Posted on 11/23/2013 11:25:22 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Today, the Philadelphia City Council voted unanimously to ban the manufacturing of guns by 3-D printers, making Philly the first city to do so. Which is interesting, because the author of the bill, Kenyatta Johnson, isn’t aware of of any local gun-printing 3-D printers. ”It’s all pre-emptive,” says Johnson’s director of legislation Steve Cobb. “It’s just based upon internet stuff out there.” We would hereby like to claim credit for this legislation by pointing to Nick Vadala’s comprehensive May 10th piece on guns made by 3-D printers. It reads, in part:
People have been manufacturing their own guns for hundreds of years, and we’re not exactly at the point where a 3-D printed gun can replace a standard zip gun as a down-and-dirty, DIY instrument of crime. Think of it like this: Your average 3-D printer costs anywhere from $1,500 to $8,000 and up, plus the cost of printing materials. Your average handgun could go for as little as $300 or less, even on the black market. A zip gun is either free or nearly so, and anyone with any mechanical ability can make one. Bombs, like the ones used recently in Boston, are frequently entirely homemade and constructed of legal materials. So, really, a 3-D printed piece isn’t exactly a better option to do wrong right now.
OK, maybe Johnson’s office didn’t base their legislation on Nick’s post, considering his entire point was that 3-D gun regulation was just a bunch of political grandstanding. But as Nick also points out, we’re a tech-savvy city, and it’s not inconceivable that some bored, semi-employed entrepreneur in Kensington that doesn’t follow City Council hearings tries to make one of these himself.
Nice to see someone who has been paying attention and has imagination.
As someone who has had a career in RDT&E, that is an interesting concept, but lots of testing is necessary to insure that it works with any degree of reliability. Murphy’s law is real.
The $600k that the metal printer costs is interesting. Why?
Because 15 years ago, that’s what the cheapest polymer/plastic printer cost. Now they are sub-1K.
And in both cases, a ‘printed’ weapon is untraceable. Unlike something made in a machine shop or even at home, there aren’t any incriminating tooling marks.
Am I going to buy a $2000 dollar printer, spend $200 on material and a dozen hours printing a gun that isn’t worth a dime?
Well I might now, out of spite.
The types of machines used by industry are still prohibitively expensive to the home tinkerer. To me this seems similar to grouping all internal combustion engine powered transportation devices together. A moped obviously has far different capabilities than a semi-truck... not that politicians necessarily could make the distinction.
My wife makes reproduction military uniforms. Some of the buttons are very difficult to find. Currently we make some reproduction buttons out of polymer clay using molds produced from original buttons. I have looked into purchasing a “3D printer” as an alternative method for making reproduction buttons. But even for reproduction buttons... the output from a consumer “3D printer” is really not acceptable.
The filament used in consumer 3D printers varies but typically the output is similar to items made from recycled milk jugs or recycled 2 liter soda bottles for the most part. While many useful items can be produced from recycled milk jugs, there are not a lot of parts for firearms that this material would be appropriate for.
So the gangbangers are spending thousands on a machine that takes hours to print a single shot weapon and not buying black market durable Glocks with 19 round magazines for a couple hundred bucks. Whew. I feel safer already.
No.
You can make a functioning firearm with a $600 3D plastic printer - with features that used to cost 1000 times as much just 15 years ago. There is now price pressure on the 3D metal printers that should also bring their prices down.
If the curve follows what the 3D plastic printers did, there should be a ‘small shop’ version available for about $10K in about 8-10 years that can replicate this.
One thing about those reproduction buttons - some of the cheap ones are capable of surprisingly good resolution, but you must have exceedingly detailed original data for them to work off of and most people doing repops with them don’t.
They can try to “ban” anything they want.
That genie is already out of the bottle. Or, to quote the Leftards:
“This is what DEMOCRACY looks like.”
As compared to the output from a $600 3D printer... one could currently make what I would actually consider an actual “functioning firearm” quicker, cheaper, and more durable using parts that anyone can find at your nearest home improvement or hardware store.
