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I always wonder why these articles don't mention that the ability to personally make a gun with a CNC machine has existed for quite a few years. There isn't a

I always wonder why these articles don't mention that the ability to personally make a gun with a CNC machine has existed for quite a few years. There isn't a lot of new ground being broken in terms of "Freedom to create firearms in your home" with 3D printing.

arethuza 14y ago
I managed to make a "gun" when I was about 14 with some scrap metal parts, home made explosive and hand tools. Mind you, I only ever test fired it while it was safely held in a vice, but it certainly worked.
- geon 14y ago
  Someone I know converted a model cannon to an actual cannon and loaded it with blackpowder from firecrackers and a marble. It worked very well and almost hit an unsuspecting passerby. My uncle built a similar cannon from some pipe and shot holes through sheet metal with it.
cturner 14y ago
I think it's a big story. 3d printing opens many possibilities that CNC doesn't offer. A CNC requires specialised skill. Downloading and printing 3d doesn't. Building guns with a CNC requires a lot of labour. Whereas you can imagine having a lab full of 3d printers being operated by a single pensioner. 3d printers look like they'll be generic and mass-produced. If so, in ten years there will be 3d printers everywhere. People sitting in refugee camps on the edge of hotzones won't have have difficulty getting access to them. At some time in the near future there will be a good-enough equivalent to the assault rifle that can be 3d printed. And drones. And other things. The US has avoided pouring arms into Syria partly out of concern for the mess that it will leave behind afterwards. Also, they're wanting to avoid arming people hostile to the west. These arguments are valid now, but we can see the end of it.
- _delirium 14y ago
  CNC machines do take skill to operate, but the amount of skill required to make a single-shot gun out of metal by conventional means is really low. It's something you can do with very rudimentary metalworking skills, using low-tech equipment. Now if you can 3d-print a reliable rifle like an AK-47, that could get interesting.
  - cturner 14y ago
    Now if you can 3d-print a reliable rifle like an AK-47, that could get interesting. The team that made this gun are already doing the most difficult bit from the AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle that has been used in several massacres in the west (including the one that sparked heavy gun regulation in Australia in the 90s). That's why I thought this was news. First they made the lower-receiver of a powerful gun. Now they've also succeeded in producing all the parts of a not-powerful gun. As I see it, they've got a piece of string over the chasm and will iterate from here to build a bridge. I expect the barrel will be difficult (need a big machine and the rifling is probably tricky as you get to the top). The gas-reloading mechanism will take some work. But the lower-receiver is where most of the pressures where you might have doubt that plastic would work, and that's the bit they've already done. And that's just reimplementing an existing gun with a design that was optimised for metalwork. After that we'll see a bunch of development in designs that are optimised for plastics and printing. That'll be your AK-47 equivalent.
    - _delirium 14y ago
      the most difficult bit from the AR-15 As far as I understand it, the lower receiver on an AR-15 is actually a pretty trivial housing component, subject to almost no operational pressures, but interesting legally because it's where the gun's serial number happens to be stamped. (But I should note I don't really know much about AR-15s, just stuff I've read.)
      - cturner 14y ago
        Ah - thanks. Seems I've made a bad assumption that was key to my position. I understood the significance of the stamp but had also thought it was among the most vulnerable spots for operational shock. I'll go back and re-read on this.
jacquesm 14y ago
You don't even need a CNC machine. Just old fashioned tools will do just fine. Guns predate CNC tools by a comfortable margin in time.
- mrspeaker 14y ago
  Kind of reminds me of the arguments about ajax around 2004 when the term was popularised: everyone (me included) went "This is stupid, we've had 'ajax' for ever: years ago I was doing long polling with iframes, this is no different it's just a bit more convenient". Convenience turns out to be a pretty big contributing factor in how many people do something!
  - reader5000 14y ago
    >Convenience turns out to be a pretty big contributing factor in how many people do something! This is anti-American propaganda. All those mass shooters, they would have just found another way.
fungi 14y ago
indeed home made guns have a very long history. the serious gun violence that they fuel in Papua New Guinea has been known about for years. extremely detailed paper: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/B-Occasional-papers/SAS-OP08-Pacific.pdf http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/B-Occasional-p... for something a little less dry and with pics of the guns see: http://www.vice.com/read/port-moresbys-little-raskols http://www.vice.com/read/port-moresbys-little-raskols the 3d printer angle is interesting from a tec perspective, but i cant help feel that this is more about a guy building himself in to the linus of guns then gun policy.

