5 ms·

Weapons made with 3-D printers could test gun-control efforts

33 points by jamessun 14y ago

jamessun 14y ago
There are just so many interesting angles to this story. I'll start with just one... The government is always behind the curve when it comes to regulating technology. The rise of text messaging has forced local and state governments to create new laws to discourage/punish distracted driving. Airbnb and Uber have disrupted the traditional hotel and taxicab industries respectively, and have caused lawmakers to rethink how best to regulate those industries. 3-D printing is on the verge of becoming a mainstream technology and we'll continue to see more issues like the one highlighted in this story. The Second Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Does it also allow us to print our own weapons? Does the First Amendment to the US Constitution protect websites that provide instructions and blueprints on how to print your own weapons (or parts of weapons)?
- damoncali 14y ago
  Does it also allow us to print our own weapons?... The bill of rights restricts government, not the people. It is an important distinction missed by many.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Hear, hear!
- noarchy 14y ago
  Cases like Uber aren't just pushing governments to rethink regulations, but these emerging businesses are routing around regulations. This is an encouraging trend, I think. As government stifles certain industries (like taxis) with regulation, creative entrepreneurs can still find ways to give people choices. On another topic, if governments go after websites that host information on the "printing" of weapons, those sites can switch their hosting provider to a friendlier country. Failing that, they can become onion sites, or something similar. Again, people can manage to stay ahead of whatever government is doing.
teyc 14y ago
Gun control or the lack of it in the U.S. is ultimately due to regulatory capture by the gun industry. I'm sure legislators will draft into laws provisions that would make sure the legal gun industry retains its commercial upsides over 3D printing.
- cpursley 14y ago
  Exactly.
- Symmetry 14y ago
  You don't think the NRA has anything to do with it? Public opinion in rural states? The second amendment?
- damoncali 14y ago
  That is not even close to true. The gun industry is tiny. The real power comes from the millions of individuals who vote in unison on the issues and who have an uncanny political memory (aka the NRA, but they are really just a small subset of gun rights activists).
- jstalin 14y ago
  I'm sure it has nothing to do with the tens of millions of people who lawfully own guns...
  - teyc 14y ago
    Let's briefly talk about gun ownership issues. There are two classes of people who use guns. Those who have a practical need for it, and those who use guns recreationally. The second group are not dissimilar to people who drive Dodge because they want to honor the "farmer in themselves", or people who'd never take their 4WD off-road. It is the same people who buys Harleys and tattoo Harley Davidson's logo. These are "aspirationals". These aspirations don't come out of no where. There's marketing dollars at work. Harley Davidson's may be a way of life for many, and represents an important social outlet. It doesn't take away the fact the Harley Davidson is a commercial endeavour. Private gun ownership is a billion dollar per year industry in the U.S. This is not a niche market. (Harley Davidson's motorcycle sales was $771m per quarter). My thesis is that the NRA, being driven by commercial interests rather than 2nd amendment ideals, will come out in opposition to 3D printing of arms.
DanielBMarkham 14y ago
We've had a problem over the last decade or so: how do governments deal with populations where the individuals have more and more power? America has traditionally been more libertarian than most countries, so the crisis isn't as bad here, but we still see the signs. We're outlawing doing certain kinds of reverse engineering, we're making copyright violations a criminal offense, and so forth. (Most of our government reaction has been in the form of protecting large industries). Some other countries are seeing crackdowns on where you can go on the internet, who you can talk to. To those countries, individuals simply having the power to gather information is too much for them. I hate to make cataclysmic predictions, but I think the U.S. is going to get pulled more and more into your house and head. Where you surf, what you consume, what kinds of things you print on your 3-D printers. 3-D printing is the thing that is going to change everything, because now we can make whatever we need without having to rely on established patterns of commerce (which the government can control). If it helps any, I don't think this is some sort of deliberate power grab. Quite frankly I don't think the people we have running things are anywhere near qualified enough to be making the decisions they are, On top of that, we have no examples throughout history of a government with the ability to control and monitor so much of each person's life. There's no precedent. 3-D printing, to me, is the one tech that over the next 50 years or so will dramatically change everything. Robots are a close second. Fun times to be alive! (Or perhaps a more accurate word than "fun" would be "interesting")
