Gunsmith Uses 3D Printer To Make A Rifle
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If the United States ever got serious about banning firearms, a massive homebrew industry would grow up overnight. Gunpowder is not fundamentally harder to make than methamphetamine.
People who quite rightly see our drug laws as pointless and ineffective somehow often miss that a gun ban would be no more effective in the United States. If you want there to be less drugs or guns, you have to attack the demand side, not the supply side. Suppressing supply while keeping demand steady just ensures higher margins for the suppliers.
This stuff ain't hard to do!!
What's more likely?
a) He walks around to so-and-sos house with his legally purchased, unlicensed, unregistered semi automatic assault rifle and 1000+ rounds, and kills the whole family, and anyone else unlucky enough to be nearby.
or
b) He spends days (weeks?) making his own gun, gunpowder and projectile by hand, and is still motivated all those days later to walk around and kill everyone, with a small caliber, (probably) non-semi automatic, (probably) small/no magazine.
Gun control won't stop people killing each other with guns. It will make it many times harder for the average Joe, therefore it will reduce the frequency, and the overall homicide rate.
Not having a gun isn't going to stop a person who wants to hurt someone else from doing it. It's just a tool.
How many people would he kill compared to a high-caliber semi-automatic assault rifle with 1000+ rounds of ammo?
> It's just a tool.
A tool that enables the holder to seriously injure or kill many more people than other readily available tools.
Point of fact - a loaded magazine for an AR-15 weighs in at approximately one pound. To carry '1000+ rounds of ammo', you would need to carry something like 30 magazines. Try it sometime - that only happens in video games for a reason.
A large truck driven through a crowded market could kill many more people than your average looney with a semi-automatic rifle. These highly publicized events make up only a tiny fraction of the number of homicides we experience per year, most of which only use a few bullets, and not from a 'high-caliber semi-automatic assault rifle'. Calm down.
As to someone who's really crazy and wants to kill as many people as possible, well, people who use bombs seem be much more deadly than people who use guns, so I'd be nervous about banning guns for fear of channeling them into less visceral but more deadly sorts of mayhem.
You can kill a lot more people more easily and more accidentally with a gun and also with quite a high probability compared to a knife. Guns just require one click to inflict a fatal wound if you know the tinies imaginable bit of knowledge of where to aim.
So you can just shoot another person off the bat but with a knife or another close-range weapon you have someone who realizes that a) you have a knife and b) you intend to fatally use it against him. That means combat.
I don't know which person attacked is more determined or more difficult to stop, a parent with kids or a person who's just running for life but they're both damn fucking hard. You will have to catch your victim first and if you just did, s/he will try nothing but escape again.
Now, with a knife (or a bat or...) you're likely to be able to wound that other person but actually killing him/her always requires an extra mile. All kinds of odds are stacked against not only the victim but the attacker as well, and as stabbing requires an intimate range and takes time, the outcome is far from certain unless you're really, really good.
I'd much rather be attacked by an amateur knifer than an amateur gunner.
Anyways, most likely: he does nothing.
Your option A is silly. First, 1000 rounds of .223 is fairly heavy (that's > 30 magazines of normal size). Second, "Unregistered"? "Unlicensed"? What good is paperwork going to do if he decides to shoot someone? We already have ( http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#background ) federal measures regulating gun sales, so we do try not to make things super-easy for felons and the like.
Also, your option B is dumb. Days or weeks, instead of a fast job with some piping to make a really ghetto shotgun? What does small caliber even mean to you? You are correct that it would be non-semiauto, as the mechanics of an open-bolt automatic weapon are simpler than even a bolt-action weapon (compare, say, the M3 greasegun to a Mauser). I could go on.
Lastly, you omit the option where he attacks them with a knife, or makes a simple blackpowder IED, or what not.
You're just being alarmist and ignorant.
The only firearms in the US (federal level) that are registered are NFA items (machine guns, suppressors, short barreled rifles and shotguns, etc).
