Australian police issue warning on 3D printed guns

Better still, did they mention what ammunition was used? Police typically use +P+ ammunition, especially in smaller calibers like .32 and .380. I have no doubt that the original inventor used standard pressure loads or even sub sonics to decrease the chance of a failure such as this. In the end the gun was a POC anyways, designed to show what could be done.

What I find more disconcerting is the continue emphasis on how the gun is "undetectable". While it is certainly harder to detect because of the small number of metal pieces, you still have the ability to detect bullets!! Or are they so focused on the gun itself that they haven't kept up technology to detect gun powder?

As others have mentioned.. its all about drumming up noise to defend their removal of this information from the Internet.

Thats true. All gun will wear out and fail eventually.

Indeed. It's a typical moral panic. The fact is that improvised guns have always been easy to manufacture from very cheap materials. Anyone could make a gun as capable as the 3d printed gun using less than $10 of parts from home depot and no more than a day's labor.

I'm not sure the theory that violence is caused by "people being asshats to each other" is accepted by anybody other than Wayne LaPierre.

Gun violence is caused, first and foremost, by the presence of a gun. A sufficient cause? Often yes, given appropriate context.

There are plenty of very successful ways to "hold back" this technology. It's called law.

Anyway I don't think anybody is worried about this 3d printed deal other than the press trying to get page views. The scrawny middle class kid who made it is an uninteresting attention whore, and the gun itself is a massive piece of shit. As others have pointed out, self-made ballistic weapons have been possible for years. This doesn't lower the convenience factor.

So is it perfectly acceptable to kill people with home made guns and bombs for the progression of technology?

This is actually terrorism. I see someone creating guns and killing people to be no different than boston bombers.

The guy in the article didn't build a full-auto AK-47, although he did commit a couple felonies along the way[1]. First, he mounted the magazine lock too too far back, which allows the magazine to be detached without the use of a tool - a felony in California on a semi-auto rifle with a pistol grip. Secondly, he says

    Back in my garage I use a grinding wheel to cut the receiver in half and the other components into pieces. I put the scraps back in the cardboard box the kit came in and leave it for the garbage truck.

This is an improper demill. To demill a receiver you must cut it into three pieces. Therefore, when he left the receiver out for the garbage truck he effectively transferred his rifle to the garbage truck without going through an FFL, which is another felony.

Finally, the process for actually obtaining or building a fully automatic rifle (assuming it's not outlawed by your state) is arduous and expensive. The short answer is that you have to go through extensive background checks by the FBI and BATFE in order to get a $200 NFA tax stamp, which takes months to be approved for. You also have to get a signature from your local sheriff, who can just decide he/she doesn't want you to have one if they wish (alternatively, you can go to a lawyer to set up a special trust to assign NFA devices to). Finally, the actual cost for a select-fire AK receiver, of which there are limited supply as they have to have been registered with the ATF before May 19, 1986 (and there are no more being manufactured for civilian use), is between $15-20K (here's a current gunbroker auction[2] for reference). For a longer description of this whole process see: http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/MediaPages/ArticleDetail.aspx...

[1]: http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=767020

[2]: http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=34324298...

It's just as easy to build an AR15 basically from scratch: http://www.oocities.org/elmgrove1765/project6/project6.html

A $500 mill from Harbor Freight, a barrel, and some springs has you in business.

Most people fail putting an Ikea cabinet together. You cannot compare a simple print job with custom construction (even a zip gun is beyond the skills or available tools of many people).

3D printers are currently rare and expensive, however they are bound to become mainstream and inexpensive very quickly. When every angsty teenager has the capability to print a gun simply by hitting "print" with the $69 3D printer in the corner, there is a legitimate concern, and many of the haughty, world-weary replies to this submission declaring this a non-issue and nothing new are not reasonable.

How will the world adapt? We'll see. I fully expect consumer 3D printers to be legally required to identify gun-capable parts and reject to print them, or intentionally print flaws (in the same way that your printer will watermark printed currency, and your scanner will corrupt scans of currency). There will likely be restrictions on the strength of the materials, etc.

Part of the social contract in most societies is that the police are the only members of society who can use enough force to kill or injure anyone critically. The governments of these societies create laws to ensure that it is only special well regulated instances when an ordinary citizen can use deadly force (hunting of lower animals and self defense being two examples in the United States). Anywhere these guns can be manufactured successfully thwarts the old laws and contracts.

This means that it will be a "Problem", but no one can say for who. The big gun manufactures are going to be pissed and are already probably already preparing legislation to bitch slap any one who tries to produce these guns. The liberator people are working on making the guns not explode and hurt anyone. The police are scrambling to figure out how to reclaim their sole ownership of force. The people are waiting to see what happens.

It's easier and cheaper to make a shotgun with 2 pipes, an end cap, and a screw. I'm not exaggerating the simplicity.

http://www.issafrica.org/armsnetafrica/sites/default/files/2...

Guns are simple.

Guns are 17th century technology.

Of course - if you build a zip gun and use a barrel that isn't seamless (it was bent & welded into it's tube shape) you'll have a bad time. There's also guns like the Lorcin -- it's made from pot metal and is as dangerous to the wielder as it is to the target. There's no point in buying more than one box of ammo for it...

You could try to make it out of glass, I guess.