7 ms·

Making an Untraceable AR-15 ‘Ghost Gun’

82 points by uptown 11y ago

brixon 11y ago
Nothing illegal about making your own gun. You cannot pay someone else to do the work for you, it has to be done by you. You can never sell the gun since only licensed guns are allowed to be sold.
- hga 11y ago
  Actually, while it might not work for a gun that's already been made, obviously one can make and sell guns after jumping through the various hoops the BATFE et. al. require (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_License), adding a serial number to it, etc. I wonder what the law is for making them part of your estate.
- dokument 11y ago
  You could sell every part except the lower receiver.
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  Actually, that's not exactly true. You cannot legally manufacture a firearm intended for sale without having an appropriate FFL (and ITAR certification, etc.) You can absolutely manufacture a firearm for your own use, and then at a later date, sell that firearm.
  - pliftkl 11y ago
    Small clarification - I don't think you can sell it to an FFL or through an FFL. I think you'd be able to sell it directly to another person, but there's no mechanism to have it go through the NICS system (which requires a manufacturer and serial number).
    - joshuapants 11y ago
      Guns made before the serial number requirement can still be sold through FFLs, I see no reason why this would be different as long as everything else is legally up-to-snuff.
- lambdaelite 11y ago
  As always, it depends on the state, but it's not true that you can never sell a gun that you've made. You can't make them with the intent of selling them without the proper paperwork, but you could make one for yourself, then later decide to sell it. Check the ATF FAQs for more info.
- brixon 11y ago
  To remain a "Ghost Gun" you would have to never serialize it or register it. You have to do those things to sell it. The point of making these specific types of guns is that "the man" cannot take what he does not know you have. In reality, there is little reason to do this. In many states you do not need to retain documentation of the re-sale (private sale) of a firearm, so you can always tell "the man" that you sold that gun years ago when they want to take all your guns.
  - lambdaelite 11y ago
    I find that statement misleading: one doesn't need to serialize or "register" (whatever that's supposed to mean) an AR lower made for personal use that, later, one decides to sell. Again, YMMV, depending on the state.
jacknews 11y ago
Guns need bullets. I really can't see the controversy with 3d printed, or untraceable guns. Just regulate, and mark with ID, the bullets. Or if that starts being circumvented with diy bullets, control the propellant, and mark it with isotopes or whatever. Very few people have a legitimate use for explosives, it should be easy to control, along with the obvious "possesion of unregistered firearm, or of an unlicensed design, or using homebrew propellant" laws.
- hga 11y ago
  Not counting imports and maybe not counting the production from the Lake City, MO military plant that is sold to civilians (a convenient arrangement for all parties when e.g. the sealant in a lot isn't up to snuff, or the DoD wants to cancel an order), the US produces upwards of 15 billion rounds a year. Imagine trying to make all of that traceable in one way or another, from the factory to the range. Just not practical, and one reason the 1968? restriction on buying ammo by mail order was lifted quite some time ago. Not to mention that actually legislatively succeeding in such a thing would spark a hot civil war the anti-gun side would lose very badly, seeing as how my side actually owns the vast bulk of guns and ammo in the country.
  - Bedon292 11y ago
    With the amount of ammo being produced, and then horded within this country, even if they found a way to make the new stuff traceable it would still probably be decades before old supplies dried up for everyone.
    - LordKano 11y ago
      It would create an immediate black market for current ammunition. I would be an overnight millionaire. Regular hunting, self defense and target shooting could be done with the new stuff and the old ammunition without taggants would be reserved for any questionable activities. Thus, it could be sold at a premium.
- neverartful 11y ago
vdnkh 11y ago
My editor, Joe Brown, who came into the room to watch the machine at work, remains convinced the machine was programmed to play a piece of composed music. A bit off topic, but there exists a program [0] which generates instructions from a MIDI file to play music with a CNC/3Dprinters steppers. Here's a 3d printer playing the Ressikan Flute song from TNG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81WLqN3q7M0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81WLqN3q7M0 [0] https://github.com/michthom/MIDI-to-CNC https://github.com/michthom/MIDI-to-CNC
- a3n 11y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4OV2UofPFg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4OV2UofPFg Aperture Science logo being laser cut at periods and frequencies that play the Still Alive end song.
lmm 11y ago
Calling the company kind of ruins the symmetry of the experiment. If he'd been willing to call a makerbot expert - or someone who passed high-school shop class - who's to say his other two efforts couldn't've been made into something usable?
- hga 11y ago
  Or just practice with one of these first: http://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet-ar-15-lower-receiver http://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet-ar-15-lower-r... ^_^ ("0% BILLET AR-15 LOWER RECEIVER"). Or scrap aluminum, this sort of thing really isn't that hard if you've got some manual dexterity, but, well, that's why the classic first wood shop project is something like a bread board.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