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  "America has traditionally been more libertarian than most countries, so the crisis isn't as bad here, but we still see the signs." I think we're way past seeing a few signs. I encourage you to read Naomi Wolf's 2007 article 'Fascist America, in 10 easy steps' [1] or watch the presentation 'The End of America' [2]. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skhd9NCseF4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skhd9NCseF4
- jrogers65 14y ago
  It'll be even more fun when argiculture and currency become distributed. I know that we already have bitcoin but imagine if it entered the mainstream. The powers that be would be reeling since they would effectively no longer be relevant and would have very little influence left. Personally, I think that this is all going to cause today's authorities to become increasingly violent until they collapse as a result of the new ways making them obsolete. Then we just might see another golden age for humanity. My forecast is thunderstorms followed by bright sunshine.
jstanley 14y ago
Why is 3D printing a gun any different to making one with machining tools? Surely the same laws should apply, and this is just an advancement of home-manufacturing technology that has no real involvement with gun laws.
- knowaveragejoe 14y ago
  Most people overhyping this think 3D printing would make it as simple as clicking a button, which it is most definitely not.
  - kale 14y ago
    I use SLA 3D printing almost weekly for rapid prototyping (in the past I've used powder sintered 3D printing as well). If you can find the proper CAD file (I use STEP, or IGES), it can be made. If those plans were distributed on P2P, it would be as simple as importing the files, orient the build, and then press a button, then assemble after the run.
  - damoncali 14y ago
    But it could be. That is what has people all riled up.
- kabdib 14y ago
  It's relatively easy to manufacture most of an AK-47 using machines that are affordable and that fit in a garage (the exception being rifled barrels, but those are relatively easy to find). In the US, it's also perfectly legal, as long as the firearm is not capable of automatic fire. If you have a CNC mill, you can make your own AR-15 (again, you'll probably have to buy a barrel). The "OMG people will print guns" stuff is just hysteria and grandstanding.
  - kale 14y ago
    Even with CNC programming, a person has to have skills to properly mount and orient the work (center if on a CNC lathe, zero the coordinate system if on a mill), machine, and assemble. It takes decent skill to make a firearm with conventional machining. The concern (I'm not saying it's a founded concern) is that 3D printing would allow unskilled folks to download increasingly complex plans and implement them with little skill. The pool of people with good CNC machining skills (and access to at least $10K worth of very heavy equipment) is probably less than the pool of people with $5K spare cash (ballparking what a future 3D printer might cost) and only basic mechanical skills.
knowaveragejoe 14y ago
More sensationalism about 3D printed guns. People, please - nobody is going to be printing a functioning gun purely out of ABS plastic on a <$1k hobby printer for a long time(if ever). The only people who might be printing guns(requiring pretty rigorous touchup after the printing process) are those with access with extremely expensive printers that can print metal. I sincerely hope this doesn't lead to regulating 3d printing into oblivion. Just like the entertainment industry wishes it got the jump on filesharing, I'm sure big manufacturing is prepping its lobbying efforts.
- armored_mammal 14y ago
  Yes, the fact the article refers to > than 1k (but still not terribly expensive) printers using 'advanced polymer' instead of ABS makes it yet another article about using pure ABS plastic on a sub-1k printer... I'll agree that metal is probably a requirement for a barrel. But barrels are not controlled or restricted. Neither are magazines, which we know can be printed already with some success.
  - knowaveragejoe 14y ago
