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[Junkdrawer]

This message was self-deleted by its author (Junkdrawer) on Thu May 9, 2013, 05:40 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[Fumesucker]

1. They can't really be closely regulated

It's entirely possible to build a 3D printer from what amounts to junk, the genie has escaped the bottle and there's no putting him back in.

[Junkdrawer]

3. They can and they will....

Force the gunners to build the printer AND the gun and way, way fewer printed guns will be on the street.

[Fumesucker]

10. A 3D printer is a lot easier to make than say a milling machine or a lathe

Obtaining rigidity is a huge problem with machine tools so they have to be made heavy and strong, totally not a problem with 3D printers, mechanically they are much less difficult to kluge than something that cuts metal or even plastic.

[hobbit709]

12. I'd trust a plastic gun about as far as I could throw one.

I'd certainly wouldn't want to be near one that fired a high power round.

[Junkdrawer]

19. It threatens to be the next murder weapon of choice...

All it has to do is fire a few rounds reliably.

Cheap, untraceable, and not detected by metal detectors.

[hobbit709]

21. I'd give it a 50% chance of blowing up in your hand.

Maybe as an assassin tool for a fanatic who didn't mind dying for his cause.

[Junkdrawer]

22. I'm hearing that the latest versions fire 3-4 rounds very reliably.

And I'm sure that will improve as gunners try to one-up each other.

[hobbit709]

24. Small caliber.

[Junkdrawer]

25. I said: murder weapon of choice, not bear hunting weapon of choice. n/t

[onpatrol98]

90. "bear hunting weapon"

okay...that was funny...

[Junkdrawer]

92. I imagine you'd REALLY piss off a bear with a 22 short. n/t

[grahamhgreen]

94. FaceBomb!

[Yo_Mama]

73. RepRap

No, you can't put the genie back in the bottle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepRap_Project

[WinkyDink]

30. And that's why they were invented 100 years ago?

[Fumesucker]

31. I fail to see the point of your comment

[onehandle]

2. Yep. In the long run, they are accelerating the demise of their culture.

Open carry nuttiness. The harassment of victim's families. The unwillingness to compromise on what 90% of Americans want.

More guns are being sold to a shrinking, dying white minority. Society will not put up with that much longer.

[RKP5637]

8. If, they weren't such assholes and irresponsible, gun

regulation would not be as necessary. They, are making regulations more and more necessary, because many demonstrate they are unfit to carry, and guns need to be well controlled. So, they're in fact taking their own rights away by their asshole mentalities.

[Junkdrawer]

13. Amen. After Aurora, I found out that gunners are using rubber bands...

to convert semi-autos to full-autos. And so society will eventually have to closely regulate all semi-autos.

[Orrex]

15. Or regulate rubber bands.

[eShirl]

18. lol

[zerosumgame0005]

84. no WAY!

the RBAA (Rubber Band Association of Amurika!) will only give them up when you snap it out of their cold dead fingers!

[RC]

85. Naa..., They'll regulate rubber bands first.

[eShirl]

4. Regulated how?

[Junkdrawer]

6. Watch. Buying a 3D printer will be as "easy" as buying a Thompson machine gun...

Society will protect itself.

[eShirl]

7. In other words, you have no clue what you're talking about.

[Junkdrawer]

9. In other words you can only respond with an insult...

You do know how machine guns are regulated, right?

[eShirl]

11. How are regulations going to keep people from printing what they want on their printers?

[Junkdrawer]

14. My point is that 3D PRINTERS will be regulated. n/t

[eShirl]

16. I'm sorry, that's just delusional, IMO, to think that's going to work in the real world.

[RC]

86. You mean like Xerox copy machines were regulated?

Or VCR's or Polaroid cameras? How'd those regulations work out?

[Junkdrawer]

87. see post #65 n/t

[Posteritatis]

111. They all faced enthusiastic attempts to outlaw them in a *much* less corporatized government. (nt)

[FSogol]

26. You know you can use a 3d printer to print the parts to build 3d printers?

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

Oh noes!

[Junkdrawer]

27. Almost like the inventors sensed that 3D printers will be regulated....

And not necessarily just the printed gun angle.