As others have mentioned this isn't particularly newsworthy, you've been able to make guns at home since forever. Its a rifle of course, and rifle ammunition you can't make at home, but as others have mentioned you can make black powder weapons in a completely untraceable way (from making your own black powder, to casting your own lead ball shot) but we're not worried about a bunch of home hobbiests fielding a Napoleonic infantry. They don't mention how you can make a gun out of a stuff you can buy past security at an airport [1]. Its just click bate. Next up, 'I made an untraceable battle tank at home with some steel pipe and an arc welder!' [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsem22DkIjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsem22DkIjw
- trose 11y ago
  You can definitely reload rifle ammunition at home very easily. You just need to collect the brass cases after you've shot store-bought rounds or just go to an outdoor range and collect buckets of brass cases since most people just leave them.
  - hga 11y ago
    The one time I "reloaded" rifle ammo, it was to work up a small-medium game load for a sporterized Springfield 03A3 .30-06 I ended up with as a teen. By then my father and his hunting friend were no longer using that round, so we started with a box or two of new brass like this: http://www.cabelas.com/category/Reloading-Brass/112555980.uts http://www.cabelas.com/category/Reloading-Brass/112555980.ut...
- michaelbuckbee 11y ago
  The author actually makes that same point in the article. What I think elevates this article above the level of clickbait is that beyond any firearms related issues, it is a really interesting point of comparison for different "maker" related technologies: traditional machining, 3d Printing and desktop CNC.
  - cbhl 11y ago
    It sounds like he used a purpose-made CNC machine, rather than a general-purpose CNC machine, though. It's like comparing a stand-up toaster to toasting bread in a toaster oven -- one of these is more flexible, and one of them is "point and shoot".
erikb 11y ago
Maybe I'm too "linuxy" but I think if there's a method to do it yourself by learning a skill then that should be the preferred way to do it. Having a machine instead of a skill is a way for lazy people (my subjective opinion) and never works as well as having acquired the corresponding skill. edit: And the gun wasn't made in his office. Only one part was made there. The assembly of the gun was done in a shop of a professional gunsmith.
- jokr004 11y ago
  "I'm too "linuxy"" .. "Having a machine instead of a skill is a way for lazy people" There's a good balance between skill and technology, otherwise I might tell you to just throw away your computer. And for the record, operating a CNC mill still takes a good bit of skill.
  - erikb 11y ago
    You mean the machine to manually carve holes into that metal? Yes, that needs skill. But I mean the machine that does the carving for you. As far as I've understood you put that 80% thing into it and then it does the job for you while you eat a sandwich. That's where people start to think that they don't have a problem instead of learning to handle it.
- panglott 11y ago
  Never shirk in learning skills. But there's just too much to learn. http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html
- lmm 11y ago
  Do you make your own furniture? Grow your own food? Learning skills is great, but there's a place for buying things off the shelf. And that's the point of this machine: it's intended to be equivalent to buying a gun off the shelf, just while avoiding the registration requirements that would go with actually buying one off the shelf.
rilita 11y ago
It's hardly untraceable. There are only 1000 ghost gunner mills in the country. It is feasible that they are all being tracked by the USPS. Fedex and UPS refuse to mail them... That means the government likely knows where each was sent, and has a name too to go with the location. There is a paper trail associated with being able to receive such a heavy thing in the mail ( you'd have to send it to a location you control / own / rent etc ) Suppose you buy the machine, build your own gun, use it for some bad purpose. If the gun was ever found, it could likely be traced back to you. How many people have guns created with the ghost gunner machine? Not many. Can you tell a ghost gunner cut lower from other methods? Yes. The whole thing is just a publicity stunt. When there is a local shop in a major city where I can go in and rent a ghost gunner machine for a day, in cash, providing nothing but a large deposit to guarantee I bring it back, then and only then can such things really be untraceable.
- lmm 11y ago
  > When there is a local shop in a major city where I can go in and rent a ghost gunner machine for a day, in cash, providing nothing but a large deposit to guarantee I bring it back, then and only then can such things really be untraceable. Wired has the machine, they could start running such a service tomorrow if they wanted to. I don't see any substantial barriers to it.
  - rilita 11y ago
    Seems kind of doubtful they would be willing. The way his description reads it's like he is nervous that he created a gun. Why not keep it? He owned it... just lock it up? Plus that is in San Francisco. I live on the opposite coast. I won't be over there for a while. I was searching online to see if renting one of these things is legal. I found at least one person stating that it has been said officially by the feds that renting one of these would be considering "manufacturing". I can't see how, but that is what was said. I doubt Wired wants to get into the middle of that. Perhaps the NRA might, or the ACLU, but not Wired. Really both the NRA and ACLU should both buy like 50 of these things and rent them out. That would be interesting.
yellowapple 11y ago
Has there been any success in 3D-printing a template lower receiver and turning it into a mold for casting metal receivers? To me, that seems like the next logical step here.
- 15155 11y ago
  Lost-PLA casting could probably be pretty feasible with the geometry of an AR lower. Pretty neat stuff.