    I'd love to see some 'advanced polymers' that can handle the stress of a caliber greater than .22LR(which is what Defense Distributed tested with), while simultaneously being printed with the precision necessary from a printer costing <$10k. It's also worth pointing out you can already buy all of the components necessary to assemble your own firearm, all without a serial number. I think the deeper issue here is, as another comment pointed out, there are entrenched interests promoting this hysteria to garner public sentiment for regulation by making the scary applications glaringly obvious and overshadowing the beneficial implications of the technology.
    - damoncali 14y ago
      It's also worth pointing out you can already buy all of the components necessary to assemble your own firearm, all without a serial number Not exactly true. Every legal gun has one part with a serial number that defines the gun legally. Usually (always?) it's the receiver. There are some grey areas where you can get an almost finished receiver free of regulation.
winestock 14y ago
It's almost a year old, but Scott Locklin's comments are still pertinent, especially since it discusses the AR-15 which the Washington Post article discusses. https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/bad-engineering-journalism-reporting-on-3-d-printing-of-guns/ https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/bad-engineerin...
- knowaveragejoe 14y ago
  Thanks for posting this, very insightful comments on there.
andmarios 14y ago
I guess in the 90's someone could have written an article by the title «Digital copies made with computers could test copyright control efforts».
pegas123 14y ago
3d printing guns might be bad news for opressive regimes. I grew up under one, remember all the measures to regulate the use of xerox copy machines. A book was an enemy of the regime. Imagine guns instead. Now, where to get enough amunition?
vaadu 14y ago
Can we stop calling the process 3D printing? print·ing /ˈprintiNG/ Noun 1. The production of books, newspapers, or other printed material. 2. A single impression of a book. Synonyms print - press - impression - typography
- forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
  No, because it is a good name. With 3d printers you are printing layers, like a conventional printer, but one over the others. In fact you could even use the same heads, I could 3d print wax with my printer and an Epson Inkjet head.
- omellet 14y ago
  Should we stop saying 'telephone call', when 'to call' meant to actually visit somebody? Of course not. Language is defined by usage, not by the dictionary.
ck2 14y ago
Drunks often don't obey anti-drunk driving laws. But we still have those laws for darn good reasons. There is nothing wrong with having gun control laws.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  It seems like a different sort of a thing. The trouble with drunk driving is that someone is doing something dangerous that could cause someone to get hurt unintentionally. The trouble with guns is that bad people intentionally use them to do bad things. Stopping the drunk on the seventeenth instance of driving drunk makes good sense, because it stops someone getting hurt on the ninety fourth instance. Stopping someone intent on committing murder on the seventeenth instance is too little too late. You have to stop them the first time, or make it so that they don't find murder to be an acceptable course of conduct regardless of the legality of the tools. >There is nothing wrong with having gun control laws. There is something seriously wrong with having laws you can't enforce. It erodes respect for the law in general and it promotes demagoguery and a dangerous trend of expansion in police powers as the law inevitably proves to be unenforceable, law enforcement demands dangerous powers that still don't allow the law to be enforced, and the new powers fail to resolve the issue that the law is unenforceable generating a renewed call for more new and dangerous police powers.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Another example following your unenforceable laws logic, drug laws. Look at how many civil liberties have been tossed to the side in the ever expanding drug war, even though most applications of these laws these days having nothing to do with drugs. No-knock raids are pretty much the standard on serving a search warrant now.
- harshreality 14y ago
  There are already laws against doing anything bad with guns, akin to laws banning drunk driving. Gun control laws go beyond that. They seek to ban peaceful activities on the basis that it might stymie a few violent criminals... maybe. Your analogy fails.
AnthonyMouse 14y ago