[Fumesucker]

28. Self replicating machines have been a "holy grail" of "inventors" for a long time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine

Why are you discussing something about which you clearly know very little?

[Junkdrawer]

32. What's the matter? Did I throw a turd into your "These printed guns are great!" punchbowl?

[Fumesucker]

34. Ready, Fire, Aim

You are making yourself look more than a bit ridiculous, I'm a lot closer to a "gun grabber" than a gun nut.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021994226

[Junkdrawer]

40. So it's the 3D printing technology you are defending?

If so, do you not see how printed guns could impact getting the technology out?

[Fumesucker]

43. I'm not "defending" anything, I'm stating facts

And the facts are that 3D printing cannot be stopped by any sort of regulation that has any place in anything remotely resembling a free society, it's too easy to make the machines, the concepts are remarkably simple once you understand them and the machinery doesn't have to be heavy duty to work for a lot of purposes.

Even the Soviet Union and East Germany couldn't stop samizdat or magnitizdat and 3D printing is much like magnitizdat in some respects.

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

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

[eShirl]

97. it's out, and it's been out for a while now

good morning, Mr. van Winkle

[HappyMe]

35. I don't know about that.

I just know that this whole unsubstantiated 'idea' of yours is truly a ridiculous turd.

[Junkdrawer]

36. Let's see how this plays out. Right now 3D printers are expensive and rare.

It's clearly not a problem...YET.

[HappyMe]

38. Okay then.

[Fumesucker]

41. Five hundred Euros is "expensive"?

http://vimeo.com/5202148

[Junkdrawer]

42. Looks like we're at the same place personal computers were in, say, 1975....

Hobbyists who can wield a soldering gun give way to hobbyists who can plug together premade sub-components give way to....

500 euros - if you're handy with electronics and fine manual work.

[Fumesucker]

50. The type of people who tend to want to make things are just the ones who have those skills

I could make a usable gun with hand tools out of stuff you can get at Home Depot, I watched a kid build one in shop class when I was in high school and that was wood shop, not full blown metal shop.

It doesn't take a giant shop full of expensive machinery to make a zip gun just like the Brothers Tsarnaev cooked up several bombs in their apartment.

The other posters are right about plastic guns, there will be videos of people blowing off fingers and blinding themselves soon enough.

[Junkdrawer]

56. No so worried about "The type of people who tend to want to make things"....

More worried about the 8 to 15 yr old upper middle class kids who print up a couple dozen to impress friends.... etc etc

Thinking more about it, it's probably the special polymers that will be regulated.

[Fumesucker]

63. It's going to be a vast market shortly

Bear in mind that ammonium nitrate is an explosive that's nearly unregulated because the market is so big.

Better off keeping track of bullet sales.

[JVS]

52. It pays for itself after you've made a dozen guns.

[rdharma]

93. Yes..... EXPENSIVE!!!!!

That 500eu 3-d printer can't make a gun.

But you can make a single shot zip gun that blows up with a Stratasis SST 3-D "printer" for only $32,900.

Some fool in Texas proved that.

[eShirl]

99. Staples sells one for less than the cost of a gaming computer

http://www.staples.com/Cube-3D-Printers/product_SS2044291

in your choice of silver, white, magenta, green or blue

[Junkdrawer]

100. I'm hearing (see post just above yours) that the inexpensive ones won't do the job....

yet.

[eShirl]

102. So why are you lamenting what "could have been a great tool for garage inventors?"

It already is, and will continue to be.

[Junkdrawer]

103. As the printers become more accuate and use better and better polymers....

This kind of abuse may prevent the widepread availabilty of the technology.

If you see that as abuse.

[JVS]

37. Uh oh, this is where the self-replicating robots begins!

[FSogol]

39. Uh oh, this is where the self-replicating robots begins!

[think]

45. Uh ohh tis i were thee sef--replicating replicating #syntax error^ *reboot* Uh oh...

[Fumesucker]

51. Would have been funnier if Recursion had posted it..

[nebenaube]

57. nerd duzy n/t

[Junkdrawer]

83. I think he's out searching trees....

[Puzzledtraveller]

75. ^^this^^

[Orrex]

20. Society may indeed protect itself

I suspect that it will protect itself by reporting on the large number of people who blind themselves or blow their own hands off with plastic guns that explode upon discharge.

