The headline doesn’t really match the article which actually points out that the US doesn’t have a 3D printed gun problem because firearms are already readily available there. The 3D printed gun problem in Europe originated in Europe, it didn’t spread from the nonexistent problem in the US. The US has a problem with weapon modifications that break or sidestep existing restrictions, but despite the article’s take, this isn’t limited to 3D printed mods.
This feels a lot more like a dig on 3d printing. Frankly, it’s the only thing you can tie to 3d printing to demonize it and I’d imagine there’s a vested interest in demonizing people that don’t pay a company for production.
You make a good point. It does remind me (to some degree) of what happened with ripping music and scanning books.
I find these articles funny. A glock switch can be made out of almost anything from a bit of bent metal sheet to carved wood. 3d printing one is irrelevant. When it comes to guns, the arguments are usually idiotic. I can making nearly anything with a small lathe and mill. The gun problem is a multifaceted cultural problem. Their misuse is largely the result of hopeless disenfranchisement of the poor and average person, along with politically leveraging ignorance and corporate capitalist abuses.
How you doing Squid? Any progress on the food health front?
I’m working with an eating disorder clinic at the moment. We’ll see what happens. Thanks for asking.
Best of lucks!
Hope you get better
Thanks!
Sending love!
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The problem isn’t the tooling, ofc you can do it with a block of metal and a lathe and mill, but you may or may not have the skillset to be successful
In contrast a 3D printer is cheap, easy to obtain, and can be operated as simply as download file > send to 3d printer
As someone that has learned FreeCAD/slicing/printing and someone that can set feed, speed, and sizzle bacon with a side of chips, I’m not as proficient/experienced with machine tools as I am with design and printing, but for the time I’ve spent doing both, the total learning curve is about equivalent in my opinion.
See, the thing is, with 3d printing functional stuff, you can’t just grab a file and print like this. It sounds plausible in theory, but it is honestly a recipe for a Darwin award when handling tiny explosives (primers technically are) like ammunition for firearms. This can be difficult for many people to grasp, but consumer 3d printers are accurate, but not precision machines. This constraint of accuracy without precision is important. In the most basic explanation, the movements of the printer begin by assuming a 0 (x) and 0 (y) position. All movements assume they are relevant to this 0,0 location and absolute. There is always variance in this 0,0 location.
If you get deep into the weeds, there are also several factors that make every 3d printer’s motion system unique to where two files will never print exactly the same between two machines. It does not matter at the tolerances of most parts people share, but this is usually at least 0.1mm-0.5mm tolerances. For something like a gun, or other precision mechanism, you really need a design tolerance of 0.01mm to 0.05mm. This kind of tolerance is beyond the capability of most cheap machines and beyond the kinds of tolerances that can be shared in files with other people and have any kind of relevance. The reason this matters is because the printed parts need to interface with external toleranced parts like the steel barrel. It is very possible to print these parts, but the technique requires skill. One could start scaling a part to try and solve this issue. However, in almost all cases, the X Y and Z axis will have different tolerance ranges that need to be accounted for in the design.
The actual functional way to do this requires designing your own parts. Most people that are sharing stuff like gun prints are really just showing off their chops. A fool might try and just print the stuff, but fools rarely get very far on their own. I might take such a file as a baseline to further play around with in design, but I am far more likely to place the part in FreeCAD and use it as a visual reference only while I rebuild the item from scratch. I can easily dial in 0.01mm tolerances, but I do so in reverse. I print many unit tests and adjust my design measurements until the test prints match my real world measurements. I’ve spent thousands of hours in CAD learning to design well. I can easily design something like a functioning gun. I do not support others doing so or showing off such content because I think it is irresponsible. This is why the general community consensus, and I banned (real) gun related content from [email protected]. I love functional printing and design at these levels, but the subject of guns is not conducive for a healthy general 3d printing community. Not to mention, it is the kind of thing some foolish kid might try without a full understanding of design, and accuracy versus precision.
