Gun control in the future.

BattleCorp

I can't claim ownership of this idea but I thought it was interesting.





In another forum there was a discussion on gun control and one member said that gun control in the not too distant future will be near impossible because of the invention of 3d printers.

3d printers already exist but are prohibitively expensive and not that advanced yet, but they will be shortly.

All a person would have to do to obtain a firearm is download the drawings of the firearm and print it out piece by piece using a 3d printer. Of course it would be illegal to do so and I'm not looking forward to the day where anybody can make their own guns, but it isn't too far away really.

It would be the same if you needed a spare part such as a new firing pin etc. Download the drawings and print yourself a new one.

It would work the same for car parts or pretty much anything you wanted to make. If you have the drawings, you can make it.

I know it seems far fetched now, but I'd say we'll be facing that in the next 5 to 10 years or so.

Anybody any thoughts on it?

lb1981

From what i seen with 3d printing is that yes you can print the basic shape of the part or gun ,but it would be like a a toy gun ie no moving parts and the barrel would not be capable of firing a round ,it wouldn't be clever to try fire something that wasn't proof tested either,you can make a basic gun now in a machine shop ,if a criminal wants a gun lets face it he can buy one or rent one for small money ,it is a lot easier to get an illegally held gun than get a license for a legally held one.

BattleCorp

lb1981 wrote: »

From what i seen with 3d printing is that yes you can print the basic shape of the part or gun ,but it would be like a a toy gun ie no moving parts and the barrel would not be capable of firing a round ,it wouldn't be clever to try fire something that wasn't proof tested either,you can make a basic gun now in a machine shop ,if a criminal wants a gun lets face it he can buy one or rent one for small money ,it is a lot easier to get an illegally held gun than get a license for a legally held one.

All guns are different pieces put together so a 3d printer would be able to make the gun in pieces all ready for assembly. That would cover the moving parts.

I agree that a 3d gun made now would be unsafe to fire as the technology isn't good enough yet, but where will we be in 10 years time with the speed of advancement with technology.

Rudimentary guns can be made in machine shops, but it's very difficult to make an AR15 or something similar. A 3d printer would be able to knock out pretty much any shape.

At the moment, the 3d printer can make any shape it wants out of paper. It won't be too long before it can make any shape out of steel or other such materials.

Doublelime

Criminals will always have access to anything they want because they are willing to break the law to get it. I dont think 3D printers will be affordable to the general public in 10 years, more like 30-40

meathstevie

I believe that 3d type of printing is called CNC machining. Anyone with the right tools can make/copy a gun but in small quantities it's prohibitively expensive and complicated. In large quantities it's a different story, do a search on Norinco to give you an idea.

Come to think of it, "gun control" or better organised licencing and possession is really something that only applies to highly organised society. If you take a proverbial ramble through most third world or Middle East conflict zones and there's no shortage of those you can probably get your hands on an AK in some shape or form quicker than on a steak dinner.

Cass

meathstevie wrote: »

I believe that 3d type of printing is called CNC machining.

Was thinking the very same myself, and did not post in case i was missing something obvious.

CNC machines currently "copy" parts now. They are also seriously expensive. So i see no difference between it or waiting 10-40 years for a different type of machine to do the same job.

Copying parts would not be my concern. Using current "scrap" parts to make firearms would be more of a concern. Making one type of firearm into another which would be as illegal as what is described above.

bravestar

BattleCorp wrote: »

I can't claim ownership of this idea but I thought it was interesting.





In another forum there was a discussion on gun control and one member said that gun control in the not too distant future will be near impossible because of the invention of 3d printers.

3d printers already exist but are prohibitively expensive and not that advanced yet, but they will be shortly.

All a person would have to do to obtain a firearm is download the drawings of the firearm and print it out piece by piece using a 3d printer. Of course it would be illegal to do so and I'm not looking forward to the day where anybody can make their own guns, but it isn't too far away really.

It would be the same if you needed a spare part such as a new firing pin etc. Download the drawings and print yourself a new one.

It would work the same for car parts or pretty much anything you wanted to make. If you have the drawings, you can make it.

I know it seems far fetched now, but I'd say we'll be facing that in the next 5 to 10 years or so.

Anybody any thoughts on it?

Interesting idea alright and it will be interesting to see the way 3d printing goes. But in my experience, the one thing criminality does well is stick to the KISS principle. There is no shortage of make shift, back yard, concealable, one use and reloadable (albeit slowly) rimfire and 12/410 guage weapons being produced in this country.