[RevStPatrick]

5. They still will be.

I see two dozen stories about really cool things being made with 3D printers, for every one about that plastic gun. It's not going to be a problem. It's only here in the DU echo-chamber that it's a problem.

3D printers are going to change the way things are manufactured, and a few whackos and their murder-machines aren't going to change that.

[HappyMe]

17. Thank you

for this sensible post.

[X_Digger]

23. Just like color laser printers are highly regulated, thanks to counterfeiters, right? *snort* n/t

[onehandle]

29. Color laser printers aren't capable of making arms. *snort* n/t

[X_Digger]

44. So, a case of 'special pleading', then. Gotcha. n/t

[Junkdrawer]

46. Imagine how this will play out in nations that DO closely regulate guns....

It's really going to come down regulating bullets and/or the special polymers used by 3D printers.

[Chan790]

48. Two points:

1.) Color laser printers are for the most part not good enough to effectively counterfeit.

2.) They're regulated in a way you can't see. Every page microprints a unique code for that printer. It's like a fingerprint and the manufacturer keeps records of what supplier that printer was sold to and sale date giving them a date-range. Every printer has its quirks and that allows them to isolate a printed page down to one model of one manufacturer. Most printer models sell only a few thousand models. Given a printed page and a crime sufficient to motivate the expenditure of resources, it takes no more than about a week to track it to a manufacturer, then a retailer and then through purchase records an individual. Print any other page, match the codes for confirmation and you're as good as convicted. Forensics is a hell of a thing.

[Fumesucker]

58. For your second point there's a one word answer, Craigslist

Getting a near top of the line laser printer with little chance of having it traced to you wouldn't be that hard.

[jeff47]

65. They are.

Color copiers and scanners are required to have anti-counterfeiting features in their firmware. Color laser printers feature microprinting to make it easy to trace the output from the printer to the printer.

The fact that you're unaware of the regulations doesn't mean they don't exist.

[Junkdrawer]

70. Hey, you're suppose to pepper such responses with snark and insults....

otherwise you haven't made your point.

here, let me gun-up your response:

You moron, color copiers and scanners are required to have anti-counterfeiting features in their firmware. Color laser printers feature microprinting (ask your daddy to tell you what microprinting is) to make it easy to trace the output from the printer to the printer.

The fact that you haven't taken the trouble to research the regulations doesn't mean they don't exist.

[X_Digger]

118. Yet you can still buy them and pay cash, or buy a used one.

And hell, you can still counterfeit things with them. *gasp*

What's next, a background check to buy a laser printer? Hehe.

Ticketmaster hates laser printers.

[jeff47]

119. Tracing from the manufacturer is one option.

Tracing from the point of the crime is the other. Microprinting can be used to show you printed the counterfeits when the search warrant is served on your house.

[Posteritatis]

112. Color laser printers don't stir up the Think Of The Children brigade. (nt)

[Junkdrawer]

120. That's me alright. PROUD member of the Think Of The Children brigade....

Guilty as charged.

[dairydog91]

33. Today's dose of regulatory mania?

3D printers are not some mind-blowing development in home firearms technology. It's a case of nerds finally developing the ability to use their computers to make low-quality guns, a manufacturing task that the yokels in metal shop have been able to do for decades. Personally, I'd trust a cheap metal zip gun over a gun made of plastic. And no, the ability to make simple guns with basic metal-working tools hasn't led to tight regulation of drill presses.

About the only kind of modern gun part I could see the government "losing control of" due to home manufacture would be basic magazines (Not the sophisticated stuff like coiled-drum magazines, but basic box magazines). Those are usually a simple box made of plastic or sheet metal, and the only moving part is a coiled spring. OTOH, most of the key internal components in a modern automatic/semi-automatic weapon are made of, and MUST be made of, high grade steel or a similar metal.

[Nye Bevan]

47. Has anyone proposed restricting 3D printer sales,

based on the fact that they could be used to make guns?

Wouldn't that be like restricting PC sales based on the fact that the internet contains sites that explain in detail how to make bombs at home?

