Posted on 01/18/2013 12:56:41 PM PST by DBrow
As the race – and it’s basically a race – to release as many 3D-printed gun parts as possible heats up, it’s never been harder for me to come down on the side of the “Freedom To Tinker” crowd. Last weekend Defense Distributed, a group dedicated to releasing plans for a 3D printed gun, posted a video and description of their 3D-printed AR-15 thirty-round magazine. The video, which is, unnecessarily, full of snarky vitriol, shows that, on some level, the 3D printed gun isn’t very far off. It also shows that the call for 3D printer legislation could soon overpower the call for freedom.
The problem with childish displays of firepower coupled with “How’s that national conversation going?” is that it proves that the folks who are doing this tinkering are less than responsible. They feel that this is a freedom of speech issue rather than a gun control issue. It’s abundantly clear that the lads at Defense Distributed are enjoying their newfound notoriety and, like a boy band on their first tour, they’re ready to trash some hotel rooms. The resulting shenanigans have convinced Congressman Steve Israel (D-NY) to call for the banning of undectable 3-D printed high-capacity magazines. He updated his website yesterday, writing:
The law would “make it illegal to manufacture, own, transport, buy, or sell any firearm or magazine that is homemade and not detectable by metal detector and/or does not present an accurate image when put through an x-ray machine.” It is a noble if quixotic goal.
Politics, as we’ve learned, is woefully unprepared to handle major technological advancement. While Israel means well, his ability to keep an 3D model off of Google is laughable at best and dangerous at worst. As a gun control proponent, I know that now, more than ever, we need sane and effective controls on weapons in our country. As a believer in the unfettered growth of technology, on the other hand, I will defend Defense Distributed to the death while hating their crass methodology. Israel’s efforts only serve to give the DD kids a frisson of the martyr while avoiding the real problem of non-3D printed guns that are far more prolific and far easier to obtain.
The danger in legislating 3D printers is that it is on one hand impossible and on the other hand potentially damaging to a nascent industry. We have no idea what these printers will be able to do in the future and the best a home 3D printer can do, really, is punch out something like this handsome Nokia case. That will soon change. Again and again I equate this technology to the way dot matrix printers eventually begat the desktop publishing features available to even the rankest of amateurs today. However, a printed page can never be used to kill someone.
To use a 3D printer is to understand the current limitations of the platform and the potential inherent in the technology. It is a wonderful feeling to watch a Makerbot churn out a little plastic figurine and I want my kids to understand this fascinating technology from the very start. The potential damage that could be wrought by 3D-printing legislation could, potentially, destroy the industry but I doubt it. In fact, I’d say it would do the opposite. Technological advances usually route around damage and, in this case, legislation is damage.
But DD is going to keep at their project and benighted congress members will keep thinking they can, quite literally, nip this problem in the bud and they will be wrong. Whatever comes next for 3D printing, I doubt it will be very pleasing to those who are more worried about defending free inquiry
I can dig it...
/johnny
ping
Does anyone know if CNC machines are regulated?
So if we go to Harbor Freight and buy tools will we have to a a Federal Tool ID too?
that is where this lunacy is going....
Look I am not a fan of this Printing Revolution, and without getting into it, I was involved with a precursor like technology eons ago.
For better or worse I know to much about Material Certs, Normalizing, Heat-Treating etc etc to make me dangerous. I do not see the Metallurgy here to make a connecting rod, crankshaft for a Small Block Chevy let alone the critical parts of a Firearm.
So with they restrict 3D Modeling and the accepting 3D CAM software to go from art to part too?
I know of no regulated CNC machines. You do need to register Class 4 lasers in some states, but that’s more for safety than it is “regulating” who has laser cutters and shapers.
Also you can get CNC programs for gun parts (don’t tell anyone).
Like it or not, I will continue to ignore stupid legislation.
/johnny
Citizen nullification, I call it.
Someone made an AR lower that worked for 6 shots. If they had used stainless and sintered it, it may have shot more. So it can be done.
In a few years, who knows, maybe a barrel if you print metal with a polymer binder then heat treat.
Ahahahahahahah, breathe, ahahahahahahahaha!!!!!
The clowns who inhabit our Congress (House and Senate) don't understand technology beyond the level of a door knob (and I'll bet some of them are challenged with that). I always say if you put 100 politicians in a room with 100 cases of food and 100 can openers, they'd all starve to death.
Maybe, binders and sintered are cool don’t get me wrong, but for now it is gears for your window mechanism in your car door, not some high stress item. “Single Crystal” technology is sort of related, but I don’t see this being done by a laser it complicated.
Don't need it. Lost wax method still works for things that don't need tight machining.
Just cast your connecting rod from the computer created wax model and do a little clean up machining.
Won't work with crankshafts, but 5 axis numeric controlled machines can do that. And those are getting cheaper, too.
/johnny
Casted rod maybe for the lawnmower, not for a Drag Car. Yes lost wax is cool and the molds could be done via the printer, they are doing it now in fact. On the cranks, they are using a 5 axis with a welding rod in the hand of the robot if you will and are building things like fuselage bulkheads for the F-35 with just some finish machining needed. a crank could be made this way, I am not sure about the gran structure etc, but if it good for an F-35 Fuselage, it’s got my attention.
Oh I know, any such legislation would be written by someone else with some financial interest. The pols I have spoken to see most tech as complex ununderstandable magic.
This is understandable since many of them see “politician” as a career, while our Founding Fathers saw it as an unpleasant but needed interruption to the businesses they ran.
The big thing to keep in mind when thinking about 3D printing is disposable. A lot of those high stress items don’t need the same durability as before because you’ll replace the item after a couple of uses. If you can 3D print something in under a day with material costs of under $50 you don’t need that something to be of durable quality. So sure the printed gun will be one you go through 2 or 3 full loads before it’s too worn and discarded, it’s OK because you printed 6 of them last week. Some work needs to be done to make that failure non-hazardous, but these things have to potential to bring the disposable lighter revolution to a lot of products.
Lol, I agree, laughable. So maybe ten to twenty kids will experiment making plastic parts. Meanwhile thousands of punks in the ghetto can buy real guns from gangsters. Like criminal punks care about laws. Idiot politicians.
I didn’t thing CNC machines were regulated. Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this and give the government any ideas.
No, it shouldn't. There is nothing wrong with law-abiding citizens from having full capacity magazines. And criminals will be criminals by definition.
Limiting magazine capacity only makes criminals out of law abiding citizens.
The other part of the new paradigm is social networks. This is also a decentralizing force. If we are connected to the networks that can help us, why have an opressive government?
Just like laws can't stop drugs, they can't stop guns. Gee. Hard as it is to swallow for some, maybe we'll have to try morality again.
Of course, you can't legislate morality. The fix will have to come from someplace deeper. That's the challenge.
“Limiting magazine capacity only makes criminals out of law abiding citizens. “
And gives a gang of yoot with baseball bats the edge over a single victim.
And gives the oppressor forces more leverage. That’s the real issue, the oppressors know full well what the Declaration of Independence and Second Amendment mean to their plans. So no AP, no mags, no military arms, no body armor...
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