StickyIcky

This is where it's at right now. Watched it the other day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DconsfGsXyA

The guys who are making them right now are called Defense Distributed
http://defensedistributed.com/

This is where you can download current gun parts
http://defcad.org/

Victor

lb1981 wrote: »

it wouldn't be clever to try fire something that wasn't proof tested either

Agreed. The quality control in the materials and workmanship wouldn't be the same as you would get in a gun smith's. The gun smith would be working with forged steel, that most others wouldn't be able to replicate. Potentially, Joe Bloggs would make parts that would shatter after one, ten or a hundred firings, throwing lots of pieces of hot metal into his face.

He might also have to go through an awful lot of printer heads.

kfod

Where I last worked they had some pretty nice CNC machines and I can tell you that as well as the machines you need someone pretty handy at telling the machine what to do! The CNC part of it makes it sound nice and simple, you get your design and write it up in whatever program it is CAD or SolidWorks or whatever and of ya go. Thats what the design guys did, then give it to the fella who "drives" the machine and he would spend ages tweaking the program selecting which tooling the machine needed for certain curves and bores etc. Def not a simple process.

don't know anything really about 3D printing but Wiki has this about printing a gun:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Distributed

sfakiaman

Gun Control is only about keeping guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, you don't need 3D printers or CNC machines to make firearms. I have handled perfectly functional firearms made by the Viet Cong in the early sixties and excellent copies of quite modern firearms made in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is not rocket science to make a firearm, indeed schoolboys in the UK during WW2 made stenguns in metalwork class, likewise, the Singer Sewing Machine Company in the USA made rifles for the US Govt. Gun Control is really about people control not about guns.

lb1981

kfod wrote: »

Where I last worked they had some pretty nice CNC machines and I can tell you that as well as the machines you need someone pretty handy at telling the machine what to do! The CNC part of it makes it sound nice and simple, you get your design and write it up in whatever program it is CAD or SolidWorks or whatever and of ya go. Thats what the design guys did, then give it to the fella who "drives" the machine and he would spend ages tweaking the program selecting which tooling the machine needed for certain curves and bores etc. Def not a simple process.

don't know anything really about 3D printing but Wiki has this about printing a gun:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Distributed

I have often spent days tweeking a program to get it right , your dead right it is not a simple process once the parts are intricate ,thats why on cheaper firearms the parts are just cast and then polished up then they break fairly easy, Turkish guns are a prime example

rowa

A huge amount of the small gunmakers in england and belgium made the guns by hand in victorian times, forgings would be bought in and they were filed to shape, machinery was expensive where as labour was cheap.
A method of 3d printing is in developement in america that will use metal, it will probabily only be zinc based pot metal with a low melting point, and cnc machines have been around long enough now that second hand ones can be picked up cheaply, i have also seen manual mills converted with stepper motors etc to dual use cnc/manual.

Victor

sfakiaman wrote: »

indeed schoolboys in the UK during WW2 made stenguns in metalwork class

You mean they made basic pressed / stamped / drilled metal parts? Not the breach or the like?

likewise, the Singer Sewing Machine Company in the USA made rifles for the US Govt.

As part of an industrial process. They didn't change from sewing machines to rifles without a lot of changes to equipment and training.

Grizzly 45

After having a look at Defcad and their founders message I would think Cody Wilson is right.
Its not about whether you can make the gun,its about the knowledge base out there to do it.
As he pointed out the proposed magazine ban in the USA is now ludicrous as they have supplied the CAD programmes for the "Cumo and Feinstein " High cap mags as freeware for all to share. What is a magazine really but a box with a spring in it to load the bullets,IOW a pretty simple thing to CAD programme.

You can now get a 3D printer for appx 600 USD[remember back in the 1970s Bill Gates I think it was, saying home computors would be really unaffordable for the average Joe and a 30mb would be all we ever need?] and falling that prints out somthing like that no problems.
True it might be a very shoddy printed copy,but like anything us inventive humans will sit down and think how will we better this technology in our basements?And THAT is the whole concept of Def cad.

The AR15 lower is now holding together to a ppx 1000 round shot count,they also now have an all plastic.22lr prototype pistol in the development stage and need appx 15k worth of R&D and programming to get it operational.
Thing is the theory is great and the concept is proven,but at todays technology level we dont have any of the liquids[? ]I suppose to print out a piece of polymer or whatever that will take the pressure or pounding that gun barrel steel will.

