6 ms·

This doesn't seem to me like nearly as big of a revolution as the media is making it out to be. You can already buy all the CNC mills and lathes and other machi

by ufmace 12y ago

This doesn't seem to me like nearly as big of a revolution as the media is making it out to be. You can already buy all the CNC mills and lathes and other machine tools that you have space and money for, and use them to manufacture firearms if you want to. Granted, it takes a lot more time and money than using 3D printers. At least in the US, the laws are pretty clear and established on manufacturing firearms, and I don't see how they would be any different for 3D printed guns. Right now, as an individual, you can manufacture and posses any firearm that meets the legal definition of a pistol, rifle, or shotgun with no licenses at all, unless prohibited by state laws. You only need a license if you want to sell them. AFAIK, you can actually sell the guns you build, as long as you aren't believed to be in the business of manufacturing them for sale, which is a bit of a fuzzy line. If you want to manufacture anything full-auto, anything explosive, or certain other categories of weapons, then you need a special manufacturer's license for that, regardless of what you plan to do with them, and are much more strictly prohibited on who you can sell them to and how. AFAIK, currently, any newly manufactured full-auto firearm can only be sold legally to either police departments or other licensed dealers. Nevertheless, this is still an interesting field, and I'd like to see what the 3D printing innovators manage to come up with as far as useful firearms.

bwhite 12y ago
You need a Federal Firearms License if you are "engaged in the business", which is clarified further as having a "principal objective of livelihood and profit through the sale or distribution of the firearms manufactured". See 18.921.a.21.A. The ATF and FBI have employed a wide range of interpretations for this clause, so an FFL might be warranted. There are already shows and traveling folks with portable CNC setups who will mill a block of aluminum into various types of frames or AR-15 lowers. The 3d-printed issue seems quite similar to that.
celticninja 12y ago
The difference is that a 3d printer is almost at the domestic use stage and takes up far less space than a CNC Mill and lathe. Now combine that with countries such as the UK where gun ownership is highly restricted and you can understand how revolutionary it really is. The article talks of only needing to make a lower receiver and buying the remaining parts legally. This applies mainly to the USA, you cannot buy those parts in the UK. The ability to print an entire gun is revolutionary it is just that you are viewing it from a US perspective only and this is the sort of technology that crosses international boundaries easily and quickly.
- adwf 12y ago
  Yeah, as the UK is an island, we've pretty much only ever had to monitor some clearly defined locations to prevent arms from being distributed (borders, army bases, farms, legacy firearms, etc). Now with 3D printing, they could be manufactured with ease anywhere within the country. It's a whole different situation for the police to be dealing with. Mostly though, it's the massively reduced cost from a CNC mill to a 3D printer (that's why they're so exciting!). A £50k+ purchase for a mill and then the expertise/blueprints to program it is very prohibitive for the general population. Whereas the 3D printer for ~£1k with freely downloaded click-and-go plans from the internet? Almost anyone could scrape that together if they tried. It's a tipping point situation that has really scary implications for any country that has gun control.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    You would think that the country that came up with the STEN gun would not be so foolish as to think that gun control is just a matter of watching the borders. Any cellar or garden workshed could be an arms factory. The dangerous thing about volume printers is not that they could be used to make weapons, but that you can't tell the difference between a machine used to make chesspieces and one used to make guns. Every owner could have a legitimate and innocuous reason to have it, and therefore you have no probable cause for additional scrutiny on anyone. With a CNC mill/lathe, if you don't actually need one to produce something like custom auto or motorcycle parts, using it to produce solid aluminum garden gnomes might be seen as suspicious rather than a plausible cover.
  - dfc 12y ago
    I understand borders, bases and legacy firearms. But why farms?
    - MarcScott 12y ago
      Mainly pest control.
      - dfc 12y ago
Crito 12y ago
Obligatory "Shit Shovel" AK-47: http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DIY-Shovel-AK-photo-tsunami-warning http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DI...! TL;DR: A man starts with a shovel (formerly used for shovelling shit) and forms an AK receiver using little more than a furnace, some hammers, a spot welder and a drill. So yeah, the printers change very little. What they have actually done is effectively communicated the idea that guns can be made in your garage (previously that message was not getting through for some reason which I cannot for the life of me understand).
- dllthomas 12y ago
  The difference is the amount of know-how and effort involved. I think people overestimate these for the machine-shop approach and underestimate (for now) in the 3D printer case, but in principle the latter eventually allows that know-how to be entirely baked into a digital file and distributed and the effort will eventually come down. I'm still not sure that this is terribly important but it is a distinction with some basis in reality.
  - Crito 12y ago
    Really the only thing holding back anybody from doing it the proper way out of metal is a lack of motivation. If you want to do it, teaching yourself to do it is fairly trivial. Any highschool kid (from a highschool that still has a shop class, which are increasingly few...) could do it if they were inclined to do it.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Yes. Like I said, I believe both the know-how and effort required in the first case are overestimated.
- bradleysmith 12y ago
  That's rad, thanks for sharing this.
baddox 12y ago
> Granted, it takes a lot more time and money than using 3D printers. That is the entire point, so I don't think it can be waved away in a single sentence. Obviously, for centuries you could buy an entire forge, for decades you could buy commercial CNC equipment, for maybe a decade you could by cheaper "prosumer" CNC equipment, and for a year or three you could buy consumer 3D printers.

