3 ms·

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 b

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
Bullets are easily cast from lead (many reloaders do this). Gun powder is easily obtained and has a shelf life of years (if not decades) when stored properly. Empty cartridges (to reload) are very plentiful and easy to come by. Primers can be purchased by the thousands for very little money. If gunpowder and primers become overly restricted, some would likely switch to blackpowder (which reloaders can make themselves). It's very difficult, if not impossible, to put the genie back in the bottle. There's also the 2nd Amendment to deal with.
- hga 11y ago
  For smokeless powder, decades, my father is still reloading shotgun shells with paper casks of Hercules (now Alliant) gunpowder that were bought before WWII he thinks (if not, right after, the trade dress looks maybe too modern for pre-WWII, unfortunately the codes they are stamped with aren't easily decoded). And ammo made during WWII is still good, albeit normally made with corrosive primers.
  - mrbill 11y ago
    When I bought my M1 Garand (a lend-lease giveback from Greece, made in February of '45) the case of ammo I bought with it is older than I am. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/sets/72157616506699264 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/sets/72157616506699264
giaour 11y ago
Bullets are much, much easier to make than guns, even if you have a ghost gunner machine. Gunpowder is also pretty simple to make from scratch if you have a few completely unregulated and mostly innocuous ingredients on hand. When I went to summer camp as a kid and went skeet-shooting with the other 12 year olds, we had to make our own shotgun shells to keep costs down. It took maybe 30 seconds to learn how to use the shell maker.
LyndsySimon 11y ago
Politics on this issue aside, think this through for a moment. Would you care to share how you'd like to individually code the more than 10,000,000,000 rounds of ammunition in manufactured each year in the US, in a manner not easily defeated, on a surface that is launched at ~1,000 feet per second and is literally designed to deform as much as possible upon impact?
- protomyth 11y ago
  Sadly, individually coding things that shouldn't be individually coded no matter how foolish is not out of the realm possibility for our government. I point you to labeling of biodiesel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Identification_Number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Identification_Number I do agree with you, it is impractical and non-effective.
- panglott 11y ago
  Yea, my initial read was that he suggested individually marking each casing. Which is no doubt quite difficult, but certainly more feasible than the bullet. Or maybe we could require armor-piercing rounds.
Nexxxeh 11y ago
The enthusiast, survivalist, and cheapskate community have been refilling their own cartridges for decades. Police your brass and clean and refill. It's not quite as easy as I'm making out, but it's not rocket science. > 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. Gunpowder, primer and bullet. The latter is relatively easy, you could make your own. Good luck successfully regulating that. As for the powder and primer, you can bet your bottom dollar that homebrew solutions for those would improve rapidly and drastically if the need should arise. The current ghost gun setup hasn't formed in a vacuum. It's been fashioned around what's available. Change the climate and things will evolve in a different direction. Perhaps if things do go "your" way, we'll see 3D-printed caseless ammunition with CNC's bullets in an actively-cooled electronic firing rifle. The 3D-printed propellant produced by custom-made yeasts or something. It wouldn't be overnight, but it might be unstoppable.
LordKano 11y ago
You are not well versed enough on the technology or the culture to opine intelligently. Let me illustrate where you went wrong. ----Just regulate, and mark with ID, the bullets. You have no way of dealing with the billions of bullets that are already out there. As long as it's stored properly, ammunition doesn't go bad. I have ammunition that was made back in the 1950s and it still shoots just fine. How will you have the bullets marked that will prevent someone from removing the mark if they have criminal intent? ----Or if that starts being circumvented with diy bullets, control the propellant, and mark it with isotopes or whatever. What do you do about the millions of pounds of propellent that's already out there today? What do you do about the fact that those millions of pounds of currently existing propellent do not have any kind of "isotopes or whatever" tags in them? Gunpowder taggants have several mundane problems. Namely, they they can't prove who fired a shot more effectively than the currently used GSR testing,(witnesses, bystanders and first responders will be covered with taggants), they have not been proven to be safe and the 800 pound gorilla of the fact that they're only useful for driving up the costs of ammunition(the real point). Just like when people were advocating microstamping, it was demonstrated that in 30 seconds the microstamping could be disabled with a $3.00 file. Add $100 to the cost of a firearm and anyone with criminal intent can bypass it with a $3.00 file. ----Very few people have a legitimate use for explosives Some do. ----it should be easy to control, along with the obvious "possesion of unregistered firearm, or of an unlicensed design, or using homebrew propellant" laws. "Should be easy to control" is not the same thing as "Is easy to control". Every Home Depot has the raw materials to build an ANFO bomb that could level a building. It's not regulation of those materials that has prevented that from happening everywhere, it's the fact that most people aren't psychopaths or career criminals. In places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, it's already illegal to possess an unlicensed firearm. Has that eliminated violent crime? Your solution to the problem of currently existent crime is to pass more laws that are even more difficult to enforce that will be immediately ignored by the people who are willing to break the current laws against homicide?
fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
>Very few people have a legitimate use for explosives, That's still a lot of people. >it should be easy to control, along with the obvious "possesion of unregistered firearm, or of an unlicensed design, or using homebrew propellant" laws. Similar efforts have been made with the goal of stopping the illicit manufacture of controlled substances. These efforts have mostly failed, and have had the side effect of inconveniencing and endangering many small businesses and hobbyists. Manufacturing drugs is much more difficult than manufacturing explosives. Please please please educate yourself about basic chemistry and then reevaluate this opinion.

