger in place would probably start to 'egg' after a round or two. In any case, the legal question has nothing to do with how reliable the resulting firearm is; only whether it meets certain vague and broadly-interpreted legal definitions. [1] http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring-machine-gun/ http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring-machi...

georgieporgie 15y ago

This is not 'printing a gun', But it (kind of) is, specifically with regards to US law. I mean, that's the point. There is a huge market for AR-15 upgrade parts, and everything else can be acquired easily with no regulation. And yes, this could be made at home with old technology, but it requires a fair amount of dedication and skill. Downloading a file and clicking 'print' is a significantly different process.

0x12 15y ago
> But it requires a fair amount of dedication and skill To specifically address that point, you could use a 5 axis machining center and a standardized control sequence ('G-codes') to do the exact same thing. I think the bigger difference is the amount of funds that needs to be put on the table for the machine itself. Once you have the rig set up for a part the major operations are mounting the blank, hitting 'start' and removing the finished part (assuming it can be made in one pass).
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  you could use a 5 axis machining center That's extremely expensive equipment that you're not going to have at home without a lot of dedication and investment. You could always send something off to eMachineShop.com, but that's still not really comparable to the not-so-distant future where we'll all have easy access to local 3D printers.
  - 0x12 15y ago
    Fine, so cast it using the lost wax method and clean it up. There are literally a hundred different ways in which you could make this part for pennies and some of those methods would be much more rapid and much cheaper than 3D printing.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      Are you seriously trying to suggest that carving the part plug, building a box, acquiring appropriate sand, packing the part into the sand, acquiring and melting metal, pouring said metal, then finishing the part's surface is anything like the ease of downloading, printing, and waiting? Yes, building a 3D printer is an investment now. But cheap, common 3D printers are going to become a reality, and soon.

jerf 15y ago

"You could always make a gun, all you needed was a lathe, some tooling, a hacksaw a file, some steel stock and a bunch of patience.... Printing a gun is just another way to get to the goal, possibly an easier one but one with its own unique challenges." A sufficiently large quantitative change is a qualitative change. Also the debate is ultimately not about this one thing today, but about a future in which one can download and print an open-source AK-47-equivalent with only slightly more difficulty than printing a picture. I'd contend this isn't "printing" or the definition of "making it yourself" that you'd consider here in 2011; it's a new semantic category that very few people are prepared to grapple with, least of all the law. I'd contend the law is yet to catch up with what computer programs permit people to do, it really isn't ready for how computer programs will increasingly freely impinge upon the real world. There is simply no legal category to handle this question, and many conventional ethical ones can't handle it very well either. The only solution is to go back to first principles, but most people can't really reason on first principles.

sliverstorm 15y ago
Can you please clarify how "printing" and making by hand are different, besides one being easier?
- tree_of_item 15y ago
  "A sufficiently large quantitative change is a qualitative change." I think this is pretty clear: making something by hand is very different from having a magic button to do it for you. "You could have whittled it out of wood!" completely misses the point. Unless you also think the creation of high level programming languages was not a qualitative change over the days of punch cards.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    The creation of high level programming languages is not analogous to easier gun making. It would be more analogous to easier gun making accelerating the pace of firearms development and resulting in firearms that are orders of magnitude more lethal.

sliverstorm 15y ago

I find it sad that manufacturing your own firearm is seen as magical enough to warrant an article like this one. Thank you for not being caught up in forgetting that things can be made with your hands.

0x12 15y ago
Home made semiconductors, that's hard! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcKwOo7dmM Mechanics is easy.

tnc 15y ago

To keep up with your point: There is one guy who got arrested in Brazil because he protected his house with improvised guns made with mousetraps. http://translate.google.com.br/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=pt-BR&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Foglobo.globo.com%2Fcidades%2Fmat%2F2011%2F07%2F15%2Fem-goias-ladrao-que-invadiu-casa-morre-com-tiro-no-peito-ao-acionar-armadilha-924914164.asp&act=url http://translate.google.com.br/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&#38...