Firearms are not "licensed", people are. And in the US, in a vast majority of the states, there is no required licensing of people wanting to own a weapon. States like Illinois or New York are the exception.
Apologies. I was trying to use a "generic" name.
> Second, "Unregistered"? "Unlicensed"? What good is paperwork going to do if he decides to shoot someone?
I expect he'll be less likely to kill people if he knows the weapon is tied to him. (and he might not have it in the first place, which is the case if I try to buy one in Australia right now)
> What does small caliber even mean to you?
I mean say a .22 instead of a center fire. Less killing power. bolt action also means less killing power (i.e. much slower)
> Lastly, you omit the option where he attacks them with a knife, or makes a simple blackpowder IED, or what not.
knife could harm or kill just a couple of people. IED is in the same range as a homemade gun in that it takes a long time and lots of effort to make.
> You're just being alarmist and ignorant.
Actually, I own a .30-06 and a 12 gauge and regularly go hunting.
No, you were not. It was deliberately aimed as a classist swipe.
I expect he'll be less likely to kill people if he knows
the weapon is tied to him.
I mean say a .22 instead of a center fire. Less killing
power. bolt action also means less killing power (i.e.
much slower)
knife could harm or kill just a couple of people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_school_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara_massacre
I won't even waste time pointing out how effective a set of box cutters can be.
IED is in the same range as a homemade gun in that it
takes a long time and lots of effort to make.
Actually, I own a .30-06 and a 12 gauge and regularly go
hunting.
Good point, he might do it anyway due to "blind rage"
> Ah, okay, but why not something like a 12-gauge shell, or just a blunderbuss? Or just normal/common 9mm/.45 ammunition?
I was making the assumption that any home-made rifle would be crude and small caliber, probably bolt-action (at best). I was assuming it would have less "killing power" because of the time to re-load and crudeness of it all. (I was not commenting on the force of the round itself)
> Mankind has been using knives to kill in great numbers since we discovered the first sharp flint. Even in only the past ten years:
The first incident was 8 children killed (and let's be honest, you can kill 7 and 8 year olds with your hands). The second incident was 3 adults killed. That's a lot different that 12 dead and 70 people shot overall with a semi-auto.
> Cool. What models, out of curiosity?
The .30-06 is a Remington 700 XCR. Up here in Yukon by law you must use a minimum of .30 for bison, so it's good for them (we gone one last year), moose (we got two), caribou (still looking). The season opens next week, can't wait.
I seriously doubt you really shoot/hunt/own weapons based on the statements you just made.
I meant "less" because it's so much slower to reload.
I was not commenting on the "power" of the rifle/round itself.
Obviously, a muzzle loading .50 has lots of "power", but I'd wager you couldn't kill many people in a movie theater with one, as apposed to a semi-auto (of any caliber, really).
I understand we should try to prevent them from getting their hands weapons that can harm or injure tens of people in a matter of seconds.
70 people hit by one person in a movie theater with a semi-auto. How many do you think it would have been with a knife? or even a bolt action?
And this kind of simple classist bigotry ("The poor people are dangerous! They aren't like us!") is one reason the people who want to increase firearm regulation have done such a terrible job of it: You can't intelligently impose laws on a culture you have no understanding of, especially if you think it's not important to understand.
Using a stereotyped redneck name is ugly.
Next time use first letter of the alphabet, common name. Second person gets second letter, common name and so on.
"Let's pretend Alice is a heated rage because she found out Bob slept with her wife Carol."
Much better, nu?
As an outsider, this is one of the most irrational things about American politics to me. Talk about guns, then talk about drugs, and each of the two major parties literally adopts the arguments of the other.
Then again, it's a perfectly rational system from the point of view of extracting maximum donations from supporters, so maybe I'm just looking at it the wrong way. Moderation doesn't sell.
Except libertarians.
We believe in decriminalization of both.
Fixed for correctness.
Gun laws reflect a society's general property rights, and drug laws their intellectual freedom.