>He suggests one way to prevent dangerous, illegal usage of 3-D printers is to better control gunpowder, an idea that has come up in gun control in the past. Isn't gunpowder pretty easy to manufacture too? Not with a 3D printer, obviously, but with common materials and a cursory knowledge of chemistry. >When I tell them the law that would stop these plastic guns from getting onto planes is expiring in just a few months, people are appalled. This is the essence of missing the point. The issue with 3D printed weapons is that you can't ban them. I have to imagine that it's already illegal to bring a gun onto a plane, so he has to be talking about banning their manufacture, which is the exact thing 3D printing will make moot. Can we please at some point graduate from trying to prohibit anything with a sharp edge and instead try to address crime and terrorism at the root? I realize that isn't as profitable with campaign contributors or as rhetorically effective in frightening the voters, but the point of a representative rather than direct democracy is that legislators are supposed to make hard or unpopular decisions when it's necessary.
- damoncali 14y ago
  Isn't gunpowder pretty easy to manufacture too? In theory - but not at a quality level approaching what you can buy at a gun store today. But primers are the hard part. I don't know of anyone who has made their own primers.
- talmand 14y ago
  Today's politics and laws are about emotion. A group has an emotional crisis so a law must be written to address it. Most bad things in life are already illegal, but there seems to be the desire to add more laws to address that specific thing that bothers that specific group. Even though it is already covered by a number of other laws. Politicians take advantage of this with the typical "we must do something!" or "we must do this for the 'whatever'" (typically children) rhetoric that addresses the emotion but tosses out all logic. It's similar to the perpetual war concept by always pointing over the border at "the enemy". The problem is that your average person doesn't know enough of what's going on in the world and probably cannot do so anyway, that's the point of a representative government. That's another thing that politician's take advantage of, a person's willingness to believe whatever an "expert" states. Of course it's illegal to carry a firearm onto a plane, except for certain situations (police and so forth), but when someone of authority says that laws that prevent plastic guns from going on planes are expiring the average people assume the politician means that it will suddenly be legal to do so. That's not necessarily true, there are several other laws to prevent such a thing from happening. But the authority figure in his rhetoric chooses not to mention that. As for almost all gun ban laws in place or have ever been proposed, if you take a hard look, do nothing in terms of preventing any other laws from being broken. Most mass shootings happen in areas where it is known the likelihood of another gun being on the premises is low because the law makes it a "gun-free zone". Gun ban laws tend to lean towards banning guns based on cosmetic features, not the actual functionality of the weapons involved.
damoncali 14y ago
Link to the mentioned site, Defense Distributed: http://defensedistributed.com/ http://defensedistributed.com/
makomk 14y ago
They're probably not going to test gun control as much as the press thinks. Calibrating cheap 3D printers is hard, and chances are it's going to take quite a bit of tweaking to print off a reliable magazine or other part on a new printer. I can easily see would-be spree killers getting stopped mid-massacre because their misprinted magazine jammed.
- nathan_long 14y ago
  Calibrating cheap 3D printers is hard right now. That doesn't mean it always will be. The good ones will get cheaper and the cheap ones will get better. It used to be hard to get a computer to use a new paper printer at all. Now it's almost always plug-and-play. You could imagine a 3D printer that prints test objects, scans them in great detail to find defects, and calibrates itself accordingly.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Exactly right. Computers used to be hard to build by hand years ago, you had to solder your own boards for gosh sakes. These days you buy the components off the shelf and stick them together correctly. What is hard today will most likely be easy tomorrow.
- jerf 14y ago
  That's true today. Is it true in 2023? I think there's some failure of the imagination here. 3D printing as we know it today will soon be only one tool in the automated arsenal. As robotics improve and 3D printing improves, the idea of a fully automated shop that fits in a reasonable size is not silly. You say you need a lathe to really make a gun? OK, fine, I tend to agree that current 3D printing techniques will never really make you a decent barrel... but what the stopper on a robotic lathe, or other robotic tool for building barrels? There isn't one.
drofmij 14y ago
You don't need 3-D printers to make guns. They can be quite easily made in any machine shop - albeit with varying degrees of success. Zipguns / improvised firearms have been a thing for a long time -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm Gunpowder is pretty easy to make as well. Stop whining about 3-D printers it's not that big of a deal in regards to guns.