IOW yes we can print out mags,lowers for AR15,even frames for Glocks and 1911s,possibly some small components like triggers,pins etc but we cant print out barrells, bolts,bolt carrier groups,or even springs!
Thats still in the"Cyberdyne Systems" leauge of things.:P

I reckon when whoever develops that kind of liquid.The liquid itself will become a either for govt use only or restricted from sale to the public and thats where they "might" have some gun control in the future.
However,like even PGP encryption which Uncle Sam wanted classified as a unshippable defence product outside CONUS a civillian version will get out there eventually.

But even on todays line of things so long as people have access to hand tools junk piles and determination aquiring a firearm is really a matter of wanting one.I think anyone here who the most basic gumption if need be could build a homemade gun within 48 hours.OK,its not going to be a bespoke firearm as we know it ,but it would be sufficent to fulfill whatever needs we would have.
Guns have been made in high security prisions and even in the Warsaw Jewish ghetto.
Heck,we made them in Ireland throughout our history ,ever since Garrett Mor Fitzgerald brought in a pair of matchlocks.:P
I've seen homemade revolvers made here by blacksmiths form the 19th century,while cumbersome and not very elegant worked very well.
Even up to the start of NI both sides made improvised SMGs called Ulster funnnyguns or Harland&Wolff specials.

ou mean they made basic pressed / stamped / drilled metal parts? Not the breach or the like?

Nope ,assembled them. STENS are extremly crude but effective,made mostly out of stamped parts that can be hand made if need be.Its still one of the most favourite designs for underground manufacture. About the only machined parts are the bolt , barrel trunion, and barrel. If you have a few machine shops running those of by the thousand fold and another plant stamping out the other bits,you just need somone to fit it all together and another to tack weld the reciver and mag well.Somthing any 12year old could do.

As part of an industrial process. They didn't change from sewing machines to rifles without a lot of changes to equipment and training.

True,but while maybe not as fast as the STEN went from first concept drawing by Messers Shepard and Turpin at their dining room table to first off the production line Mk1 was somthing like eight /ten weeks.

It took somthing like four months before companies like Union Switch co,Wurlitzer,Rockola,Singer,etc had retooled and rebuilt plants to start cranking out Garands and M1 carbines by the crate load per hour.
But it wasnt an entire process,each plant came on stream in that time period,not all at once.But that applied for the entire American war industry be it from boots to bombers on a 24/7/365, no coffee or lunch break mindset.

rowa

The stench gun was mass produced by a company most of us old gits will recognize , lines bros ltd aka triang toys , makers of meccano etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMqSsvqjJ2E&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Grizzly 45

[

QUOTE=rowa;84071432]A huge amount of the small gunmakers in england and belgium made the guns by hand in victorian times, forgings would be bought in and they were filed to shape, machinery was expensive where as labour was cheap.

TBH thats what alot of still expensive gunsmiths still do,buy in forgings and cast parts and thats what you are paying for. You use the apprentice to do most of the filing these days.:D

Sparks

BattleCorp wrote: »

I can't claim ownership of this idea but I thought it was interesting.

I think quite a few people got there first

3d printers already exist but are prohibitively expensive and not that advanced yet, but they will be shortly.

Depending on the model (and it's capabilities and the materials used), the cheapest is currently about $500 in kit form, but most "cheap" models are in the $1000 area. That's less than a new computer (well, less than a fancy new computer anyway).

All a person would have to do to obtain a firearm is download the drawings of the firearm and print it out piece by piece using a 3d printer.

Yes, but just 'cos it's easy doesn't make it legal, or ethical.
(Not to mention, any idiot who fired a firearm with unproven components that close to his or her face, would be a prime candidate for that year's Darwin awards).

It would be the same if you needed a spare part such as a new firing pin etc. Download the drawings and print yourself a new one.

That's why NASA is doing research on these things too - a mars mission that can make its own spare parts on the fly would be a great thing for them; think Apollo 13 but instead of engineers sending up fifty-step instructions for bodging a CO2 scrubber out of whatever parts were available, the crew just print off CO2_Scrubber.part on the printer and plug it in.

Anybody any thoughts on it?

It's not going to take over from traditional manufacturing, but prototyping, DIY, and other niche markets are going to be wildly affected. As to firearms - no, not for quite a while yet. And even if you finally get a 3D printer that could print a firearm, well, we already have laws that cover that; you'd have an unlicenced firearm, that's seven years in prison and enough of a fine to force you to sell the printer. I really don't see a problem here to be honest.

1shot16

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/micwright/100007925/making-guns-in-your-garage-how-3d-printers-will-revolutionise-the-manufacture-of-deadly-weapons/

Sparks

It's not going to "revolutionise the manufacture of deadly weapons" - I can go to the knife drawer in my kitchen and take out any one of twenty of those and nobody cares very much.