Systems like a CNC mill use absolute position motion systems. With these, there is no assumed relative position; if the motion command fails to produce the specified movement there is direct feedback and error handling. Closed loop linear motion systems are far more expensive and/or difficult to realize. These are the basis of any real concern. The ability to print something truly robust enough to function like a gun is a matter of quite skilled learning and practice in the real world.
Quick notes - you can’t print everything you need to make a firearm, or, more correctly, you can’t print everything you need to make a firearm that works more than once. In the case of the ubiquitous Glock, you’re printing the frame, which is the serialized part, and therefore the entire ‘gun’ under US law. Once you have that, you can buy all the other parts with cash and no ID check (in most states). Without very, very expensive metal-printing technology, you can’t print, e.g., a barrel, or a slide.
Second, resin printing is extremely precise. Some resin printers are +/- .0001"; that’s more than accurate enough for firearms. That said, resin prints aren’t durable enough to be used for guns; you would want something glass-reinforced for a Glock frame, or an AR-15 lower receiver.
Prices for printing are far, far lower than CNC costs. The smallest metal-cutting CNC mill that I’m aware of starts at about $60,000, and that’s for the bare machine. Tooling is going to cost several times that. If you’re a professional gunsmith, it might make sense to buy one, if you do a lot of slide milling (for optics, or cuts to reduce the weight), or if you’re making a lot of custom muzzle brakes, but gunsmithing doesn’t tend to be a very lucrative career.
I can making nearly anything with a small lathe and mill.
I wish I could get a small lathe or mill (let alone both) for the same price as a 3D printer!
(No, seriously: I own a 3D printer but not a metal lathe, and the only reason is cost. If you know of a <$100 metal lathe, link me the product page and I’ll buy it instantly.)
Under $100? You won’t find one that doesn’t need a ton of work. If you go up to the $1000 range, you’ll probably start finding small, old ones that are in useable condition, without tooling.
Exactly. But you can find usable 3D printers for under $100 these days, so it still represents a lower barrier to entry compared to using a lathe & mill even before you consider the different skill levels needed. (CNC isn’t as simple as loading a file and pressing “go,” but it isn’t as complicated as machining, either. At least not unless you’re designing your own CAD models.)
Trust me when I say that you must understand the principles of machining before you try to do CNC. And unless you are good with CAD/CAM, you’re going to have to program in G-code too. If the only thing you’re doing with CNC is loading a part, and changing tools, no, you don’t need to know much. But if you want to mill an existing 3D model, you’re absolutely going to need to be a good machinist in order to program CNC.
AFAIK, 3d printed guns still need machined metal components to not, y’know, explode in your hand?
You can buy all those parts online without registration. The only thing you can’t buy is the receiver, which can be manufactured at home very easily. That’s the part that houses the trigger and connects the barrel, etc.
Obviously, the more advanced the gun gets, the more difficult it is to make, but a single shot could be made with stuff from the hardware store.
You can buy all those parts online without registration.
True, but I think this is more about the wider world outside of America.
Can you buy all those parts online in Europe? Or in Japan? I’m in the USA, so I don’t actually know, but I would assume they would have tighter controls on that sort of thing.
A gun is stupid simple: it’s a machined piece of pipe, something to strike the firing cap on the bullet, a trigger, and some sort of receiver.
Nothing you can’t build out of parts from your local home supply store, if you really felt like it.
3d printing makes a couple of parts of building one easier, but it’s certainly not required since we’ve had 3d printing for about 10 minutes, and been building guns for hundreds of years.
The FGC-9 (Fuck Gun Control 9) is designed with European laws in mind, and is amongst the most widespread design out there. Most notably used in the ongoing Myanmar civil war by rebels.
Some pipe would probably do the trick. It wouldn’t be very good, but it would fire.
All you need is a 3/4 inch pipe, a pipe that fits over the other one, a pipe end, a nail, and a drill. Making a single shot is super easy, and the instructions are everywhere.