Not really. Neither party has many elected officials in favor of changing anything about drug laws. And the main argument in favor of legal gun ownership is about the right to defend yourself, which doesn't apply as well to cocaine, for example.
The debate based on personal choice and responsibility versus increased government authority shows up almost exclusively from people of a more libertarian bent, but not necessarily on one side of D/R or the other.
Do you have any stats or experience to back that up? It might happen, but you are stating as fact something that's not been tested.
Anecdotally, in Australia where gun laws are very strict, it's difficult to get firearms. Yes, serious hardened criminals still get their hands on them, which certainly is a problem. The average angry Joe can not simply legally purchase a semi automatic or handgun to walk around to his antagonists house and shoot them.
With a murder rate twice any other developed country[1], the United States clearly has a serious violence problem, and taking guns out of the hands of the average Joe would surely help reduce it.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
Using the argument of "Hardened criminals will still get them anyway" is like saying we shouldn't have a law against murder because some people will do it anyway, so it's a waste of time. The point is to deter or make it extremely difficult for as many people as possible.
Japan which has a very strict sword and firearms law, afaik, has not seen a "homebrew" industry spruot since they passed the laws back in the '70s. And, it's not as though there are no criminals. The Yak syndicates are not, on principle, against the use of guns --they do occasionally used smuggled guns to settle things.
Now, Japan does allow some kinds of firearms, typically to farmers and such who need to deal with threats/vermin, but the permit process is lengthy and few people obtain them.
Guns last decades to centuries, the underground manufacturers only have to make enough to keep up with criminal population growth to keep the criminals just as supplied with guns as they are today.
It might actually be worse because many of the law abiding citizens who previously left their guns sitting in the basement will be willing to sell on the black market with gun prices rising.
The second clause does not follow from the first. Murder in the US is heavily demographically biased, and most gun owners are not murderers. Furthermore, will you be the one going door to door to collect everyone's firearms? It sounds like you are saying, "Surely, we must do something. This is something; therefore, we must do this."
Using the argument of "Hardened criminals will still get them anyway" is like saying we shouldn't have a law against murder because some people will do it anyway, so it's a waste of time. The point is to deter or make it extremely difficult for as many people as possible.
No, no it's not. You are conflating possession of a tool with misuse of the tool to commit a crime. The US has been trying to make it "extremely difficult for as many people as possible" to do a lot of things, and failed spectacularly. Now imagine that same level of failure applied to something protected in the US constitution.
Whenever I see arguments about how we should ban cars because they kill more people than guns per year, I always think about that. Cars are good for all kinds of things, and they happen to incidentally cause death. Guns are pretty much only good for killing things.
I live in the U.S. I'm not saying we should uniformly ban all weapons, period; I think the issue is more nuanced than that. But it seems hard to defend the fact that introducing guns into a dangerous situation would do anything other than make it more deadly.
If you ignore all of the other recreational uses, sure; you can also say that motorcycles only have one use: To kill people who ride them and the people those riders hit.
I'm not sure what your larger point is, though.
I bet most pro-gun Americans would agree with me. They want a weapon to defend themselves. How? By threatening to hurt or kill, of course. They're not going to propose a foam sword contest to someone they deem dangerous to their property, their lives, or their families.
Recreational use? It sure counts. But if we suddenly ban weapons in the US, there won't be riots over a hobby. It will be over the ability to threaten with death when you need it for self defence.
What is the primary, if not only, use for a really fast motorcycle? Separating morons from any organs that can be salvaged after that final crash.
I disagree. A gun's primary use for law abiding citizens is that it intimidates things. The most effective way to use a gun is simply to deter crime.
You wouldn't say that the reason the United States and the Soviet Union stockpiled nuclear weapons was because they wanted to level each others' cities. It was simply deterrence.
It's possible that pulling out a gun may defuse a situation, but lots of people seem to think "I'll just wave my gun and it'll stop the people harassing me."