It might revolutionise IQ tests mind you - just watch A&E for anyone showing up with bits of 3D-printed gun embedded in their face and write "Idiot" on their chart...

yubabill1

Funny, I always thought "gun control" meant trying to keep on target!

InTheTrees

I have a little experience of 3d printing and the technology is still an extremely long way from producing a viable firearm.

The best that they can do now is magazines and some low stress parts.

As has been pointed out, machining a weapon at home is the same principal and a lot easier at this point in time

Grizzly 45

A very good and short documentary of this whole topic.

http://documentaryheaven.com/3d-printed-guns/

session savage

I am an industrial designer by trade and have some experience with this technology.
You can presently use one of many different CAD programs and draw anything you want and email the drawing file to a number of companies that will print it out and send it to you. The detail possible would allow for a fully functioning handgun and could be drawn and printed pretty easily BUT the materials available are at present nowhere near strong enough for the gun to be in any way safe. Granted thermoplastic technology is really coming along but I doubt you will ever be able to fully print a viable gun. I reckon the heat exchange even from a sub sonic .22lr round would be too much for any currently available materials.

Gas operated airguns....now thats another thing altogether. Scary to think of actually, anyone can at present print out a viable plastic air powered handgun...invisible to metal detectors :eek:

Grizzly 45

TBH the .22 all plastic handgun was done back in the 1980s to prove it could be got thru airport magnometers. Belive a guy called Bill Holmes from Arkansaws who was a custom gunsmith built one for the CIA.
Not that it was designed to work for a lifetime like an all metal gun,it was somthing for assainations or hijackings. IOW maybe 20 shots tops.Apprently the gun that John Malkovitch used in the film " In the line of fire" was based on the Holmes design.
Its one reason this SEN Israel is trying to bring back a bill that has been in suspended animation since the 1980s called the plastic firearms bill.This first came about when the "all plastic Glock":rolleyes: appeared and the anti gun nuts were screaming that Glocks could be got thru Xray machines and metal detectors by the dozens.
So I'd still be doubtful anyone is going to print up a fully working 3D gun for a long while yet.Especially when it comes to somthing like pressure bearing parts with bigger cals than .22lr shorts.

yubabill1

Anyone listen to Pat Kenny today on gun control?

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/today-with-pat-kenny/

started with Connecticut parent, then 3 mins of Obama and ended with Political academic Graham Finlay identifying US "right wing gun owners" as a "home grown" pool of terrorists.

Plenty of balanced reporting there, for your licence fee, guys.

yubabill1

sent to feedback@rte.ie

Sir/Madam

I am very disappointed in Today with Pat Kenny’s unbalanced reporting of the gun control debate in the US, in the wake of the Connecticut massacre.

There was no-one to speak for the Republican viewpoint and the report ended with Graham Finlay slandering every right wing gun owner in America, saying they were a pool of home-grown terrorists.

Sincerely

rowa

Thats pretty bad of rte but not unexpected , after all they have the joe fluffy show. but the british media are unreal in their "holier than thou" attitude to the american gun control situation, if they interview someone who is pro-gun they badger them and question why anyone would want a gun , if this doesn't work they cut the interview short. Gun control is part of the politically correct, right on liberal agenda.

yubabill1

rowa wrote: »

Thats pretty bad of rte but not unexpected , after all they have the joe fluffy show. but the british media are unreal in their "holier than thou" attitude to the american gun control situation, if they interview someone who is pro-gun they badger them and question why anyone would want a gun , if this doesn't work they cut the interview short. Gun control is part of the politically correct, right on liberal agenda.

The agenda that got 4% of the vote in the meath by-election?

Sparks

rowa wrote: »

Gun control is part of the politically correct, right on liberal agenda.

We're drifting rapidly into RKBA stuff here guys, the only gun control legislation we discuss in here is Irish gun control legislation.

There are threads on US gun control legislation in the US Politics forum, and all over the site; but we really want this forum set aside for sports, so let's take the US aspect of it over to the US Politics forum, eh?

Grizzly 45

Just thunking abit about this and RTE liscense fees and possible PR.
Quite frankly RTE hasnt exactly been neutral on firearms issues on either TV or radio,I wonder then why should I pay a TV /radio liscense to have to listen to the one sidedness of a liberal anti gun media on our national airwaves,especially one that attacks my lifestyle??
I for one am stating RTE can stuff their demands for my TV liscense where the Sun dont shine,and if Comrade Rabbit thinks he is getting 150 quid out of me for having a computor or whatever,he'll get the same response.
Wonder could we use this as some sort of PR use??