3D Printed Guns

[Underseer]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/politics/plastic-gun-control-lawsuit/index.html

Gun control advocates can't stop group from posting instructions to 3-D print a gun
Washington (CNN)[ent]mdash[/ent]Gun control groups lost an emergency bid Friday to block a Texas organization from posting instructions to 3-D print a gun online.

Long ago we had an argument about the legality of The Anarchist Cookbook. If you want to know how that debate turned out, you can currently buy the book from Amazon right now and start making bombs in your kitchen if that's what you want to do. For the record, I argued in favor of keeping the book legal. It's been for sale for decades now and it clearly has not caused the collapse of Western civilization by being out there.

For now, I'm honestly OK with 3D printed gun plans on the Internet.

For starters, I don't see how you can suppress those plans on the Internet. The copyright mafia still can't stop people from trading pirated music, games, movies, TV shows, etc. on the Internet, so I don't know how successful suppressing this will ever be.

This isn't like restricting physical gun sales in a country. I know that conservatives and libertarians (who are totally different and just happen to use the same arguments to take the same positions on this issue, it's a total coincidence, so please don't get triggered and start crying because I referred to both of them) make this same argument about physical guns. They say you can't stop ALL gun sales, therefore there is no point in making it harder for people to get guns.

Of course, we know this is bullshit. Lots of other countries have restrictions on gun sales, and have far fewer guns in their society and correspondingly fewer gun crimes and gun accidents. So it does make a difference.

But we're talking about digital information here.

The copyright mafia tried putting people in jail and ruining lives, and it had no effect on digital piracy. The only thing that ended digital piracy was making a cheap, safe, secure, and convenient legal alternative to piracy instead of trying to force the whole world back to physical CDs.

These 3D printed guns are a very different animal.

Once you download that pirated movie from Pirate Bay, your movie is pretty much indistinguishable from what legal customers get on their Blu-Ray disks or iTunes purchase. Rapid prototyping is a nascent technology that is fussy and finicky and is really hard to get right.



Everyone said that 3D printing was going to transform the world, but what most enthusiasts and early adopters discovered is that it's a technology that is not quite ready for prime time. It takes a lot of trial and error, and sometimes you might think you got it right only to find out later that your fancy self-made part failed.

I for one look forward to the first news story about some ammosexual blowing his own hand off with a 3D-printed gun. We all know there's going to be a first, just as we know the first isn't going to be the last. Start preparing your preferred laugh track now.

As 3D printing/rapid prototyping technology improves, we should certainly revisit this topic and have this debate again, but for now I'm actually not too worried about it.

The other reason I'm not too worried is that gun manufacturers aren't going to make too much money off of digital files for making 3D-printed guns. For that reason alone, I expect they will be the ones to push congress to pass some kind of law restricting those gun plans from being distributed on the Internet, and they'll do it the moment those guns become more reliable. If the NRA isn't freaking out and trying to get these things banned, then I'm not too worried about them.

I'm sure assassins will love these things, but I just can't see them being used in any mass shooting. For now, I'm much more worried about the accessibility of manufactured guns that can or might be used in a mass shooting.

 

[zorq]

I don't even see assassins as wanting this kind of weapon. At least not professional ones.

But anyway, Chris Rock made a suggestion in the 90s to reduce gun violence that makes 3d printed Guns irrelevant. He suggested making the BULLETS difficult to acquire.

Something to fall back on, eh?

 

[Jayjay]

3D printed guns make sense if they are either better, cheaper, or less traceable than real guns. They are obviously not better, and in places like America where there is plenty of cheap firearms and an ideological resistance to any kind of gun registry or other controls, I don't see them being more than a novelty for hobbyists.

In places where real guns are hard to get they could make a difference. UK maybe.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

3D pinted guns make sense if they are either better, cheaper, or less traceable than real guns. They are obviously not better, and in places like America where there is plenty of cheap firearms and an ideological resistance to any kind of gun registry or other controls, I don't see them being more than a novelty for hobbyists.

In places where real guns are hard to get they could make a difference. UK maybe.

It is true that the technology could still benefit from some improvements, but it is also true that it has already come a long way. Those who scoff at the idea of 3D printed firearms are obviously using a Gutenberg Movable Type press to compose their posts and using a Babbage Difference Engine to convert the post into computer format.

 

[Underseer]

The thing is, purchasing manufactured guns is faster and easier, and the resulting weapon is a lot less likely to blow up in your hand on the third or fourth shot.

I simply can't see one of these being used in a mass shooting, and we know damn well the NRA does not think they are going to impact the sale of manufactured guns, because if there was any threat of that, those 3D gun schematics would get banned faster than Trump can pay off a porn star. If those 3D printed guns ever become more useful and more reliable, I suspect the NRA will move very quickly to get laws passed to prevent their use.

I'm much more worried about regular manufactured guns, as those are much more likely to be used in mass shootings.

3D printed guns bring up all kinds of ethical considerations that we should probably debate, but right now those debates feel pretty academic.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and in case anyone wants to buy The Anarchist Cookbook and start making bombs in your kitchen, here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-William-Powell/dp/0974458902/

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

The thing is, purchasing manufactured guns is faster and easier, and the resulting weapon is a lot less likely to blow up in your hand on the third or fourth shot.

How did you hook your Babbage Difference Engine up to the internet?

 

[Underseer]

I don't even see assassins as wanting this kind of weapon. At least not professional ones.

But anyway, Chris Rock made a suggestion in the 90s to reduce gun violence that makes 3d printed Guns irrelevant. He suggested making the BULLETS difficult to acquire.

Something to fall back on, eh?

He was talking about putting a giant tax on bullets to make people less willing to use them, but why not regulate the bullets?

You can buy all the guns you want at the gun show, but buying the bullets requires a background check, registration, and a 3 day cooling off period.

