Meet The 'Liberator': Test-Firing The World's First Fully 3D-Printed Gun

[struggle4progress]

Andy Greenberg, Forbes Staff
5/05/2013 @ 5:30PM


... John has just pulled a twenty-foot length of yellow string tied to a trigger, which has successfully fired the world’s first entirely 3D-printed gun for the very first time ... He hurries over to examine the firearm bolted to an aluminum frame ... After the handgun round, Wilson switched out the Liberator’s barrel for a higher-charge 5.7×28 rifle cartridge. He and John retreated to a safe distance, and John pulled his yellow string again. This time the gun exploded, sending shards of white ABS plastic flying into the weeds and bringing the Liberator’s first field trial to an abrupt end ...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/05/meet-the-liberator-test-firing-the-worlds-first-fully-3d-printed-gun/

[NYC_SKP]

1. Not sure if it's the 3-D printing or the plastic part of this story that's so interesting.

The plastic part would, ostensibly, only be interesting in that it might evade metal detectors, but this thing actually uses some metal, a nail, for the firing pin.

The 3-D printing part I don't care about. One can buy numerically controlled (CAD-CAM) metal working tools to build real working metal or plastic gun parts. They've been around for decades.

I guess it's interesting to watch the development of this open-resource shared files challenge to existing gun legislation, but it sure isn't anything that worries me.

Maybe I'm missing something.

[struggle4progress]

3. It's not clear that the firing pin alone would set off many metal detectors: apparently these folk

deliberately included a large chuck of metal in the plastic gun when printing it, in order not to violate existing law (motivated by the original appearance of plastic guns some years ago ) requiring that guns be detectable by metal detectors

[NYC_SKP]

5. I remember reading about that in another article.

By tiptoeing around existing laws and exploiting loopholes, I wonder if the creator realizes that he is revealing where legislation needs to be adjusted and/or created to maintain public safety...