82 points by uptown 11y ago

Nothing illegal about making your own gun. You cannot pay someone else to do the work for you, it has to be done by you. You can never sell the gun since only licensed guns are allowed to be sold.

hga 11y ago
Actually, while it might not work for a gun that's already been made, obviously one can make and sell guns after jumping through the various hoops the BATFE et. al. require (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_License), adding a serial number to it, etc. I wonder what the law is for making them part of your estate.
dokument 11y ago
You could sell every part except the lower receiver.
LyndsySimon 11y ago
Actually, that's not exactly true. You cannot legally manufacture a firearm intended for sale without having an appropriate FFL (and ITAR certification, etc.) You can absolutely manufacture a firearm for your own use, and then at a later date, sell that firearm.
- pliftkl 11y ago
  Small clarification - I don't think you can sell it to an FFL or through an FFL. I think you'd be able to sell it directly to another person, but there's no mechanism to have it go through the NICS system (which requires a manufacturer and serial number).
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    Guns made before the serial number requirement can still be sold through FFLs, I see no reason why this would be different as long as everything else is legally up-to-snuff.
lambdaelite 11y ago
As always, it depends on the state, but it's not true that you can never sell a gun that you've made. You can't make them with the intent of selling them without the proper paperwork, but you could make one for yourself, then later decide to sell it. Check the ATF FAQs for more info.
brixon 11y ago
To remain a "Ghost Gun" you would have to never serialize it or register it. You have to do those things to sell it. The point of making these specific types of guns is that "the man" cannot take what he does not know you have. In reality, there is little reason to do this. In many states you do not need to retain documentation of the re-sale (private sale) of a firearm, so you can always tell "the man" that you sold that gun years ago when they want to take all your guns.
- lambdaelite 11y ago
  I find that statement misleading: one doesn't need to serialize or "register" (whatever that's supposed to mean) an AR lower made for personal use that, later, one decides to sell. Again, YMMV, depending on the state.