You should only pull out a gun if the situation, at that time, is dangerous enough to warrant pulling the trigger.
A purpose they are quite clearly failing at. So the question is what, if anything, citizens of the U.S.A. wish to do about the fact that, empirically, legality and availability of guns has not resulted in crime rates comparable to comparable states.
It's possible that gun ownership deters crime, but that something else unique to the U.S. is causing more crime than gun ownership is countering.
The only thing you could possibly do is to compare parts of the US to each other, and in that case you'll find that locations with stricter gun laws have more gun violence.
You could conclude that gun laws cause gun violence, but that would be stupid because many times gun laws exist because of gun violence. What's the difference between my conclusion and yours?
Concluding that guns cause violence without real hard evidence and subsequently banning them is like using the unproven gateway drug theory to justify locking up people for smoking pot.
Oh well. It's no water off my back if you guys are fine with answering my original question with "nothing" and continuing shooting each other up as price of freedom.
As for US exceptionalism, you left out all the pent up emotional and cultural baggage held by some communities that makes them significantly more violent among themselves than the vast majority.
American exceptionalism refers to the primarily used meaning of exceptional as "unusually good." I never remotely said that.
America is different, not better. I'd also argue that you can't compare Germany to Spain. Does that mean I think Germany is better?
You also didn't answer my argument. Can you point to another country with comparable history, demography, economy, and culture that has passed a gun ban. Or should I just go ahead and hand over my gun, based on your unsupported fears?
I am aware. It's fun to use terms outside of their usual meanings sometimes.
I am not supporting a gun ban in the U.S. I'm asking what y'all wish to do about your crime rate.
End drug prohibition.
To be fair, Canada and Australia are pretty comparable on all counts. The main thing that distinguishes the US from them is scale, and scale has qualitative consequences, among which are the incidence and effects of criminal activity.
As a poster above said, much of the gun-related violence in the US is connected with criminal gangs, particularly those involved in drugs. And the scale of the drug market in the US, combined with the aggressiveness employed by state and federal governments in fighting the 'drug war', accounts for a substantial portion of the gun violence that occurs here.
It's worth noting that despite stereotypes, Canada does have a high rate of gun ownership - ranked 13 in the world, compared to the US, ranked first [1] - and the level of violence there isn't proportional.
[1]: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/A-Yearbook/200... (PDF link)
Also our massively larger per capita prison population probably has something to do with it. I doubt people are coming out of prison less violent.
Just a glance at the link you provided, I can't see a link between high gun ownership and murder rate at all.
>Canada and Australia are pretty comparable on all counts.
--comparable history, demography, economy, and culture.
Ignoring the economy, and population size.
Neither one had to deal with slavery on the scale America did.
Neither fought a war for independence or a civil war (the effect of the Civil War and the * massive* death toll can't be discounted. Not to mention the huge increase in gun ownership after the war).
The demographics of both are completely different.
Australians of European descent make up 93% of Australia, according to wikipedia.
As for Canada, they have more asians, who in the US commit less crimes and make more money than average. And they have significantly fewer blacks and hispanics, who in the US commit far more crimes and make less money than average.
Criminals use guns during crimes because of the power it gives them to subdue and control their victims. Guns also allow them to easily dispose of witnesses after the crime is committed.
If the non-criminal population just decides to give up their guns, in hopes that criminals will do the same, the criminals will simply say "thanks".
The comparison with cars is a good one though. Cars are an example of how lethal power exists in the hands of many in society. And that's true to an enormous degree, not just with cars though they are a prime example. Most people have the ability to take the lives of others without a great deal of effort. Imagine what would happen if, say, 1ppm of humanity woke up and decided to do murder that day. There would be a lot of killings. And yet society is still largely peaceful. Because most people can be trusted with the lives of their fellow humans. And it's important to realize how deeply we take that for granted. Something as simple as riding a bus or driving in traffic represents a tremendous trust in our fellow citizens to not murder us, and they trust us not to murder them as well.