It is of course currently possible to produce high quality firearms parts at home using relatively inexpensive or homemade CAM Milling Machines. I doubt whether anyone on the Philadelphia city council has even a rudimentary knowledge or understanding of gunsmithing.
I reload my own brass so I have a good understanding and respect for the pressures created by even small caliber pistol cartridges. It is a pastime that requires precision and attention to detail to avoid catastrophe. A couple of grains (1 grain = 0.06479891 grams) too much powder and a perfectly good high quality pistol can blow up when fired. I do not believe that the output from a $600 3D printer is going to be reliable or predictable enough anytime soon to safely be used as a firearm.
The DefCAD Liberator design (since improved on) actually works for many dozens of rounds until stress cracks start showing up on the weapon, indicating you need to stop using it. The one that blew up in testing was using a 5.7x28mm PDW round instead of the .380ACP the thing was designed to handle. It does not explode without ample warning with .380. And after all, you only need a round or two to ‘upgrade’ to a ‘real’ arm.
Yes, you can make a zip gun out of home improvement supplies. But if you do that, there’s invariably video records of you buying the pieces, if not computer records from your electronic transaction these days. And no, paying cash will still not stop the video records (which are indexed to purchase times now!) So if you have to abandon it after using it, there’s a pretty good chance they will be coming to look for you. This is what has these people scared: With a 3D printer there is *NO* record they can try to track back.
Also of import - the Liberator isn’t just proof of concept, there are people still developing and producing them. These variants and more are out there now.
Liberator Compact: A smaller more compact version of the Liberator, with a non-removable grip.
Liberator Hydra Rifle: A Liberator with a 16” barrel, vents to reduce pressures, and a removable stock.
Liberator Pepperbox: This design gives the Liberator pistol four chambers and acts similar to a single action revolver.
Cerberus Liberator: A Liberator that holds a long string of barrels, allowing for faster reloading.
I am confused as to how this is even possible. The projectile used in a .380ACP cartridge is 9mm in diameter; the projectile used in a 5.7x28mm is 5.7mm in diameter. The overall length of a .380ACP cartridge is 25mm; the overall length of 5.7x28mm cartridge is 40.5mm. These cartridges are not physically compatible in any way that I can conceive. I think that your source gave you inaccurate information.
So if you have to abandon it after using it, there’s a pretty good chance they will be coming to look for you. This is what has these people scared: With a 3D printer there is *NO* record they can try to track back.
I would suggest that if you have motive and the authorities were to find a gun printed on a 3D Printer at the scene of a crime and then found that you possessed a 3D Printer that prosecutors would have a fairly easy time convincing a jury of your peers that you were the perpetrator. This would be especially true if the authorities found plans for making a gun in your computer and remnants of the same type of filament the gun was produced from were found in or on you or your friend's printer.
My knowledge of the “Liberator design” is confined to just a few articles. I do however reload 9mm Luger, 9mm Makarov, and .380ACP brass. Although the .380ACP takes less powder than the others, there is certainly enough powder contained in the case to cause serious injury, blindness or even death if there was a failure.
I have been on many forums where we spent hours debating the relative safety of manufactured firearms that were designed and tested to be reliable weapons for both the military and the public. Although I appreciate that you are speaking in SHTF theoretical terms as to why you think that guns made completely out of plastic on an inexpensive home printer are an important development... I am sure that you would agree that in practical terms that at this time it would be both foolish and dangerous to actually try and use or depend on this type of weapon.
I believe that the link that I provided showed a lower receiver for an AR-15 type of rifle which was printed. I do not know enough to say whether or not this is a good and safe application. I believe the same group that produced the Liberator design has also gone this direction. At least in this design the firing chamber, barrel and other parts that come into contact with projectiles and high pressure gasses appear to be made from appropriate materials.
It seems likely that the “Liberator” was designed as a proof of concept device and not intended at this stage to be actually used or depended on. Whereas for literally hundreds of years designs have been available for easily manufactured homemade guns made from commonly available materials which were actually designed for practical purposes.