[Junkdrawer]

49. Kinda...."California may outlaw 3-D printed guns"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022818763

And when that doesn't solve the problem....

[arcane1]

104. I think that's because there isn't an actual problem yet.

What kinds of regulations do you think they will propose?

[Junkdrawer]

105. I'm thinking there may be limits on the precision and polymers used....

The better machines will be available, but you'll probably have to jump though the same kind of hoops a person who wants to buy a machine gun has to.

Which, in turn, will mean that "The good stuff" remains expensive.

[Posteritatis]

110. Every other 3D printing thread on DU has people fretting about that, so yes. (nt)

[Junkdrawer]

121. How can we ban plastic guns / high capacity clips / full-auto conversion kits....

if you guys can just print them?

Happy now?

[Posteritatis]

124. I'm part of You Guys now? Interesting. (nt)

[dairydog91]

125. If the technology gets cheap enough, you can't.

Kind of like how the War on Pot has been an ignominious failure. It's just too damn easy and cheap to make some more weed. Sure, people will howl about raising sentences, and police will parade drug dealers around on television, but in the end the prohibition campaign has and will continue to fail. If a crime is super cheap to commit, lots of people want to commit it, and they can commit that crime in private, then lots of people will commit that crime AND most will get away with it.

high capacity clips
The spring is about the only sophisticated part in a typical magazine. Once you have that, the rest of the magazine is just a simple box. 3d printers only make the task of making that box slightly easier, since you could already make magazines out of sheet metal with a basic shop.

full-auto conversion kits
Which are related to 3d printers how? Machinegun parts are machined out of metal; they have to be built tough to withstand prolonged, intense heat and rapid mechanical action. You're not going to be printing them out of plastic anytime soon. However, you could use a basic metalshop to make simple machineguns like Stens.

[ripcord]

53. I have a small machine shop in my garage

I have the equipment and ability to make almost any gun I choose, how long until they regulate mills and lathes?

[FSogol]

61. As a kid I made zip guns out of pipe and car antennas. How long until they regulate

plumbing supplies and used car parts?

[Junkdrawer]

62. The whole point of 3D printing is that it takes almost no skills to print a part...

A 15 yr old with 2 hours of practice and a, say, $100 3D printer and make what a person with tens of thousands of dollars of tools and many YEARS of training/practice can do.

[snooper2]

69. Soon as I get my hands on one

My wife wants me to start printing extra junk drawers

[Junkdrawer]

78. Think the world is really ready for that?

[snooper2]

79. no, but my garage is

LOL

[killbotfactory]

54. On VICE they filmed some people in the Philippines

making untraceable handguns from scrap metal. If there's a will, there's a way.

[whistler162]

55. Next up......

The banning of all metal that might, possibly, could be used to make a firearm!

[HappyMe]

64. Home improvement stores

should just be banned. There are too many things that could be used to make a gun there.

[krispos42]

59. It's my understanding it's not illegal to make your own gun for your own use

You just can't sell or give it to anybody, ever.



If you can legally own a gun, it would be much cheaper and much more effective to buy one legitimately than buy a printer and make some half-assed... thing.


If you can't legally own a gun, it would be faster and cheaper and more effective to buy one illegally (from, say, a private seller that doesn't know you're prohibited) or to buy a stolen gun than it would be to buy a printer and make some half-assed... thing.



I don't think this will be a problem in the near to medium term. I just don't see a demand for criminals to spend thousands of dollars buying a printer and learning how to print a plastic two-shot gun when they can get a stolen pistol on-demand for a few hundred or whatever, and that is far more safe, reliable, and holds more ammunition.

Ever see "In the Line of Fire"? John Malkovich's character makes a two-shot gun out of hobby modeling plastic using conventional tools... saws and files and drills and such.

If there was a demand for it, we'd have been seeing it done for decades now. Tough plastics like Delrin are readily available, and for a basic single-shot gun I don't see any need for big lathes or mills to cut it.

A rectangular block of Delrin, a drill press to make the barrel and chamber, taps and dies to make a screw-in breech, a screwed-on pistol grip, a nail for a firing pin, a stout spring to move it, some kind of trigger, and a sear to hold the firing pin back.