arethuza 14y ago

I managed to make a "gun" when I was about 14 with some scrap metal parts, home made explosive and hand tools. Mind you, I only ever test fired it while it was safely held in a vice, but it certainly worked.

geon 14y ago
Someone I know converted a model cannon to an actual cannon and loaded it with blackpowder from firecrackers and a marble. It worked very well and almost hit an unsuspecting passerby. My uncle built a similar cannon from some pipe and shot holes through sheet metal with it.

cturner 14y ago

I think it's a big story. 3d printing opens many possibilities that CNC doesn't offer. A CNC requires specialised skill. Downloading and printing 3d doesn't. Building guns with a CNC requires a lot of labour. Whereas you can imagine having a lab full of 3d printers being operated by a single pensioner. 3d printers look like they'll be generic and mass-produced. If so, in ten years there will be 3d printers everywhere. People sitting in refugee camps on the edge of hotzones won't have have difficulty getting access to them. At some time in the near future there will be a good-enough equivalent to the assault rifle that can be 3d printed. And drones. And other things. The US has avoided pouring arms into Syria partly out of concern for the mess that it will leave behind afterwards. Also, they're wanting to avoid arming people hostile to the west. These arguments are valid now, but we can see the end of it.

_delirium 14y ago
CNC machines do take skill to operate, but the amount of skill required to make a single-shot gun out of metal by conventional means is really low. It's something you can do with very rudimentary metalworking skills, using low-tech equipment. Now if you can 3d-print a reliable rifle like an AK-47, that could get interesting.
- cturner 14y ago
  Now if you can 3d-print a reliable rifle like an AK-47, that could get interesting. The team that made this gun are already doing the most difficult bit from the AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle that has been used in several massacres in the west (including the one that sparked heavy gun regulation in Australia in the 90s). That's why I thought this was news. First they made the lower-receiver of a powerful gun. Now they've also succeeded in producing all the parts of a not-powerful gun. As I see it, they've got a piece of string over the chasm and will iterate from here to build a bridge. I expect the barrel will be difficult (need a big machine and the rifling is probably tricky as you get to the top). The gas-reloading mechanism will take some work. But the lower-receiver is where most of the pressures where you might have doubt that plastic would work, and that's the bit they've already done. And that's just reimplementing an existing gun with a design that was optimised for metalwork. After that we'll see a bunch of development in designs that are optimised for plastics and printing. That'll be your AK-47 equivalent.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    the most difficult bit from the AR-15 As far as I understand it, the lower receiver on an AR-15 is actually a pretty trivial housing component, subject to almost no operational pressures, but interesting legally because it's where the gun's serial number happens to be stamped. (But I should note I don't really know much about AR-15s, just stuff I've read.)
    - cturner 14y ago
      Ah - thanks. Seems I've made a bad assumption that was key to my position. I understood the significance of the stamp but had also thought it was among the most vulnerable spots for operational shock. I'll go back and re-read on this.

jacquesm 14y ago

You don't even need a CNC machine. Just old fashioned tools will do just fine. Guns predate CNC tools by a comfortable margin in time.

mrspeaker 14y ago
Kind of reminds me of the arguments about ajax around 2004 when the term was popularised: everyone (me included) went "This is stupid, we've had 'ajax' for ever: years ago I was doing long polling with iframes, this is no different it's just a bit more convenient". Convenience turns out to be a pretty big contributing factor in how many people do something!
- reader5000 14y ago
  >Convenience turns out to be a pretty big contributing factor in how many people do something! This is anti-American propaganda. All those mass shooters, they would have just found another way.

fungi 14y ago

indeed home made guns have a very long history. the serious gun violence that they fuel in Papua New Guinea has been known about for years. extremely detailed paper: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/B-Occasional-papers/SAS-OP08-Pacific.pdf http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/B-Occasional-p... for something a little less dry and with pics of the guns see: http://www.vice.com/read/port-moresbys-little-raskols http://www.vice.com/read/port-moresbys-little-raskols the 3d printer angle is interesting from a tec perspective, but i cant help feel that this is more about a guy building himself in to the linus of guns then gun policy.