I don't mean to make uninformed assumptions about your background here. If you are helping to develop this type of thing... I applaud your efforts. If however you are new to firearms and are planning on printing one of these things with the intention of actually using it... I would strongly suggest that you first go the more traditional route of getting instruction with a manufactured firearm and master that first. Then immerse yourself in the finer details such as the study of ballistics so that you can make an informed decision as to whether a homemade or printed firearm actually has any safe and practical purpose for your needs.
This is possible because the chamber and barrel are all of one interchangeable piece on a Liberator. You simply make one in your desired caliber - they made one in 5.7, slipped it on the end of the mechanism and pulled the trigger (remotely). Think of it like a Thompson/Center Contender, where you only change the barrel to change the caliber of the weapon.
If you are planning on murdering someone you actually know, no, a Liberator (indeed, the murder itself) is not a good idea! They’d already be looking at you anyway. You are forgetting one thing about the raw ‘traceability’ of a Liberator, though - it’s not very, in and of itself. While the authorities (let’s assume we’ve entered a period where the government is like that in Escape From LA) can go around to every home improvement store in an area and get video of anyone buying the materials from which a zip gun could be constructed and then interview them, it is far more difficult to track a Liberator back to any person or groups of persons, especially considering that you can order filament and the rest of the materials from overseas cheaply and easily. If you are playing the Polish Resistance to the government’s German Occupying Force to ‘borrow’ better weapons, that’s going to be quite important.
Also, if you live someplace where you are not allowed to carry a firearm for self defense let alone use one, a Liberator might be a good idea. Thug tries to kill you, you shoot them then you can quickly dispose of the weapon without fear of it being traced back and without any great financial loss on your part. This, by the way, is what has police in the UK all up in arms at the moment. In neither the Resistance case or the self-defense one would the authorities be pointed in your direction and leaving the Liberator at or near the scene would not give them a clue as to your identity. In the murder case, they’d already know who you were, of course, so it’d not be a help (nor should it be).
The Liberator is not designed to be a proof of concept weapon, it’s a last ditch/last resort weapon - like the WW2 FP-45 it is named after and it is not intended to be used as a service weapon.
Think of it this way - the Liberator, as it stands in the designed caliber, is designed to be a single shot disposable pistol, and it does that very well without blowing up. Much like reloading other single-use consumer devices, subsequent usage after the initial one may or may not work. But as designed, it will NOT blow up on its initial use.
Basically any imperfection in the path of the projectile before it exits the barrel could easily cause over pressurization that would result in a catastrophic failure. This is why most if not all firearms company perform a test fire before shipment. I believe many states require this.
It seems that you have more knowledge and faith in the predictability of the strength of the output from a 3D Printer than I do. The output of different types of printers and the choices in filament obviously could result in large variations in quality. Even the settings chosen for the same printer could cause differences in the strength of the finished product. I don't doubt that many of the prototypes did not blow up on their initial use. But I know of guns whose primary components were made completely of steel which have had catastrophic failures.
I understand the reasoning that you have presented. One advantage that it would seem to be fairly easy to completely destroy a printed firearm. In most situations I disagree that tracing back a recovered more traditional homemade firearm would be more difficult than finding the person who printed a gun. Currently the availability of parts that could be made into a “zip gun” is almost limitless. The availability of materials and 3D printers capable of producing a gun is far less common. I believe this is true both in the United States and abroad.
I do thank you for the informative discussion. Personally, I won't be switching from the handguns that I am licensed to carry anytime soon.
I won’t be switching away from my ‘normally’ manufactured weapons either - but should things get to the point where those are all gone... well, a Liberator still beats a sharp stick.
I agree. I am glad there are people still working on the project. I don’t think that the concept needs to be justified in terms of its usefulness in any endeavor. Its value is the deterrent that it may have in discouraging tyranny. The fact that liberal politicians are already trying to legislate it out of existence proves that they are taking notice and.
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