4 ms·

What you are saying is mostly irrelevant. Access to ammunition is usually easier and cheaper, even illegally. Modern designs for 3D printed guns can be quite po

What you are saying is mostly irrelevant. Access to ammunition is usually easier and cheaper, even illegally. Modern designs for 3D printed guns can be quite powerful and a lot more capable than what you seem to be assuming. Quite a few designs contain a metal barrel which isn't regulated. There aren't that many "somewhat competent" DIYers with appropriate milling equipment and skills. It's a lot easier to 3D print a design than use manual tools to precisely manufacture something. Making it easier to kill people usually means more people get killed. A basic observation in criminology. Obviously 3D printed guns are getting produced and are being used in crimes. The article also says that Canada has a bigger problem with guns smuggled from the US.

mattpallissard 4y ago
> There aren't that many "somewhat competent" DIYers with appropriate milling equipment and skills A gun is a tube and a pin. No milling is required.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  That would be a much less useful gun than a lot of the modern 3d-printed designs. You'd want some kind of a handle and some way of injecting the pin into the bullet and some kind of a breach (informally speaking). Now we are talking some manufacturing, be it milling or drilling or sawing or whatever. If the result supposed to be as small and convenient as some 3D printed designs are, some metalworking or very precise woodworking is required. The article is about Canada. And apparently there is a niche for some people who'd rather produce and sell 3D printed guns than "tubes and pins". And I pointed out some of the reasons. A 3D printer reliably produces parts that are quite precise with a lot less effort. That is worth a lot of tradeoffs, even if traditional craftspeople scoff at the properties of the plastic. On HN there will always be people nitpicking on every detail left out...
  - mattpallissard 4y ago
    Not trying to nit pick. I'm just fairly confident there are more people that could rig up a home made shot gun than 3d print a gun.

mattpallissard 4y ago

> There aren't that many "somewhat competent" DIYers with appropriate milling equipment and skills A gun is a tube and a pin. No milling is required.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
That would be a much less useful gun than a lot of the modern 3d-printed designs. You'd want some kind of a handle and some way of injecting the pin into the bullet and some kind of a breach (informally speaking). Now we are talking some manufacturing, be it milling or drilling or sawing or whatever. If the result supposed to be as small and convenient as some 3D printed designs are, some metalworking or very precise woodworking is required. The article is about Canada. And apparently there is a niche for some people who'd rather produce and sell 3D printed guns than "tubes and pins". And I pointed out some of the reasons. A 3D printer reliably produces parts that are quite precise with a lot less effort. That is worth a lot of tradeoffs, even if traditional craftspeople scoff at the properties of the plastic. On HN there will always be people nitpicking on every detail left out...
- mattpallissard 4y ago
  Not trying to nit pick. I'm just fairly confident there are more people that could rig up a home made shot gun than 3d print a gun.