And wife-beaters can't buy bullets.

 

[bilby]

3D printed guns make sense if they are either better, cheaper, or less traceable than real guns. They are obviously not better, and in places like America where there is plenty of cheap firearms and an ideological resistance to any kind of gun registry or other controls, I don't see them being more than a novelty for hobbyists.

In places where real guns are hard to get they could make a difference. UK maybe.

Real guns aren't hard to get in the UK.

Back in the early '90s, when I worked for a gunsmith in the UK, legal guns cost about five times what an illegal gun could be bought for. If you want a gun in the UK, it's cheap and easy to get one.

But if you are caught with an illegal gun, they will throw the book at you. And you will be caught, if anyone sees you with a gun, because guns are not commonplace, and the mere sight of one (or something that resembles one) will get you a rapid visit from the local armed response unit.

Having an illegal gun in the UK is just too risky for most criminals; It's a way to turn a three month suspended sentence into five years hard time. It's a way to attract unwanted attention and priority from the local cops. Even organised criminals find it's easier to rent illegal guns from specialist criminal armorers, as and when a gun is needed, than to risk having them around constantly.

Whether your illegal gun comes from an underworld armorer, a bloke down the pub, or a 3D printer, this formula doesn't change at all.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I think except as a novel curiosity, these aren't going to be too popular among gun enthusiasts. They're, well, ugly. They lack the "coolness factor" that many juvenile men must have in their gun purchases. There's still some metal parts involved, so it's not like it's going to go past a MAD. Meh.

 

[Elixir]

I don't even see assassins as wanting this kind of weapon. At least not professional ones.

But anyway, Chris Rock made a suggestion in the 90s to reduce gun violence that makes 3d printed Guns irrelevant. He suggested making the BULLETS difficult to acquire.

Something to fall back on, eh?

Hail the resurgence of the blunderbuss!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't even see assassins as wanting this kind of weapon. At least not professional ones.

But anyway, Chris Rock made a suggestion in the 90s to reduce gun violence that makes 3d printed Guns irrelevant. He suggested making the BULLETS difficult to acquire.

Something to fall back on, eh?

He was talking about putting a giant tax on bullets to make people less willing to use them, but why not regulate the bullets?

You can buy all the guns you want at the gun show, but buying the bullets requires a background check, registration, and a 3 day cooling off period.

And wife-beaters can't buy bullets.

A giant tax on bullets is a bad idea--most bullets are used for training and practice. Make them expensive and you have a bunch of gun owners who don't know how to handle their weapons.

However, I favor a gun license approach and I would require showing the license to get bullets. There's your background check. Registration of a consumable doesn't make much sense and most gun owners have bullets, there's simply no point to a cooling off period. (Not that a cooling off period ever had value--the time it takes to go buy a gun is enough of a cooling off period.)

 

[bilby]

Bullets without propellant are pretty harmless. I presume that you people mean 'cartridges', 'rounds', 'shells', or 'ammunition', and not 'bullets'. A bullet is just a lump of metal.

 

[ZiprHead]

Bullets without propellant are pretty harmless. I presume that you people mean 'cartridges', 'rounds', 'shells', or 'ammunition', and not 'bullets'. A bullet is just a lump of metal.

Ammogrammer nazi.

 

[Jayjay]

I there is an upside, everyone's grammar will improve when grammar nazis have easier access to firearms.



"Here are your 'bullets', sir."

 

[bilby]

This idea that seems to be common amongst Americans (that outside the USA guns are hard to obtain because they are illegal), flies in the face of reason.

IF this logic were to hold for other illegal items, then Cocaine would be hard to obtain anywhere in the US. Marijuana would be difficult to get in states where it has yet to be legalized. Minors would never be able to obtain alcohol.

We know that, when something is prohibited by law, it is supplied by the black market instead. This is always true. The only way to limit the use of something illegal is to reduce demand - which in the case of addictive substances, is pretty much impossible. But in the case of guns, it's fairly easy.

A heroin addict will risk his life, his wealth, his freedom, his friendships, his family, ANYTHING - in pursuit of his drug of choice. Dealers know this, and take advantage of it; Drug dealing is, as a result, highly lucrative, and very hard to eradicate. No matter how much the end customer is made to suffer, or fear suffering, he will pursue his illegal purchases regardless.

That doesn't hold true for guns. If you make owning an illegal gun into a risky and severely punished behaviour, people will simply choose to defend their homes with a cricket bat instead. Even criminals won't take the risk of being caught in possession of an illegal gun - unlike drug addicts, their desire for such things is external, not an internal addiction; So as long as they have a reasonable expectation that their victims, their criminal rivals, and the police, will not put them in a position where a gun does them more good than harm, they will simply choose not to keep one.

This is one big benefit of the UK police principle that only specialist officers should have guns. But even a fully armed police force doesn't provide an incentive for criminals to arm themselves - a shootout with police is rarely going to end well for a criminal. The big drivers of low demand for guns amongst both otherwise law abiding citizens, and criminals, are the expectation that other people will not be armed; And the expectation that even minor firearms offences will be severely punished.

This is not a problem with a supply-side solution. The solution is in reducing demand. All prohibition can only work with effective reduction in demand - because any commodity for which there is high demand will create a black market. And so far, I am not aware of any commodity that has been effectively eradicated from any jurisdiction by mere restriction of supply. Supply side measures without reductions in demand just cause massive increases in organized crime.

For any commodity, if demand cannot be reduced, prohibition does more harm than good. Where (as in the case of firearms) demand for illegal ownership and use can be effectively reduced, supply side considerations are irrelevant. Where (as in the case of drugs) demand cannot be reduced, supply side interventions are ineffective.

3D printed guns are a supply side measure, and as such, of no relevance at all.