The simple fact that is CAN be done does not mean it will be common or popular or anything.

[Junkdrawer]

88. 3D printing wants to be cheap and easily available.

And right now you can download the "plans" for a 3-4 shot life gun. If cheap 3D printers and the appropriate polymers were available, it would be as easy to print gun after gun after as it is to download porn.

I can't be the only one who sees how dangerous this is.

[krispos42]

95. Except that the mechanical equivalent is already readily available.

I can order everything I need to build a dozen - or a hundred - plastic guns from McMaster-Carr. All the stuff I mentioned before... Delrin or other high-strength plastics, saws, drill bits, tap-and-die sets, etc.

What is stopping me from building a little factory right now in my basement, especially since I just got laid off?


Nothing, except that, like nearly all people, I'm an honest person. And I think you're going to have to trust people on that.

I mean, really, do we need to start heavily regulating lathes and milling machines now as well? Registering them? Random inspections of homes that have them? Track purchases of high-strength plastics like we track pseudophedrine and fertilizer?


I understand your concern, but it's an evolution of an ability that was already widespread throughout the country.

[snooper2]

60. Do you really believe everything you have posted in this thread..

Or is it like a quiverful of snark because you are anxious to get deep with the "gunners" today LOL

[HappyMe]

66. It's just flamebait.

Pure and simple. Funny enough to be Lounge material.

[Junkdrawer]

67. Seen this?

California may outlaw 3-D printed guns

Proposed legislation in California aims to ban guns made using 3-D printing, after an organization Defense Distributed fired a handgun made with the technology, and said it would distribute its drawings online.

California state Senator Leland Yee on Tuesday announced his plan to introduce legislation to prohibit the use of the technology used “to create such untraceable and anonymously-produced guns.”

While impressed with 3-D printing technology and its possibilities, Yee said in a statement it must be ensured that the technology is not used for the wrong purpose with potentially deadly consequences. “I plan to introduce legislation that will ensure public safety and stop the manufacturing of guns that are invisible to metal detectors and that can be easily made without a background check.”

...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2038245/california-may-outlaw-3d-printed-guns.html

[HappyMe]

71. There's a lot of crap that should be

banned then.

"..it must be ensured that the technology is not used for the wrong purpose..."

You can learn to make almost any hideous thing from the internet, so the internet should be strictly policed, as well as people buying computers, the sale of pressure cookers should be stopped, home improvement stores should have their inventories regulated...

Inventors got along without 3d printers before.... I'm sorry, I'm just not buying the "poutrage" du jour.

[Junkdrawer]

74. "Inventors got along without 3d printers before"

Speaks volumes.

[HappyMe]

81. Yeah, and..?

Sorry, I'm still not buying into your 'concern' about inventors.

It's proposed legislation, not the law of the land. Do you really think that the computer/technology people are going to be okay with this? You don't think that the iCrap people have one of these printers in the works?
Even if they did lose their damn minds and outlaw these printers, so what? If someone wants to build a gun or a bomb they will, regardless of what printers are available.

Like I said, I'm not going to get all outraged over something that may not happen.

[Fumesucker]

77. Any state that outlaws 3D printers is going to have a huge competitive disadvantage

Technically pot is still illegal in many places but there's probably not a community in America you can't buy some if you know the right people.

I've been thinking about this since you posted the OP and I don't think outlawing printed guns is going to be any more effective than outlawing pot.

Bullets on the other hand would be relatively simple to regulate comparatively.

[Junkdrawer]

80. How about the special polymers used in 3D printing....

Something like "Soft plastic: OK, plastic capable of withstanding the pressures of a gunshot: restricted."

Obviously, won't happen until plastic guns go from potential to real problem.

[Posteritatis]

114. That might actually be a dumber proposal than outlawing the printers outright. (nt)

[arcane1]

106. That's a proposal to "ban guns made using 3-D printing", not the printers themselves.

[Spike89]

108. Big difference between making the output illegal and the machine itself

California may indeed be considering making 3-D printed guns illegal, but that is long ways from making 3-D printers illegal. I believe improvised explosive devices are illegal, but no sane person is trying to outlaw pressure cookers, or even black powder. As many have said on this thread--homemade cheap, untraceable "guns" many better than the 3-D printed versions, have been possible to make in the garage for decades. They aren't made in great numbers because "real" guns are easily available. Even when 3-D printers get much better, there probably won't be a huge demand for crappy printed guns.