33 points by jamessun 14y ago

There are just so many interesting angles to this story. I'll start with just one... The government is always behind the curve when it comes to regulating technology. The rise of text messaging has forced local and state governments to create new laws to discourage/punish distracted driving. Airbnb and Uber have disrupted the traditional hotel and taxicab industries respectively, and have caused lawmakers to rethink how best to regulate those industries. 3-D printing is on the verge of becoming a mainstream technology and we'll continue to see more issues like the one highlighted in this story. The Second Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Does it also allow us to print our own weapons? Does the First Amendment to the US Constitution protect websites that provide instructions and blueprints on how to print your own weapons (or parts of weapons)?

damoncali 14y ago
Does it also allow us to print our own weapons?... The bill of rights restricts government, not the people. It is an important distinction missed by many.
- talmand 14y ago
  Hear, hear!
noarchy 14y ago
Cases like Uber aren't just pushing governments to rethink regulations, but these emerging businesses are routing around regulations. This is an encouraging trend, I think. As government stifles certain industries (like taxis) with regulation, creative entrepreneurs can still find ways to give people choices. On another topic, if governments go after websites that host information on the "printing" of weapons, those sites can switch their hosting provider to a friendlier country. Failing that, they can become onion sites, or something similar. Again, people can manage to stay ahead of whatever government is doing.

teyc 14y ago

Gun control or the lack of it in the U.S. is ultimately due to regulatory capture by the gun industry. I'm sure legislators will draft into laws provisions that would make sure the legal gun industry retains its commercial upsides over 3D printing.

cpursley 14y ago
Exactly.
Symmetry 14y ago
You don't think the NRA has anything to do with it? Public opinion in rural states? The second amendment?
damoncali 14y ago
That is not even close to true. The gun industry is tiny. The real power comes from the millions of individuals who vote in unison on the issues and who have an uncanny political memory (aka the NRA, but they are really just a small subset of gun rights activists).
jstalin 14y ago
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the tens of millions of people who lawfully own guns...
- teyc 14y ago
  Let's briefly talk about gun ownership issues. There are two classes of people who use guns. Those who have a practical need for it, and those who use guns recreationally. The second group are not dissimilar to people who drive Dodge because they want to honor the "farmer in themselves", or people who'd never take their 4WD off-road. It is the same people who buys Harleys and tattoo Harley Davidson's logo. These are "aspirationals". These aspirations don't come out of no where. There's marketing dollars at work. Harley Davidson's may be a way of life for many, and represents an important social outlet. It doesn't take away the fact the Harley Davidson is a commercial endeavour. Private gun ownership is a billion dollar per year industry in the U.S. This is not a niche market. (Harley Davidson's motorcycle sales was $771m per quarter). My thesis is that the NRA, being driven by commercial interests rather than 2nd amendment ideals, will come out in opposition to 3D printing of arms.

DanielBMarkham 14y ago

We've had a problem over the last decade or so: how do governments deal with populations where the individuals have more and more power? America has traditionally been more libertarian than most countries, so the crisis isn't as bad here, but we still see the signs. We're outlawing doing certain kinds of reverse engineering, we're making copyright violations a criminal offense, and so forth. (Most of our government reaction has been in the form of protecting large industries). Some other countries are seeing crackdowns on where you can go on the internet, who you can talk to. To those countries, individuals simply having the power to gather information is too much for them. I hate to make cataclysmic predictions, but I think the U.S. is going to get pulled more and more into your house and head. Where you surf, what you consume, what kinds of things you print on your 3-D printers. 3-D printing is the thing that is going to change everything, because now we can make whatever we need without having to rely on established patterns of commerce (which the government can control). If it helps any, I don't think this is some sort of deliberate power grab. Quite frankly I don't think the people we have running things are anywhere near qualified enough to be making the decisions they are, On top of that, we have no examples throughout history of a government with the ability to control and monitor so much of each person's life. There's no precedent. 3-D printing, to me, is the one tech that over the next 50 years or so will dramatically change everything. Robots are a close second. Fun times to be alive! (Or perhaps a more accurate word than "fun" would be "interesting")

