3 ms·

I'll admit I know next to nothing about this subject, but aren't the parts of a gun which can be machine printed, also fairly easily manufactured using widely a

I'll admit I know next to nothing about this subject, but aren't the parts of a gun which can be machine printed, also fairly easily manufactured using widely available metal working tools? Surely the hard parts of manufacturing a gun, would the the ammunition, where you'd need propellant and percussion caps? So, 3D printers don't really change things much, since they can only make the parts that can already be fairly easily made, and can do nothing about propellant or percussion caps.

roel_v 13y ago
"but aren't the parts of a gun which can be machine printed, also fairly easily manufactured using widely available metal working tools?" No, it's quite different. A metal work workshop is not something the typical urban criminal has access to. Yes, I realize there are many people in rural areas who have such workshops, and shared workshops in urban settings, so theoretically yadda yadda yadda, but the practical (socio-economic) reality is that those who want firearms for criminal purposes in the vast majority of cases do not have access to these tools, and/or lack the knowledge to reverse engineer and adapt available plans for metal weapons, and manufacture them. It's quite hard to make a metal gun using a traditional lathe and milling machine, and even when using a high-end CNC. 3d printing on the other hand requires no more than the average high school kid's computer knowledge, plus a few files downloaded from the internet. The barrier to entry is orders of magnitude lower. The costs are vastly lower, too - you can get started printing a gun (although I don't think guns made on MakerBots today will actually work) for ~ 1000$. That is not much more expensive than a weapon on the black markets costs (to those who have access to such a market). You'd spend an order of magnitude more on a metal workshop, and that's not even counting the materials and auxiliary tools.

roel_v 13y ago

"but aren't the parts of a gun which can be machine printed, also fairly easily manufactured using widely available metal working tools?" No, it's quite different. A metal work workshop is not something the typical urban criminal has access to. Yes, I realize there are many people in rural areas who have such workshops, and shared workshops in urban settings, so theoretically yadda yadda yadda, but the practical (socio-economic) reality is that those who want firearms for criminal purposes in the vast majority of cases do not have access to these tools, and/or lack the knowledge to reverse engineer and adapt available plans for metal weapons, and manufacture them. It's quite hard to make a metal gun using a traditional lathe and milling machine, and even when using a high-end CNC. 3d printing on the other hand requires no more than the average high school kid's computer knowledge, plus a few files downloaded from the internet. The barrier to entry is orders of magnitude lower. The costs are vastly lower, too - you can get started printing a gun (although I don't think guns made on MakerBots today will actually work) for ~ 1000$. That is not much more expensive than a weapon on the black markets costs (to those who have access to such a market). You'd spend an order of magnitude more on a metal workshop, and that's not even counting the materials and auxiliary tools.