Anywhere that has a hardware store, you can make a gun very easily.
I’ve seen designs that only have one metal component a nail. There’s several 22lr designs that use entirely printed barrels. They won’t last as long and need to be designed around the material qualities, but do function safely.
There’s also a few designs that can be made with parts from hardware stores without any particularly expensive machinery (like mills or lathes). People can even rifle barrels at home through electro-chemical machining which isn’t as complicated as it sounds.
Na they have materials to 3d print receivers. Here is a link to the most common material types used. (Not sure why the url calls for suppressors the article is about lower receivers.)
I don’t think you are going to be able to fire off 100rd drum magazines out of a 3d printed AR receiver but they definitely work, I’ve shot one with 30rd magazine. It was like anyother gun, the barrel was hot but the receiver and body were seemingly unaffected.
Clutches, pearls and swoons. The almost hysterical tone that this is written in is not having the effect the author intended.
Depends on the intended effect… I personally see this as just one single piece in a big wave of equally dilettante articles used to convey one message to the caual reader: that 3d printing is bad, dangerous and needs to be regulated.
And we all know who’s willing to pay money to push that story…
Also, you can really only 3d print the bottom half of a gun, the actual part that makes it a gun has to be made of metal and ordered online, then snapped on to the 3d printed plastic handle part.
The problem isn’t the plastic part you make at home… Literally, just make people print serial numbers on the important, metal part, and the whole problem goes away… But lazy journalists want to conjure images of people making anonymous guns at home cos it’s scary.
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This is Tetsuya Yamagami, moments after he shot Shinzo Abe. I think this guy and it happening in Japan are what people mean by the problem is getting worse and spreading to the world.
Further, I think the unspoken part of this is that so much of world’s so-called liberal order is quickly turning towards more authoritarian ways to control their populations, and what’s happening is you’re having small pockets of people starting to feel like they have no political voice or way to get their voice heard politically, because the systems are slowly shutting more and more real citizens out from democratic choice.
I think about this guy a lot, because what happened to Yamagami’s family was straight fucked up and I wouldn’t have heard anything about it at any point if it hadn’t been for him committing a horrible crime which he felt was justified because a fucking cult had ruined his family. Considering the cult of personality we’re dealing with in the US when it comes to unhinged freaks, I really feel like there’s gotta be more disaffected and ignored people around the world like this, because it’s definitely not just happening here. Now, with 3D printed weaponry, they have a chance to violently make their voice heard in a way that is undeniable.
As liberal democracies turn more and more authoritarian to keep control of their societies, you will see more and more of this from the disaffected who bought into the promises of a better society with more security but instead found themselves in an authoritarian hell-hole with no voice or control.
I want to call out something, since I feel a connection is being drawn here that is not valid. His gun was not 3D printed.
Investigative sources said that the gun used in the incident consisted of two metal cylinders wrapped in vinyl tape, which could fire six projectiles when the trigger was pulled. When prefectural police examined the seized weapon, they found it was equipped with an electrical cord and battery and that it was designed to ignite the gunpowder with an electrical current.
Sourced from this site: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220725/p2a/00m/0na/021000c
I’m not taking issue with most of what you said, but FDM 3D printers aren’t the issue here. Making a gun can be done at home with essentially no tools. I don’t think we should get pulled in to blaming societal issues on a single piece of technology.
I’m in a hurry so I’ve left this comment short, I may come back and edit it with more thoughts later.
I understand that the piece in question is promoting the false narrative that this is tied to 3D printing, rather 3D printing has just made it more accessible. As others here have pointed out, the physics behind gunsmithing has been widely known for hundreds of years.
The takeaway I had was more about societal issues that lead to people feeling the need for a gun to begin with, just a different perspective on the same issue.
