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Comment by gutnor | Hacker News Reader

The fear comes from being able to buy a relatively cheap 3D printer at Walmart, download a firearm template and build yourself a firearm that way.

Manufacture of a weapon may require the same skill using lathe and other machining tools but duplication can become very easy with 3D printer after the initial weapon has been created.

Nevertheless that is just media made circus. Getting firearm is currently so easy there is no underground manufacture even with cheap tools and low skill needed. So at worst 3D printing could change the type of weapon in circulation, not change the overall availability.

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If you can operate a computer equipped with a plastic printer, I think you can operate a 18th century machine following a blueprint on paper. It is not like machinist design those lower receivers from scratch either.

I agree with you. I went from laymen to building both of them in a matter of months, and subtractive tech is both more readily available, cheaper, has more support from vendors for these uses than a printer. Strictly from a manufacturing perspective, it's the proper method for the part requirements, which is anything but trivial.

IF 3D printer become as popular as regular printer, that will change.

A car for example, require more skills overall than using a printer or a lathe, yet you can ask the vast majority of American to use their car for, comparatively speaking, much more complex tasks than printer or machining a gun.

That said I agree that it is low skill to achieve on a lathe. Basic furniture making, DYI, car fixing, ... are also low level type of task. However, few people have the opportunity (time, money) to acquire those skills in the first place. If 3D printers becomes popular, it may not reduce the overall complexity but it will seriously increase the pool of people qualified and equipped to make them.

Not that I think this is a genuine concern in the US. Why would you print a gun when you can get a reliable, discreet one very easily.

In the US, one can simply buy a gun at Walmart and skip the building it at home part. Even at the low end, it will probably be a better gun than one made on a 3D printer.

In some countries with stricter gun laws, illegally-made guns are pretty common. You can see examples at http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/author/improguns/ - many of them are submachineguns, which are a bit more scary than single-shot pistols and pepperbox revolvers.

That's in the US, though. In most european countries, there are close to no guns in circulation and this could change a lot of things.

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