I support open-resources and file sharing, but this is all a bit different from works of literature and music.

~~~

[jberryhill]

4. "challenge to existing gun legislation"

You can make meth at home from legally-available ingredients too.

How does that "challenge existing drug legislation"?

[rdharma]

6. That's the RW spin.......

"Why have gun legislation when you can make your own gun with a 3-D printer?"

And I call ..... BS!

Why buy a Stratasis SST for $32,900 to build a single shot "zip gun" that blows up?

No..... I don't think this presents any sort of a "challenge" to existing gun legislation.

[jberryhill]

7. I've been trying to understand this for a while

"You can do something illegal at home. Therefore, the law is useless."

It's still cheaper and easier to buy basic metal working tools at Harbor Freight and make a gun, but I don't see anyone saying "Milling machines make legislation pointless."

[struggle4progress]

9. The folk behind this are all pushing exactly such RW views

[rdharma]

11. If it sounds scary, the RW will run with it! eom

[NYC_SKP]

12. I'm not sure what your point is, but new laws limit sales of ephedrine.

For better or worse.

And, this is quite different from meth labs, this guy is doing it in public, following the laws, not doing it in secret in his basement.

[jberryhill]

14. Yes, and drug companies legally make drugs too

I do not have a license to manufacture firearms, and it would be illegal for me to do so, as it would for anyone who downloads and uses the file without a license to manufacture firearms.

It is legal to grow and produce marijuana with a federal license, and it is also something that can be done simply at home.

[NYC_SKP]

15. The creator of the design, IIRC, has a Type 7 Federal Firearms License to Manufacture.

The 3D-printed gun manufacturer, Defense Distributed, has acquired the Type 7 Federal Firearms License (FFL) necessary to manufacture and and sell guns.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/30219/defense-distributed-gun-company-gets-license-to-3d-print-guns

Having settle that, back to one of my points:

I guess it's interesting to watch the development of this open-resource shared files challenge to existing gun legislation

I refer to the fact that, presently, legal manufacturers make and then distribute the actual hardware, the firearms.

These 3-D files aren't even drawings, they are digital information, 1s and 0s, that can be sent by fax, phone, internet, you name it.

And my point is that no laws that I know of ("existing laws&quot anticipate this.

Though I suppose it could be argued that 2D drawings of home-made or professional grade firearms are out there, legal or not.

Hope that helps clear things up.

[jberryhill]

17. How about reading what you are responding to?

In response to my pointing out that they have a license, you come back with telling me they have a license.

Yes, I know they have a license, Skip, that's why I pointed out they have a license.

If you download the file and MAKE a gun, Skip, you will be violating the law.

There are many things which are easy to make, and which are illegal to make.

It is illegal in many places to make a dry ice bomb using a piece of dry ice and a soda bottle. The fact that people can do these things is somehow not used as an argument against having such laws.

With basic shop equipment which can be purchased at lower cost than the 3D printer these guys used, it has been possible to make firearms for, oh, decades. As a teenager, I made an attachment to a BB gun which was capable of firing .22 rounds.

"no laws that I know of ("existing laws&quot anticipate this."

Are you joking? There are, and long have been, laws against the unlicensed manufacture of firearms, Skip. The weird thing is that one part of your brain appears to know this simple fact, since you point out that the folks in the OP are indeed licensed to do so.

[NYC_SKP]

18. Thanks in advance for never calling me Skip again.

It's not my name and not even close.

I'm sorry you take issue with my opinions or my writing or whatever the hell the problem is, it's yours to enjoy, not mine.

ciao

[jberryhill]

19. I have no issue with you

What I have an issue with is this notion that the ability for people to do something at home, through some kind of magic, renders laws against doing whatever it is to be of no point.

If you would like "digital information" instructing you on how to make things which are illegal for you to make, then you can head over to www.uspto.gov and there you will find, literally, millions of patents describing how to make everything from bazookas to LSD.

[NYC_SKP]

20. Put a different way...

To paraphrase my own original reply:

I am not worried, but I am curious, because people are panicking (rightly or wrongly) and I imagine that there will be attempts to legislate this concern away.

I maintain that current laws did not anticipate digital fabrication, that doesn't mean I'm endorsing new legislation, it's just a statement of fact.

Again, my point is that it will be interesting to watch. I don't have a dog in this particular race, though I am generally a supporter of open source content of every type.

Off to visit a couple schools, support for career tech ed and STEM...

[jberryhill]

21. I doubt any legislative response is likely

I guess the difference is that people other than those who took high school shop class have gotten excited by the "I can make a gun" idea, but it's not as if guns have ever been terribly difficult for ordinary - or what used to be considered ordinary - people to make.

One big difference, of course, is that while it is perfectly legal to carry a gun around in a lot of places, carrying one which has been illegally manufactured is a different story.

Example - you can drive around, in some places, with a Glock sitting out on the passenger seat or otherwise visible from the outside of the car. If you get pulled over for a traffic violation, you might get a question or two about the gun in plain view, but as long as you are somewhere where it is legal to do so - no problem. With one of these sitting in plain view in the car, it's another story.

Or, try taking an illegally manufactured gun to the range. Again, these folks have the license to make them, and that's all well and good. But it's a different story for someone else.

[PoliticAverse]

2. This is abuse of the word 'fully'. The firing pin wasn't 3D printed. n/t

[denverbill]

8. IMO, the word Libertarian should invariably be followed by 'crackpot'.

[rdharma]

10. Libertarians are Republicans who smoke pot.....

Like "Aqua Buddha" aka. Rand Paul.

[Daemonaquila]

13. No problem at all with this.

Suppression of information, any information, is bad. I don't care if that info is about making a nuke, or a plastic gun that will explode in the hand, or leaked government documents. It's an entirely different issue than having laws against OWNING or USING a nuke, an exploding plastic gun, etc. We are entering an era of increasing information suppression, where interest in certain subject matters alone make a person suspect. I expect that we will also start seeing IP laws proposed in short order that will make it illegal for people to scan parts of products they own, and make their own copies on such printers rather than paying the manufacturer for OEM parts. I think the rise of these printers will spur the next couple decades' worth of craziness in Washington.

[NYC_SKP]

16. That is, I think, one of Cody Wilson's points in doing this.

I, too, support the free flow of information and open sources, creative commons licenses, shared knowledge.

Larry Lessig is one of my heroes.

His book, Free Culture" is free to read, I read it in grad school: http://www.free-culture.cc/



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