jacknews 11y ago

Guns need bullets. I really can't see the controversy with 3d printed, or untraceable guns. Just regulate, and mark with ID, the bullets. Or if that starts being circumvented with diy bullets, control the propellant, and mark it with isotopes or whatever. Very few people have a legitimate use for explosives, it should be easy to control, along with the obvious "possesion of unregistered firearm, or of an unlicensed design, or using homebrew propellant" laws.

hga 11y ago
Not counting imports and maybe not counting the production from the Lake City, MO military plant that is sold to civilians (a convenient arrangement for all parties when e.g. the sealant in a lot isn't up to snuff, or the DoD wants to cancel an order), the US produces upwards of 15 billion rounds a year. Imagine trying to make all of that traceable in one way or another, from the factory to the range. Just not practical, and one reason the 1968? restriction on buying ammo by mail order was lifted quite some time ago. Not to mention that actually legislatively succeeding in such a thing would spark a hot civil war the anti-gun side would lose very badly, seeing as how my side actually owns the vast bulk of guns and ammo in the country.
- Bedon292 11y ago
  With the amount of ammo being produced, and then horded within this country, even if they found a way to make the new stuff traceable it would still probably be decades before old supplies dried up for everyone.
  - LordKano 11y ago
    It would create an immediate black market for current ammunition. I would be an overnight millionaire. Regular hunting, self defense and target shooting could be done with the new stuff and the old ammunition without taggants would be reserved for any questionable activities. Thus, it could be sold at a premium.
neverartful 11y ago

vdnkh 11y ago

My editor, Joe Brown, who came into the room to watch the machine at work, remains convinced the machine was programmed to play a piece of composed music. A bit off topic, but there exists a program [0] which generates instructions from a MIDI file to play music with a CNC/3Dprinters steppers. Here's a 3d printer playing the Ressikan Flute song from TNG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81WLqN3q7M0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81WLqN3q7M0 [0] https://github.com/michthom/MIDI-to-CNC https://github.com/michthom/MIDI-to-CNC

a3n 11y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4OV2UofPFg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4OV2UofPFg Aperture Science logo being laser cut at periods and frequencies that play the Still Alive end song.

lmm 11y ago

Calling the company kind of ruins the symmetry of the experiment. If he'd been willing to call a makerbot expert - or someone who passed high-school shop class - who's to say his other two efforts couldn't've been made into something usable?

hga 11y ago
Or just practice with one of these first: http://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet-ar-15-lower-receiver http://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet-ar-15-lower-r... ^_^ ("0% BILLET AR-15 LOWER RECEIVER"). Or scrap aluminum, this sort of thing really isn't that hard if you've got some manual dexterity, but, well, that's why the classic first wood shop project is something like a bread board.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

As others have mentioned this isn't particularly newsworthy, you've been able to make guns at home since forever. Its a rifle of course, and rifle ammunition you can't make at home, but as others have mentioned you can make black powder weapons in a completely untraceable way (from making your own black powder, to casting your own lead ball shot) but we're not worried about a bunch of home hobbiests fielding a Napoleonic infantry. They don't mention how you can make a gun out of a stuff you can buy past security at an airport [1]. Its just click bate. Next up, 'I made an untraceable battle tank at home with some steel pipe and an arc welder!' [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsem22DkIjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsem22DkIjw

