Posted on 12/25/2012 7:07:57 PM PST by grundle
Demands for stricter restrictions on gun sales are all the rage right now in light of the Connecticut elementary school massacre. However, a law student at the University of Texas says new technology will soon change the regulatory landscape dramatically, and possibly make such regulation futile.
The student, Cody Wilson, is among the leaders of Defense Distributed, home of the wiki weapon project. The goal of the collaborative, nonprofit project is simple: to create freely available plans that you can download from the Internet and produce a gun using a 3-D printer.
YouTube video at printablegun.com shows Wilson’s group test firing a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle, reports KVUE, Austin’s ABC affiliate. An AR-15 was among the weapons Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook shooting.
According to Wilson, 24, the group used a 3-D printer to print a plastic lower receiver. The piece was then attached to the rest of a real gun. In a test that was unverified by any independent observers, the plastic piece broke, but not before the gun fired six live rounds.
“What I’m doing is showing people, okay, this is something that can be done right now with this technology, and we’re changing this in the software, and we’re making modifications and customizations and testing with different rounds and different guns, but what we make won’t look like a plastic AR-15,” Wilson told WVUE. “What we make will just be the gun at its most essential, something that just is a firearm practically speaking.”
The legality of printable 3-D guns is not clear. (RELATED: Democratic congressman urges renewal of plastic gun ban)
Democratic New York Rep. Steve Israel doesn’t want to take any chances, though, according to WVUE. Israel has called for the renewal of the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988, which is set to expire in December 2013.
As Slate notes, the Act makes it illegal to “manufacture, sell, ship, deliver” or “possess” firearms that garden-variety metal detectors or x-ray machines can’t detect. A renewed act would presumably cover guns manufactured with 3-D printed gun parts, which are plastic.
The in their face taunts of making a federal governed part is noble but they should start thinking ahead of skipping a plastic receiver and start casting them in either an engineered plastic with steel rails like a glock or a novel sintered casting metal.
Just threatening with flimsy plastic parts is going nowhere but banning the printers.
I’d say high cap magazines would be very much doable, and not catastrophically fail after a few rounds.
lol If someone could do 30rnd mags right now, it would be the next best thing to being able to print money!
Moron. A plastic barrel isn't going to work, whether it's printed or injection molded. So the same parts that now have to be made from metal to be practical won't be able to be printed unless the technology can use metals strong enough for them, which would be exactly the same situation we have now with wrought parts. The 3D tech has no impact on the detectability issue. It's not like plastic will work for barrels and back ends just because now it can be printed instead of molded. Idiot.
3-D Printer ping!
No, but there ARE Carbon Fiber barrels for AR-15s out there.
While printers cannot AS YET extrude carbon fiber, I suspect they WILL be able to within a year or two.
Back ends, I suspect, will have to wait for home laser-sintering or E-beam sintering printers. . . but I expect those to be available in hobbyist designs within 5 years. . .
That was kind of what I was thinking (in re the sintering at least). 3D will work for the parts that have to be metal when 3D can (cheaply) do metal. So status quo ante from a detectability standpoint. The change is in far more widespread access to the tech, not any impact on detectability.
Carbon fiber barrels are thin steel barrels wrapped with carbon fiber. You will never be able to print them.
Carbon fiber wrapped barrels still have a steel bore.
NEVER say never. Someone will find a way. Heck, someone made an AK-47 out of a 2-dollar SHOVEL.
To me, the next step will be printing of wax forms for gun parts, which can then be used as “cores” for casting identical metal parts through the lost wax process. This will get you inexpensive, intricate metal parts that can be made in a shop no larger than an ordinary garage.
The step beyond this is to make a new design which is optimized for printed parts. The AR15 was designed around the capabilities of various metal forming and machining techniques.
The 3-D printed gun will have arrived when it is designed to be easily manufactured by a printing process. The stock, barrel, and many parts will be conventional, but a receiver designed to be printed would
knock gun control in the US into a cocked hat.
Please add me to your 3d printer ping list. Thanks
Please add me to your 3d printer ping list. Thanks
Please add me to your 3d printer ping list. Thanks
Please add me to your 3d printer ping list. Thanks
Please add me to your 3d printer ping list. Thanks
Please add me to your 3d printer ping list. Thanks
Please add me to your 3d printer ping list. Thanks
Sorry for the multiple pings.
I would say the next step is indeed making lost wax molds for the 3D printed parts, and the easiest casting metal other than pot metal would be brass. A lower AR receiver in brass would work. Mix in some other metals and you can get a harder brass. many early rifles and pistols were made from brass.
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