NSW Police issues warning on 3D printed guns

[SecularMotion]

Source: Techworld

New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione today issued a warning on the potential for 3D printed guns to be used in serious crimes in the state.

The NSW Police revealed that the force has created and tested two 3D-printed firearms. The police used the Liberator pistol blueprints produced by US-firm Defense Distributed. The original plans for the gun were downloaded more than 100,000 times before the company pulled them from its site under pressure from the US State Department.

Police believe that despite this, the files are still circulating.

The commissioner said that a Liberator pistol had experienced a catastrophic misfire during testing. The failure would have been capable of seriously injuring the person using the firearm, the police chief said.

Read more: http://www.techworld.com.au/article/462774/nsw_police_issues_warning_3d_printed_guns/

[Xipe Totec]

1. Failure would have been capable of seriously injuring the person using the firearm

Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?

[onehandle]

2. 3D printed gun plans can't be stopped, but 3D printed guns will be illegal sooner than you think.

For one thing, they take a bite out of the NRA's client's profits.

I think the NRA will line up behind a 'restriction' that helps their bottom line.

[Eleanors38]

6. I think you have found the limits of economic determinism.

[Nimajneb Nilknarf]

7. Surely any scoundrel who thought of printing a sidearm and committing murder with it

would be deterred by a proscription on printing the weapon. He wouldn't want to get in trouble with the law.

[onehandle]

8. Surely any scoundrel who thought of buying a sidearm and committing murder with it

would be deterred by a proscription on murder. He wouldn't want to get in trouble with the law.

So what... No laws at all?

[Nimajneb Nilknarf]

9. I've always held that criminal proscriptions should be limited to malum in se crimes

Such as murder. Arbitrary restrictions on behavior that is not inherently wrong stifle creativity, invention, and the pursuit of happiness.

[Nimajneb Nilknarf]

3. It was impossible to recall published information even in my time

Police believe that despite this, the files are still circulating.

Are they daft?

[RKP5637]

4. Yep, it was absolutely daft! Unless the files have some self-destruct

code they will live forever.

[Eleanors38]

5. And really. No one expects the plans to be improved on, either.

[Posteritatis]

15. The Australian government's never exactly been known for their technologlcal acumen anyway. (nt)

[SCVDem]

10. What can be done to stop this?

Nothing. However, simple possession of one should get you an automatic ten in the pen.

Use in a crime, 20 and murder get's you life.

If you have possession as a juvenile you get jail until military age and then an automatic 4 year stint in the Army, combat unit specialty.

There are no valid reasons to have one of these.

[RC]

11. With people such as yourself, no wonder our prisons are full

What is your penalty for Jay Walking? 6 months? Spitting on the sidewalk, a year in jail? Failure to answer a knock on the door, when your are home, 30 days?

How about injecting some reality and common sense here. The very fact that these 3D guns catastrophically self-destruct after a few firing, usually maiming the user in the process, also makes them self limiting.
It is plenty easy enough to get the real thing and take a rat tail file to the barrel after you shoot someone for stepping off the sidewalk onto your lawn.

[SCVDem]

12. Weak arguments

To equate printed firearms with jaywalking is absurd!

I would release all these minor victimless prisoners such as drug posession and use.

Now let's talk about your reality......

[jtuck004]

13. ...laughing..So they can improve their skills? Or as a transfer of technology?

Take a tour of your local maximum security state prison and ask to see the weapons museum, the one that holds the weapons the prisoners make with the only 3D printer they have access to, their brains. The guns are particularly interesting.

Not saying there should be no laws, but we already lock more people up than China, about 7 or 8 times more per 100,000 people than they do, and more murders than they do, and their population is quite a bit larger than ours. So while it may make people feel like they are "doing something", it doesn't appear to be all that effective.

I'm suggesting that we might want to look around for another solution, perhaps earlier. Also that someone creating ricin, or a biological weapon in their garage is a far greater risk. For that matter, the menu in fast food restaurants kill more people in South Central LA (and elsewhere) than guns do every year. Maybe we should lock people up for starting a McDonalds franchise...

[Bucky]

14. Guns don't kill people. Printers kill people