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
"America has traditionally been more libertarian than most countries, so the crisis isn't as bad here, but we still see the signs." I think we're way past seeing a few signs. I encourage you to read Naomi Wolf's 2007 article 'Fascist America, in 10 easy steps' [1] or watch the presentation 'The End of America' [2]. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skhd9NCseF4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skhd9NCseF4
jrogers65 14y ago
It'll be even more fun when argiculture and currency become distributed. I know that we already have bitcoin but imagine if it entered the mainstream. The powers that be would be reeling since they would effectively no longer be relevant and would have very little influence left. Personally, I think that this is all going to cause today's authorities to become increasingly violent until they collapse as a result of the new ways making them obsolete. Then we just might see another golden age for humanity. My forecast is thunderstorms followed by bright sunshine.

jstanley 14y ago

Why is 3D printing a gun any different to making one with machining tools? Surely the same laws should apply, and this is just an advancement of home-manufacturing technology that has no real involvement with gun laws.

knowaveragejoe 14y ago
Most people overhyping this think 3D printing would make it as simple as clicking a button, which it is most definitely not.
- kale 14y ago
  I use SLA 3D printing almost weekly for rapid prototyping (in the past I've used powder sintered 3D printing as well). If you can find the proper CAD file (I use STEP, or IGES), it can be made. If those plans were distributed on P2P, it would be as simple as importing the files, orient the build, and then press a button, then assemble after the run.
- damoncali 14y ago
  But it could be. That is what has people all riled up.
kabdib 14y ago
It's relatively easy to manufacture most of an AK-47 using machines that are affordable and that fit in a garage (the exception being rifled barrels, but those are relatively easy to find). In the US, it's also perfectly legal, as long as the firearm is not capable of automatic fire. If you have a CNC mill, you can make your own AR-15 (again, you'll probably have to buy a barrel). The "OMG people will print guns" stuff is just hysteria and grandstanding.
- kale 14y ago
  Even with CNC programming, a person has to have skills to properly mount and orient the work (center if on a CNC lathe, zero the coordinate system if on a mill), machine, and assemble. It takes decent skill to make a firearm with conventional machining. The concern (I'm not saying it's a founded concern) is that 3D printing would allow unskilled folks to download increasingly complex plans and implement them with little skill. The pool of people with good CNC machining skills (and access to at least $10K worth of very heavy equipment) is probably less than the pool of people with $5K spare cash (ballparking what a future 3D printer might cost) and only basic mechanical skills.

knowaveragejoe 14y ago

More sensationalism about 3D printed guns. People, please - nobody is going to be printing a functioning gun purely out of ABS plastic on a <$1k hobby printer for a long time(if ever). The only people who might be printing guns(requiring pretty rigorous touchup after the printing process) are those with access with extremely expensive printers that can print metal. I sincerely hope this doesn't lead to regulating 3d printing into oblivion. Just like the entertainment industry wishes it got the jump on filesharing, I'm sure big manufacturing is prepping its lobbying efforts.