Firearms do not represent injecting a unique capability for death and injury into society, they're just make that aspect of daily life more blatantly obvious. But just as with cars, knives, fists, pencils, hammers, bricks, fire, and all that most people can be trusted with firearms most of the time. And indeed when firearms are allowed into the hands of citizens of good intent they can be used to thwart crimes quite often. Many rapes and roberies have been stopped by firearms, often just by the mere presence of a firearm (not even counting the deterrent effects). And in some spectacular cases firearms have been used defensively to stop mass murders in their tracks. But these examples tend to be less dramatic than successful mass shootings, so they tend to be less well known.
On the whole, the point still stands, it is safer for the average person to own a gun than to own a car. And that is a testament to the trustworthiness of the average citizen, and the degree to which many people take gun ownership seriously and solemnly.
That is a good point about the comparison with cars. I have been stepping neatly past the trust idea (which applies to computers as well, and I'm a coder). It's a very powerful idea that I haven't thought about enough.
But I think firearms do represent a unique capability: how many bricks per minute can you throw? From how far away could you snipe someone with a pencil? I think it's one of degree: assault weapons, high-powered sniper rifles, semi-autos that can be easily modified for full-auto fire... Those weapons are all over a boundary for me, a boundary that the U.S. is too lax with drawing.
I suspect that you believe that the potential for violence is something that can be separated from a peaceful society, but that isn't the case. More so, I think living within such a worldview is intellectually stunting. In practice we see that private gun ownership is not uniquely dangerous. We see that automobiles are far more dangerous, for example. We see that the overwhelming majority of gun owners are peaceful people, we see that the overwhelming majority of guns are never used for violence. Consider some other statistics as well, if you were a parent would you be afraid of sending your child to a house that contains guns? What about sending your child to a house with a pool? In actuallity the 2nd is about 100 times more dangerous.
More so, taking guns out of the hands of peaceful citizens has consequences. People use guns to defend themselves against others. Indeed, such uses are far more common than gun homicides. Banning guns means allowing rapes, murders, muggings, assaults. How can you be so comfortable with that?
As far as the lethality of mundane objects and activities. Consider how many people can be killed by cars by driving them into a crowd. Consider how many people can, and are, killed by arson. Consider how many people are raped by a perpetrator who has no weapon other than their physical strength. Violence and the potential for violence is part of society. Personally I think society is better served by peaceful individuals growing in maturity and responsibility and learning how to wield firearms in a way that supports a peaceful society by defending it against would be murderers, rapists, and thieves.
When I said that the issue was more nuanced, I meant that we shouldn't ban all guns in the U.S. Please do not represent my position as such or assume that I believe that responsible gun owners cannot provide safe play destinations for my children. I grew up in Texas and went on hunting trips every year growing up. Please.
I don't think that it's naive to hope that we can curb our species' trend for violence, and I don't think that the threat of more violence in retribution is that solution long-term. You have a narrative about trusting people with lethal power, but then speak of tides of "murderers, rapists, and thieves" that you want to defend yourself with. It feels like your solution, a well-armed society, is merely stemming the symptom rather than trying to find or address any specific cause. I'm not satisfied with that.
I am not saying that it is guns' fault, by why does the U.S. have one of the highest rates of homicide of any country in the industrialized world?
Japan made it very difficult to own new firearms after they passed new Swords and Firearms laws. They allowed current gun owners to keep them, but they were not transferrable or inheritable. In other words, there are precendents for "taking away" arms, it's not unheard of. Peopple have figured out how to do this.
'This' being 'taking firearms away from people willing to obey the laws in the first place'.
What's the problem with using that logic to take firearms away from criminals?
And some spare organs in case of accidents involving the guns and the drugs - http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_growing_organs_engine...
And nice little chocolate things - http://www.chocedge.com/
And a new home after you destroy your existing one with the guns after binging out on all the drugs and chocolate - http://www.contourcrafting.org/
Why more people haven't bought one already is more of a mystery to me.