trose 11y ago
You can definitely reload rifle ammunition at home very easily. You just need to collect the brass cases after you've shot store-bought rounds or just go to an outdoor range and collect buckets of brass cases since most people just leave them.
- hga 11y ago
  The one time I "reloaded" rifle ammo, it was to work up a small-medium game load for a sporterized Springfield 03A3 .30-06 I ended up with as a teen. By then my father and his hunting friend were no longer using that round, so we started with a box or two of new brass like this: http://www.cabelas.com/category/Reloading-Brass/112555980.uts http://www.cabelas.com/category/Reloading-Brass/112555980.ut...
michaelbuckbee 11y ago
The author actually makes that same point in the article. What I think elevates this article above the level of clickbait is that beyond any firearms related issues, it is a really interesting point of comparison for different "maker" related technologies: traditional machining, 3d Printing and desktop CNC.
- cbhl 11y ago
  It sounds like he used a purpose-made CNC machine, rather than a general-purpose CNC machine, though. It's like comparing a stand-up toaster to toasting bread in a toaster oven -- one of these is more flexible, and one of them is "point and shoot".

erikb 11y ago

Maybe I'm too "linuxy" but I think if there's a method to do it yourself by learning a skill then that should be the preferred way to do it. Having a machine instead of a skill is a way for lazy people (my subjective opinion) and never works as well as having acquired the corresponding skill. edit: And the gun wasn't made in his office. Only one part was made there. The assembly of the gun was done in a shop of a professional gunsmith.

jokr004 11y ago
"I'm too "linuxy"" .. "Having a machine instead of a skill is a way for lazy people" There's a good balance between skill and technology, otherwise I might tell you to just throw away your computer. And for the record, operating a CNC mill still takes a good bit of skill.
- erikb 11y ago
  You mean the machine to manually carve holes into that metal? Yes, that needs skill. But I mean the machine that does the carving for you. As far as I've understood you put that 80% thing into it and then it does the job for you while you eat a sandwich. That's where people start to think that they don't have a problem instead of learning to handle it.
panglott 11y ago
Never shirk in learning skills. But there's just too much to learn. http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html
lmm 11y ago
Do you make your own furniture? Grow your own food? Learning skills is great, but there's a place for buying things off the shelf. And that's the point of this machine: it's intended to be equivalent to buying a gun off the shelf, just while avoiding the registration requirements that would go with actually buying one off the shelf.

rilita 11y ago

It's hardly untraceable. There are only 1000 ghost gunner mills in the country. It is feasible that they are all being tracked by the USPS. Fedex and UPS refuse to mail them... That means the government likely knows where each was sent, and has a name too to go with the location. There is a paper trail associated with being able to receive such a heavy thing in the mail ( you'd have to send it to a location you control / own / rent etc ) Suppose you buy the machine, build your own gun, use it for some bad purpose. If the gun was ever found, it could likely be traced back to you. How many people have guns created with the ghost gunner machine? Not many. Can you tell a ghost gunner cut lower from other methods? Yes. The whole thing is just a publicity stunt. When there is a local shop in a major city where I can go in and rent a ghost gunner machine for a day, in cash, providing nothing but a large deposit to guarantee I bring it back, then and only then can such things really be untraceable.

lmm 11y ago
> When there is a local shop in a major city where I can go in and rent a ghost gunner machine for a day, in cash, providing nothing but a large deposit to guarantee I bring it back, then and only then can such things really be untraceable. Wired has the machine, they could start running such a service tomorrow if they wanted to. I don't see any substantial barriers to it.
- rilita 11y ago
  Seems kind of doubtful they would be willing. The way his description reads it's like he is nervous that he created a gun. Why not keep it? He owned it... just lock it up? Plus that is in San Francisco. I live on the opposite coast. I won't be over there for a while. I was searching online to see if renting one of these things is legal. I found at least one person stating that it has been said officially by the feds that renting one of these would be considering "manufacturing". I can't see how, but that is what was said. I doubt Wired wants to get into the middle of that. Perhaps the NRA might, or the ACLU, but not Wired. Really both the NRA and ACLU should both buy like 50 of these things and rent them out. That would be interesting.

yellowapple 11y ago

Has there been any success in 3D-printing a template lower receiver and turning it into a mold for casting metal receivers? To me, that seems like the next logical step here.

15155 11y ago
Lost-PLA casting could probably be pretty feasible with the geometry of an AR lower. Pretty neat stuff.