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Honestly, I don't understand the hysteria over 3-D printers when it comes to guns. For less than ten grand you can buy a 3-axis CNC machine and mill yourself a

by tsotha 14y ago

Honestly, I don't understand the hysteria over 3-D printers when it comes to guns. For less than ten grand you can buy a 3-axis CNC machine and mill yourself a heavy machine gun in your garage. This has been possible for decades now. Hell, you can see youtube videos of CNC projects where someone takes a manual lathe and puts together his own computer control for a grand total of $600.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago
>For less than ten grand you can buy a 3-axis CNC machine and mill yourself a heavy machine gun in your garage. I think CNC machines probably fall into the same category as 3D printers when it comes to things like this. The issue isn't that someone with a little money can manufacture a firearm. This has been the case since firearms were invented. The issue is that it's becoming easier and cheaper to do it, and as time passes it seems plausible that object fabrication equipment will become a staple home appliance. Which will make attempts to ban anything that such machines can produce about as effective as trying to stop people downloading pirated movies. The funny thing is that they think passing a law against it is going to do anything. The whole issue is that the widespread availability of the devices would make such laws unenforceable in practice.
- tsotha 14y ago
  >The whole issue is that the widespread availability of the devices would make such laws unenforceable in practice. Gun and explosive laws are already unenforceable. Explosives are easy to make - you can get recipes off the internet. And guns are easy to make, too, as I pointed out above. It's not clear to me that 3D printers will be any cheaper or more ubiquitous than milling machines, but in any case milling machines are already ubiquitous. What keeps people from making machine guns and bombs is the severe penalties associated with doing so. That won't change with the advent of cheap 3D printers, even assuming a printer that could make a gun is ever cheap.

by tsotha 14y ago

AnthonyMouse 14y ago

>For less than ten grand you can buy a 3-axis CNC machine and mill yourself a heavy machine gun in your garage. I think CNC machines probably fall into the same category as 3D printers when it comes to things like this. The issue isn't that someone with a little money can manufacture a firearm. This has been the case since firearms were invented. The issue is that it's becoming easier and cheaper to do it, and as time passes it seems plausible that object fabrication equipment will become a staple home appliance. Which will make attempts to ban anything that such machines can produce about as effective as trying to stop people downloading pirated movies. The funny thing is that they think passing a law against it is going to do anything. The whole issue is that the widespread availability of the devices would make such laws unenforceable in practice.

tsotha 14y ago
>The whole issue is that the widespread availability of the devices would make such laws unenforceable in practice. Gun and explosive laws are already unenforceable. Explosives are easy to make - you can get recipes off the internet. And guns are easy to make, too, as I pointed out above. It's not clear to me that 3D printers will be any cheaper or more ubiquitous than milling machines, but in any case milling machines are already ubiquitous. What keeps people from making machine guns and bombs is the severe penalties associated with doing so. That won't change with the advent of cheap 3D printers, even assuming a printer that could make a gun is ever cheap.