armored_mammal 14y ago
Yes, the fact the article refers to > than 1k (but still not terribly expensive) printers using 'advanced polymer' instead of ABS makes it yet another article about using pure ABS plastic on a sub-1k printer... I'll agree that metal is probably a requirement for a barrel. But barrels are not controlled or restricted. Neither are magazines, which we know can be printed already with some success.
- knowaveragejoe 14y ago
  I'd love to see some 'advanced polymers' that can handle the stress of a caliber greater than .22LR(which is what Defense Distributed tested with), while simultaneously being printed with the precision necessary from a printer costing <$10k. It's also worth pointing out you can already buy all of the components necessary to assemble your own firearm, all without a serial number. I think the deeper issue here is, as another comment pointed out, there are entrenched interests promoting this hysteria to garner public sentiment for regulation by making the scary applications glaringly obvious and overshadowing the beneficial implications of the technology.
  - damoncali 14y ago
    It's also worth pointing out you can already buy all of the components necessary to assemble your own firearm, all without a serial number Not exactly true. Every legal gun has one part with a serial number that defines the gun legally. Usually (always?) it's the receiver. There are some grey areas where you can get an almost finished receiver free of regulation.

winestock 14y ago

It's almost a year old, but Scott Locklin's comments are still pertinent, especially since it discusses the AR-15 which the Washington Post article discusses. https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/bad-engineering-journalism-reporting-on-3-d-printing-of-guns/ https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/bad-engineerin...

knowaveragejoe 14y ago
Thanks for posting this, very insightful comments on there.

andmarios 14y ago

I guess in the 90's someone could have written an article by the title «Digital copies made with computers could test copyright control efforts».

pegas123 14y ago

3d printing guns might be bad news for opressive regimes. I grew up under one, remember all the measures to regulate the use of xerox copy machines. A book was an enemy of the regime. Imagine guns instead. Now, where to get enough amunition?

vaadu 14y ago

Can we stop calling the process 3D printing? print·ing /ˈprintiNG/ Noun 1. The production of books, newspapers, or other printed material. 2. A single impression of a book. Synonyms print - press - impression - typography

forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
No, because it is a good name. With 3d printers you are printing layers, like a conventional printer, but one over the others. In fact you could even use the same heads, I could 3d print wax with my printer and an Epson Inkjet head.
omellet 14y ago
Should we stop saying 'telephone call', when 'to call' meant to actually visit somebody? Of course not. Language is defined by usage, not by the dictionary.

ck2 14y ago

Drunks often don't obey anti-drunk driving laws. But we still have those laws for darn good reasons. There is nothing wrong with having gun control laws.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago
It seems like a different sort of a thing. The trouble with drunk driving is that someone is doing something dangerous that could cause someone to get hurt unintentionally. The trouble with guns is that bad people intentionally use them to do bad things. Stopping the drunk on the seventeenth instance of driving drunk makes good sense, because it stops someone getting hurt on the ninety fourth instance. Stopping someone intent on committing murder on the seventeenth instance is too little too late. You have to stop them the first time, or make it so that they don't find murder to be an acceptable course of conduct regardless of the legality of the tools. >There is nothing wrong with having gun control laws. There is something seriously wrong with having laws you can't enforce. It erodes respect for the law in general and it promotes demagoguery and a dangerous trend of expansion in police powers as the law inevitably proves to be unenforceable, law enforcement demands dangerous powers that still don't allow the law to be enforced, and the new powers fail to resolve the issue that the law is unenforceable generating a renewed call for more new and dangerous police powers.
- talmand 14y ago
  Another example following your unenforceable laws logic, drug laws. Look at how many civil liberties have been tossed to the side in the ever expanding drug war, even though most applications of these laws these days having nothing to do with drugs. No-knock raids are pretty much the standard on serving a search warrant now.
harshreality 14y ago
There are already laws against doing anything bad with guns, akin to laws banning drunk driving. Gun control laws go beyond that. They seek to ban peaceful activities on the basis that it might stymie a few violent criminals... maybe. Your analogy fails.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago