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

Bullets are easily cast from lead (many reloaders do this). Gun powder is easily obtained and has a shelf life of years (if not decades) when stored properly. Empty cartridges (to reload) are very plentiful and easy to come by. Primers can be purchased by the thousands for very little money. If gunpowder and primers become overly restricted, some would likely switch to blackpowder (which reloaders can make themselves). It's very difficult, if not impossible, to put the genie back in the bottle. There's also the 2nd Amendment to deal with.

hga 11y ago
For smokeless powder, decades, my father is still reloading shotgun shells with paper casks of Hercules (now Alliant) gunpowder that were bought before WWII he thinks (if not, right after, the trade dress looks maybe too modern for pre-WWII, unfortunately the codes they are stamped with aren't easily decoded). And ammo made during WWII is still good, albeit normally made with corrosive primers.
- mrbill 11y ago
  When I bought my M1 Garand (a lend-lease giveback from Greece, made in February of '45) the case of ammo I bought with it is older than I am. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/sets/72157616506699264 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/sets/72157616506699264

giaour 11y ago

Bullets are much, much easier to make than guns, even if you have a ghost gunner machine. Gunpowder is also pretty simple to make from scratch if you have a few completely unregulated and mostly innocuous ingredients on hand. When I went to summer camp as a kid and went skeet-shooting with the other 12 year olds, we had to make our own shotgun shells to keep costs down. It took maybe 30 seconds to learn how to use the shell maker.

LyndsySimon 11y ago

Politics on this issue aside, think this through for a moment. Would you care to share how you'd like to individually code the more than 10,000,000,000 rounds of ammunition in manufactured each year in the US, in a manner not easily defeated, on a surface that is launched at ~1,000 feet per second and is literally designed to deform as much as possible upon impact?

protomyth 11y ago
Sadly, individually coding things that shouldn't be individually coded no matter how foolish is not out of the realm possibility for our government. I point you to labeling of biodiesel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Identification_Number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Identification_Number I do agree with you, it is impractical and non-effective.
panglott 11y ago
Yea, my initial read was that he suggested individually marking each casing. Which is no doubt quite difficult, but certainly more feasible than the bullet. Or maybe we could require armor-piercing rounds.

Nexxxeh 11y ago

The enthusiast, survivalist, and cheapskate community have been refilling their own cartridges for decades. Police your brass and clean and refill. It's not quite as easy as I'm making out, but it's not rocket science. > 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. Gunpowder, primer and bullet. The latter is relatively easy, you could make your own. Good luck successfully regulating that. As for the powder and primer, you can bet your bottom dollar that homebrew solutions for those would improve rapidly and drastically if the need should arise. The current ghost gun setup hasn't formed in a vacuum. It's been fashioned around what's available. Change the climate and things will evolve in a different direction. Perhaps if things do go "your" way, we'll see 3D-printed caseless ammunition with CNC's bullets in an actively-cooled electronic firing rifle. The 3D-printed propellant produced by custom-made yeasts or something. It wouldn't be overnight, but it might be unstoppable.

LordKano 11y ago

You are not well versed enough on the technology or the culture to opine intelligently. Let me illustrate where you went wrong. ----Just regulate, and mark with ID, the bullets. You have no way of dealing with the billions of bullets that are already out there. As long as it's stored properly, ammunition doesn't go bad. I have ammunition that was made back in the 1950s and it still shoots just fine. How will you have the bullets marked that will prevent someone from removing the mark if they have criminal intent? ----Or if that starts being circumvented with diy bullets, control the propellant, and mark it with isotopes or whatever. What do you do about the millions of pounds of propellent that's already out there today? What do you do about the fact that those millions of pounds of currently existing propellent do not have any kind of "isotopes or whatever" tags in them? Gunpowder taggants have several mundane problems. Namely, they they can't prove who fired a shot more effectively than the currently used GSR testing,(witnesses, bystanders and first responders will be covered with taggants), they have not been proven to be safe and the 800 pound gorilla of the fact that they're only useful for driving up the costs of ammunition(the real point). Just like when people were advocating microstamping, it was demonstrated that in 30 seconds the microstamping could be disabled with a $3.00 file. Add $100 to the cost of a firearm and anyone with criminal intent can bypass it with a $3.00 file. ----Very few people have a legitimate use for explosives Some do. ----it should be easy to control, along with the obvious "possesion of unregistered firearm, or of an unlicensed design, or using homebrew propellant" laws. "Should be easy to control" is not the same thing as "Is easy to control". Every Home Depot has the raw materials to build an ANFO bomb that could level a building. It's not regulation of those materials that has prevented that from happening everywhere, it's the fact that most people aren't psychopaths or career criminals. In places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, it's already illegal to possess an unlicensed firearm. Has that eliminated violent crime? Your solution to the problem of currently existent crime is to pass more laws that are even more difficult to enforce that will be immediately ignored by the people who are willing to break the current laws against homicide?

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago

>Very few people have a legitimate use for explosives, That's still a lot of people. >it should be easy to control, along with the obvious "possesion of unregistered firearm, or of an unlicensed design, or using homebrew propellant" laws. Similar efforts have been made with the goal of stopping the illicit manufacture of controlled substances. These efforts have mostly failed, and have had the side effect of inconveniencing and endangering many small businesses and hobbyists. Manufacturing drugs is much more difficult than manufacturing explosives. Please please please educate yourself about basic chemistry and then reevaluate this opinion.