[rdharma]

76. This "3-D printers fear" could just be an attempted distraction from the Benghazi "cover up"!

[Poll_Blind]

68. Junkdrawer, I want to let you in on something I think is true...though you may disagree.

The wave of legislation slowly building isn't about gunners. Look a little deeper. Those 3D plans for shitty zip-guns are a shield, an aegis, behind which an enormous manufacturing conspiracy that wishes to keep these away from Americans lurks.

You see the latest jobs report re:manufacturing jobs? No new manufacturing jobs. Zero.

If Americans could self-manufacture, imagine what would happen to those motherfuckers who like shipping the work to China and the other slave labor empires? Why, they'd be out of a big chunk of money and American micro-manufacturing would be taking off like a bottle-rocket.

It ain't gunners. It may look like it, but it isn't. It takes $7 worth of parts to make a zip gun. Nobody needs a $1,000 3D printer to make a shitty plastic version of one. It's a smokescreen.

PB

[Junkdrawer]

72. I can see some truth in that. But I also see cheap, printable guns as a big POTENTIAL problem.

Perhaps if the polymers were made to be detectable by metal detectors, some, but not all, of the problem could be mitigated.

[wandy]

82. You may be closer to the truth than you think...

It may be a while before 3D printers are common in manufacturing but the spare parts market is fantastic. One of the things I did as a hobby and now do as part of a retirement business is refurbish vintage audio equipment.
You can replace transistors or as an occasional treat vacuum tubes, but it's that 'little plastic part' that you can't find for love no money that keeps the restore of an Mcintosh from being prefect.
Old car restoration has similar problems.
Think of how many things you have tossed because of some little plastic part.

Being able to repair things would damage the...
China -> Wallmart -> consumer -> trash bin profit chain.

This fascination with guns and 3D printers is almost as nuts as embracing polio and small pox because 'vaccines are bad'.

[arcane1]

107. And it's that little plastic part that causes us to replace instead of repair, just how they like it

I hadn't though about these printers from that angle. Thanks!

[rrneck]

89. LOL

[Junkdrawer]

91. So...I did a "3D printer gun" search using that Google box at the top of the page...

What I see is:

1.) Gunners salivating to print especially high capacity clips

2.) Gunners getting ready to trash anyone who brings this up as a problem

Suddenly the reaction to my OP becomes clear....

[Marr]

96. When 3D printers are outlawed, only guns will kill 3D printers.

Or something like that.

[Throd]

98. I'm not worried. It's just Leland Yee grandstanding as usual.

[jberryhill]

101. So are lathes, drill presses and milling machines

Which can also be used to make guns.

The freakout over this thing mystifies me.

Indoor gardening lights and supplies are great tools for growing orchids. They still are great tools for growing orchids despite the fact that people can and do use indoor gardening lights and supplies to engage in illegal activities.

[Posteritatis]

113. It's a new technology and people love panicking over those

If bicycles were invented last week there'd be a push to outlaw their use next week.

This is the same thing, with a few other layers of hysterical luddism added for fun (like the morons I've seen fretting about "printing meth.&quot

[Pholus]

109. Can I have an erlenmeyer flask please....

without showing an ID?

Didn't think so. Since 3-D printers are not guns, we'll be doing the same shit.

Thanks gunners. Your obsession costs us yet again.

[Junkdrawer]

115. Learn something new every day....

I missed this:

http://keyholefull.blogspot.com/2008/12/texas-outlawed-erlenmeyer-flask.html

[dairydog91]

123. Yes.

I don't know where you are, but I can get basic chemistry glassware without showing ID.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

116. Hasn't the garage already been invented?

[Junkdrawer]

117. Took 116 posts.....

Saw that when I posted the OP

[dembotoz]

122. jail all nerds

[dairydog91]

126. Jail the nerds, chemists, and metalworkers!

Anyone who actually knows stuff is clearly a danger to public safety!