Most criminals steal or buy there guns on the black market. What do you think is going to happen to the hundreds of millions of guns sitting in people's basements when guns are banned?
Also if they passed the exact same law in the US, the result would be violence and insurgency. There are thousands of heavily armed people sitting around waiting for the day the government bans firearms.
It's difficult to provide stats and experience for events that haven't happened yet, but we can look at history. The last major prohibition of a product for which there was widespread demand, and has since been abolished, was alcohol in the 1920s. That didn't go so well. We continue to prohibit non-narcotic drugs, such as marijuana, and there is an equally ginormous pile of evidence that this prohibition isn't working out for us either.
It is also difficult to compare the U.S. to other countries with regard to guns because of the difference in environment here in the U.S.. The sheer number of guns and gun owners in the U.S. makes for a different set of conditions compared to somewhere seemingly similar, like Australia.
I don't think it's all that far fetched to believe that a relevant portion of gun owners would seek to make their own, should the government restrict them past a tipping point. I don't know what that tipping point is, but I suspect it exists.
How much or our gun violence do you think can be attributed to average Joe killing his neighbor. Ordinary law abiding citizens killing each other is definitely not what makes our gun homicide rate higher than Australia's.
The vast majority of gun violence happens as a direct result of other crimes, usually drug or gang related-- exactly the kind of people who will find a way to make guns.
Additionally America is not Australia, we have more guns than people. If guns were outlawed the vast majority of criminals would still easily be able to get their hands on guns for the next 50 years. The only thing you would accomplish is to take them away from law abiding citizens, who statistics show aren't the problem anyway.
One more difference between America and Australia. If what happened in Australia happened here (anything like government confiscation), there would be riots, and a serious insurgency (I'm dead serious). There would be so much more blood spilled by an attempt to take away American's guns than could possibly be prevented by doing so.
>Do you have any stats or experience to back that up? It might happen, but you are stating as fact something that's not been tested.
After the violence stopped, yeah the people involved would switch right over to manufacturing underground firearms.
If you haven't lived in a rural area of the U.S., you can't possibly know how serious many people here are about their firearms--hell, it's written into our constitution.
I own exactly zero guns, but I fully support the 2nd amendment.
Using the argument of "Hardened criminals will still get them anyway" is like saying we shouldn't have a law against murder because some people will do it anyway, so it's a waste of time. The point is to deter or make it extremely difficult for as many people as possible
No, it is nothing like saying that. Murder in itself is a very bad thing. Owning a gun isn't a bad thing, it's what the gun can be capable of that is bad. Just like alcohol itself isn't a bad thing, it's what the person is capable of doing when drunk, that is bad. That's why alcohol isn't illegal, but driving drunk is. That's why guns shouldn't be illegal, but using them in an unsafe manner should be.
http://improguns.blogspot.co.uk/
Most of these are either machine pistols or disguised firearms, both of which are already severely restricted in the US. It seems likely to me that restrictions on firearms in those countries are the reason people are building guns instead of buying them.
Some of these guns came from Brazil and Ecuador, which have significantly higher homicide rates and tighter restrictions on firearms than the United States. This suggests to me that some other factor is likely responsible for the high homicide rates.
If you can prove you hunt (permission from a land owner, hunting permit, tags, etc.) you should be allowed to own a couple of weapon. No semi or fully automatics, no handguns, no "assult" shotguns or what-not. Those are not for hunting, and every hunter knows it.
I have almost been shot once (not in the US), but I've have had a little over a half dozen near misses in cars (several countries, as driver, passenger and pedestrian/cyclist) and two near drownings (not in US).
Of all possible dangers I may encounter, cars easily worry me the most.
See my other, longer comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4298113
Not all kinds of cars. What legitimate use does a massively overpowered Lamborghini have? Or a massively overpowered motorcycle?