by ufmace 12y ago

bwhite 12y ago

You need a Federal Firearms License if you are "engaged in the business", which is clarified further as having a "principal objective of livelihood and profit through the sale or distribution of the firearms manufactured". See 18.921.a.21.A. The ATF and FBI have employed a wide range of interpretations for this clause, so an FFL might be warranted. There are already shows and traveling folks with portable CNC setups who will mill a block of aluminum into various types of frames or AR-15 lowers. The 3d-printed issue seems quite similar to that.

celticninja 12y ago

The difference is that a 3d printer is almost at the domestic use stage and takes up far less space than a CNC Mill and lathe. Now combine that with countries such as the UK where gun ownership is highly restricted and you can understand how revolutionary it really is. The article talks of only needing to make a lower receiver and buying the remaining parts legally. This applies mainly to the USA, you cannot buy those parts in the UK. The ability to print an entire gun is revolutionary it is just that you are viewing it from a US perspective only and this is the sort of technology that crosses international boundaries easily and quickly.

adwf 12y ago
Yeah, as the UK is an island, we've pretty much only ever had to monitor some clearly defined locations to prevent arms from being distributed (borders, army bases, farms, legacy firearms, etc). Now with 3D printing, they could be manufactured with ease anywhere within the country. It's a whole different situation for the police to be dealing with. Mostly though, it's the massively reduced cost from a CNC mill to a 3D printer (that's why they're so exciting!). A £50k+ purchase for a mill and then the expertise/blueprints to program it is very prohibitive for the general population. Whereas the 3D printer for ~£1k with freely downloaded click-and-go plans from the internet? Almost anyone could scrape that together if they tried. It's a tipping point situation that has really scary implications for any country that has gun control.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  You would think that the country that came up with the STEN gun would not be so foolish as to think that gun control is just a matter of watching the borders. Any cellar or garden workshed could be an arms factory. The dangerous thing about volume printers is not that they could be used to make weapons, but that you can't tell the difference between a machine used to make chesspieces and one used to make guns. Every owner could have a legitimate and innocuous reason to have it, and therefore you have no probable cause for additional scrutiny on anyone. With a CNC mill/lathe, if you don't actually need one to produce something like custom auto or motorcycle parts, using it to produce solid aluminum garden gnomes might be seen as suspicious rather than a plausible cover.
- dfc 12y ago
  I understand borders, bases and legacy firearms. But why farms?
  - MarcScott 12y ago
    Mainly pest control.
    - dfc 12y ago

Crito 12y ago

Obligatory "Shit Shovel" AK-47: http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DIY-Shovel-AK-photo-tsunami-warning http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DI...! TL;DR: A man starts with a shovel (formerly used for shovelling shit) and forms an AK receiver using little more than a furnace, some hammers, a spot welder and a drill. So yeah, the printers change very little. What they have actually done is effectively communicated the idea that guns can be made in your garage (previously that message was not getting through for some reason which I cannot for the life of me understand).

dllthomas 12y ago
The difference is the amount of know-how and effort involved. I think people overestimate these for the machine-shop approach and underestimate (for now) in the 3D printer case, but in principle the latter eventually allows that know-how to be entirely baked into a digital file and distributed and the effort will eventually come down. I'm still not sure that this is terribly important but it is a distinction with some basis in reality.
- Crito 12y ago
  Really the only thing holding back anybody from doing it the proper way out of metal is a lack of motivation. If you want to do it, teaching yourself to do it is fairly trivial. Any highschool kid (from a highschool that still has a shop class, which are increasingly few...) could do it if they were inclined to do it.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Yes. Like I said, I believe both the know-how and effort required in the first case are overestimated.
bradleysmith 12y ago
That's rad, thanks for sharing this.

baddox 12y ago

> Granted, it takes a lot more time and money than using 3D printers. That is the entire point, so I don't think it can be waved away in a single sentence. Obviously, for centuries you could buy an entire forge, for decades you could buy commercial CNC equipment, for maybe a decade you could by cheaper "prosumer" CNC equipment, and for a year or three you could buy consumer 3D printers.