>He suggests one way to prevent dangerous, illegal usage of 3-D printers is to better control gunpowder, an idea that has come up in gun control in the past. Isn't gunpowder pretty easy to manufacture too? Not with a 3D printer, obviously, but with common materials and a cursory knowledge of chemistry. >When I tell them the law that would stop these plastic guns from getting onto planes is expiring in just a few months, people are appalled. This is the essence of missing the point. The issue with 3D printed weapons is that you can't ban them. I have to imagine that it's already illegal to bring a gun onto a plane, so he has to be talking about banning their manufacture, which is the exact thing 3D printing will make moot. Can we please at some point graduate from trying to prohibit anything with a sharp edge and instead try to address crime and terrorism at the root? I realize that isn't as profitable with campaign contributors or as rhetorically effective in frightening the voters, but the point of a representative rather than direct democracy is that legislators are supposed to make hard or unpopular decisions when it's necessary.

damoncali 14y ago
Isn't gunpowder pretty easy to manufacture too? In theory - but not at a quality level approaching what you can buy at a gun store today. But primers are the hard part. I don't know of anyone who has made their own primers.
talmand 14y ago
Today's politics and laws are about emotion. A group has an emotional crisis so a law must be written to address it. Most bad things in life are already illegal, but there seems to be the desire to add more laws to address that specific thing that bothers that specific group. Even though it is already covered by a number of other laws. Politicians take advantage of this with the typical "we must do something!" or "we must do this for the 'whatever'" (typically children) rhetoric that addresses the emotion but tosses out all logic. It's similar to the perpetual war concept by always pointing over the border at "the enemy". The problem is that your average person doesn't know enough of what's going on in the world and probably cannot do so anyway, that's the point of a representative government. That's another thing that politician's take advantage of, a person's willingness to believe whatever an "expert" states. Of course it's illegal to carry a firearm onto a plane, except for certain situations (police and so forth), but when someone of authority says that laws that prevent plastic guns from going on planes are expiring the average people assume the politician means that it will suddenly be legal to do so. That's not necessarily true, there are several other laws to prevent such a thing from happening. But the authority figure in his rhetoric chooses not to mention that. As for almost all gun ban laws in place or have ever been proposed, if you take a hard look, do nothing in terms of preventing any other laws from being broken. Most mass shootings happen in areas where it is known the likelihood of another gun being on the premises is low because the law makes it a "gun-free zone". Gun ban laws tend to lean towards banning guns based on cosmetic features, not the actual functionality of the weapons involved.

damoncali 14y ago

Link to the mentioned site, Defense Distributed: http://defensedistributed.com/ http://defensedistributed.com/

makomk 14y ago

They're probably not going to test gun control as much as the press thinks. Calibrating cheap 3D printers is hard, and chances are it's going to take quite a bit of tweaking to print off a reliable magazine or other part on a new printer. I can easily see would-be spree killers getting stopped mid-massacre because their misprinted magazine jammed.

nathan_long 14y ago
Calibrating cheap 3D printers is hard right now. That doesn't mean it always will be. The good ones will get cheaper and the cheap ones will get better. It used to be hard to get a computer to use a new paper printer at all. Now it's almost always plug-and-play. You could imagine a 3D printer that prints test objects, scans them in great detail to find defects, and calibrates itself accordingly.
- talmand 14y ago
  Exactly right. Computers used to be hard to build by hand years ago, you had to solder your own boards for gosh sakes. These days you buy the components off the shelf and stick them together correctly. What is hard today will most likely be easy tomorrow.
jerf 14y ago
That's true today. Is it true in 2023? I think there's some failure of the imagination here. 3D printing as we know it today will soon be only one tool in the automated arsenal. As robotics improve and 3D printing improves, the idea of a fully automated shop that fits in a reasonable size is not silly. You say you need a lathe to really make a gun? OK, fine, I tend to agree that current 3D printing techniques will never really make you a decent barrel... but what the stopper on a robotic lathe, or other robotic tool for building barrels? There isn't one.

drofmij 14y ago

You don't need 3-D printers to make guns. They can be quite easily made in any machine shop - albeit with varying degrees of success. Zipguns / improvised firearms have been a thing for a long time -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm Gunpowder is pretty easy to make as well. Stop whining about 3-D printers it's not that big of a deal in regards to guns.