That being said, the argument(s) for mandatory background checks, tracking whose buying what, and assault weapons restrictions are pretty compelling, and while they are supply side solutions, they can hardly be called ineffective and pointless. There are very few instances in which one individual (or a small group) assembling/developing an arsenal of military grade (and/or military quantity) can be considered defensible.
Imagine this: the same way there is a massive public outcry for sexual predators to be outed in their neighborhoods - what if people with assault weapons were also outed in their neighborhoods? Would you be willing to share a wall with someone who had 6k rounds of ammunition?
That would be fun. A list for criminals of 'houses not to rip off'. Also: list of houses to rip off with impunity.
Would you be willing to share a wall with someone who had 6k rounds of ammunition?
6,000 rounds is not lot - a few guys can burn that many off in a weekend.
Sure, why not? What matters is intent.
Also: a prudent gun owner is not going to use a rifle in an apartment building or duplex.
That's what shotguns are for.
(edited: content)
Dude, go ahead and out everyone in my neighor hood with an AR15 or other detachable box magazine fed automatic rifle. You know what will happen? Not a damn thing - we all have these things here.
I personally have had well over 6000 rds of ammo at some point. You know what? It didnt go bad, nor did it magically get shot at innocent people. I either buy in bulk, or reload in bulk because its cheaper. WAY cheaper. When you shoot 150+ rounds of ammo a week shooting competition, you can not do otherwise.
As far as arsenels being defensible? WTF does that even mean. I can have an arsenal if I want to. I'm not hurting anyone with it, so what business of it is yours?
Also almost 50% of the people in this country own a fire arm. So I am not sure it would have the same "stigmatizing effect" as it isn't illegal or generally thought of as being a terrible act in and of itself.
Please keep in mind most people who shoot buy large amounts of ammo as it is cheaper to do it that way. Shooting 6k rounds a year down a pistol or small caliber rifle is very easy to do and isn't a sign of someone stock piling for Armageddon. So yes I would gladly share a wall with someone who has 6k rounds of ammo.
I think it's actually considerably easier. If you have saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, there isn't even any chemistry involved, and the only one of those ingredients that is remotely plausible (and I'm stretching the term "remotely plausible" here) to regulate the sale of is saltpeter. And even if they went that far, Wikipedia mentions an old process[1] for synthesizing saltpeter using only wood ash, urine, and straw. And your setup isn't even likely to explode or leak poisonous gas into your home in the process.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate#From_urine
Chamber pressure in a .22 cal pistol is on the order of 20,000 PSI [1] The tensile strength of thermoplastic at standard temperatures is 1/2 that [2] and it goes down as the temperature goes up (its a thermoplastic for a reason). Firing a .22 caliber round using gunpowder would destroy the barrel on the first firing.
Now I could believe you built the receiver and triggering mechanism on a thermoplastic printer, but not the actual firing chamber.
[1] http://www.lasc.us/SAAMIMaxPressure.htm [2] http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/physical-properties-thermo...
People have made lower receivers out of aluminum basically forever. Aluminum could maybe be made to handle .22lr type pressures, but certainly not .223rem or bigger. A plastic lower is completely believable.
EDIT: to clarify, I meant if you wanted to make the whole gun out of aluminum you might be able to get away with it for a .22lr. Aluminum for a lower receiver is absolutely no problem at all. Apologies for not being clear.
Aluminum could maybe be made to handle .22lr type
pressures, but certainly not .223rem or bigger.
The Alexander Arms .50 Beowolf lower is made out of aluminum. http://www.gunblast.com/50Beowulf.htm
You can also buy single-shot .50 BMG uppers that bolt right onto regular aluminum AR-15 lowers, though of course you can't feed .50 BMG through a 5.56 magazine well.
There is no federal level firearms registration (excepting NFA items), and only a few states that do so as well.
Somewhat difficult to wield in a gun fight though, not that we didn't occasionally imagine the students holding off an attack by firing a broadside from cannon of various quality :-)
The chamber is part of the barrel, which is made of some form of steel. Thus, the upper receiever doesn't contain the chamber pressures. What it does do is control the bolt carrier assembly when it recoils, which is pretty darned vigorous - I wouldnt trust my face to a plastic upper.
Also, note that plastic firearms have been around for YEARS. My dad's first rifle, in the later 50s, was a Remington Nylon '66, which was except for a steel stamping for a cover, a steel bolt, and the steel barrel, made of Zytel.
I said he didn't print a "rifle," you say "in the eyes of the ATF, he DID print a gun." I respond with, if you're being pedantic, he printed a "part which the BATFE classifies as a firearm requiring the stamping of a serial number should the manufacturer transfer it to any other individual." A part which, we all know, in and of its self is NOT a rifle.
http://www.popehat.com/2011/10/06/the-third-wave-cnc-stereol...
Every other part (upper receiver, barrel, magazine, trigger, hammer, etc) are just "parts" that one can order untracked.
Making an entire functional weapon is still beyond the scope of most inexpensive printers.
http://www.quora.com/3D-Printing/How-much-does-it-cost-today... (my question about this on Quora.)
And it is only going to get cheaper - http://reprap.org/wiki/MetalicaRap
Manufacturing ammunition is simple and requires components and equipment that can be purchased for relatively little money and with (almost) no restrictions.
Buying gunpowder, primers, bullets, and casings is very possible via the internet (though gunpowder and primers are subject to hazardous shipping restrictions). After that, you could in principle make ammo using a 2x4 and a hammer if you really wanted to. A single-stage reloading press and the accoutrements can be obtained for under $200 trivially, and if you want to step up to relatively fast manufacture (hundreds of rounds per hour) you're still only talking a $500ish investment.
Some people do it to save money, some because they're competitive shooters (who want to hand-optimize their loads), and others are survivalist types who want to be "off-the-grid".
I have downloaded complete plans that were created in 1972 to make an entire .22 caliber single shot pistol by hand using a hacksaw, file and drill press. By my estimation, it can be done in one long day of work by a semi-skilled person. An even simpler pistol can be built in an hour or two. It's just not hard to make a basic gun: when I was 11 years old I used to make toy "guns" from old hollow keys, crushed match heads and nails. They worked, but only had about a 10-foot or so range.
Granted, I planned to build the pistol using a (manual) milling machine, not by hand, but is the government going to outlaw saws and files now?
I, too, used to stuff firecrackers down a pipe and shoot steel balls (from bearings) when I was a kid - it was fun, what can I say :-)...
Articles are now being written based on a handful of unverified forum posts. Really?
2) Betabeat only reported that this forum existed and that someone had made these claim, which is indisputably correct. You may think it's not particularly news worthy, but online journalism is a big places and there's plenty of room for everything.
3) Would you rather this article not be written?
Are there any technology news sites that are truly journalistic these days? (serious question)
edit: to be specific, they glossed over it instead of confronting a scenario where an enemy hijacked a replicator to make whatever physical or chemical weapons they wanted at a moment's notice.
And if something is poison to even just a few of your crew, you forbid it and tell everyone else to eat almonds instead of peanuts. :nerdingout:
TNG "Samaritain Snare" Geordi is kidnapped by technically unsophisticated, but cunning people that use replicators to reproduce high-tech (including a phasor)
Does HN have any mods?
2.) Have blue has a blog, he's written two posts about this: http://haveblue.org/?p=1041 http://haveblue.org/?p=1321 It appears to be down right now, though. Cache links: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DlBe32... https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Z_5bOF...
3.) He printed a AR-15 lower receiver, which is the part, under US law, considered a "firearm". The high pressure components (barrel, bolt) are all made from conventional manufacturing processes, using steel.
Lowers are typically made out of aluminum, but they don't really experience any great stresses, so it's perfectly possible to make them out of plastic. (There's a number of commercial lowers made out of fiberglass: http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=65134 (I'd link directly to the manufacturer's site, but it seems they're better at making guns than they are at securing web servers)) As he notes, people have even carved them from wood.