So, like, I agree with you. We need to make people less miserable. We need to find ways to make people feel less marginalized through better representation, and a reduction in authoritarian measures. I also feel that ending the cycle of abuse that leads to damaged children growing into harmful adults should be prioritized and addressed with better social services (free healthcare including mental healthcare) and societal reforms. You and I fundamentally agree on this, and everything I’m about to say below is the result of me being in a bad mood because my FIL shared some fucking stupid racist GOP misinformation with me about the cats and the Haitian people. I’m being pedantic (and frankly irritating) about this, but I’m just not regulating myself very well today.
I guess I’d question how much more accessible 3D printing is making it. Like, there are definitely gun parts you can 3D print, but they tend not to be the important bits. You can somewhat successfully 3D print the important bits, but that requires a lot of knowledge and skill (printing with high strength/high temperature plastics like Nylon or polycarbonate isn’t easy, even with the newest crop of printers), plus a good printer (which is either expensive, or was self-built which increases the knowledge and skill required). If someone wants to make a gun with a 3D printer, they’ll have to get a printer (and either spend $1000+ or spend $500 + months making one), learn how to use it, learn how to print with better filaments, buy all the vitamins (i.e. parts that can’t be printed) and then they’ll end up with a kinda shitty gun. Alternatively, they can do what Yamagami did and buy some cheap metal pipe and a battery and some tape. They’ll get a kinda shitty gun without all of the 3D printing hassle for much cheaper.
Hell, if someone wants to make a good gun then machine tools have never been cheaper. I have a metal lathe and milling machine sitting out in my shop right now. I do not (and will never) make guns, but I could. My dad does competitive target shooting (Palma rifle) and has asked me if I could machine stuff for him which is why I’ve thought of this (I told him no, btw). My lathe was built in the 1950s and was $500. My mill is more expensive (about $4000 brand new), but I’m sure you could make a gun with a used $1000 mill. Machining is harder to learn than 3D printing, but with machine tools you can make more capable guns (i.e. semiautomatic/automatic, accurate, precise, reliable). The drawings are out there, and I’m sure I could turn some 4140 and O1 steel scrap pieces I have into a little gun. I can even make my own springs with my lathe. I have a granite lapping plate so I can make parts that are incredibly flat and smooth. I have a MAPP gas torch that I’ve used to harden and temper tool steel. A small home machine shop can produce a gun that’s as good as anything from, say, the 1940s.
Should we say that companies like Harbor Freight or Grizzly are making homemade guns more accessible because they’re selling cheap lathes and mills? I don’t feel that’s fair. Our technology and automation is getting better in general, which is making guns more accessible. It’s why Yamagami was able to kill a world leader with parts from the hardware store. We can’t really do much to stop the hardware store problem. All we can do is what you said. We can remove the things that make people feel the need to own a gun.
Excellent comment. Don’t worry about being in a bad mood, that’s totally valid when talking about a subject like this. I agree, we shouldn’t be allowing the conversation to be presented in a twisted light where we act like its a problem of technology and not a social ills problem.
Which is precisely why I wanted to talk about it from the point of view of social ills instead of “oh no, scary 3D printers, ban them or only let licensed professionals use them!” Because while pushback against that perspective is important, that only goes so far if we’re not able to express and articulate a vision of a world where people won’t feel that way or feel the need to blame it on the technology. Kind of like how the left struggles to identify positive male role models for young men, who end up feeling like they’re being told they are evil for being born a man and get sucked into the right-wing manosphere pipeline because those people are at least not making them feel like a villain for existing.
It’s also why I chose the fellow I did, because he did it without a 3D printer (I guess I should have made that more clear in my original comment, my bad). You’re absolutely right that we cannot just solve the hardware store problem without severely limiting access to tools regular people use every day.
However, if we don’t or can’t articulate the alternative, we can’t and won’t get there.
Which cements what I meant about saying “you’ll see more of this happening” not just because 3D printers have simplified certain aspects and made it more accessible to non-traditional gunsmiths, but more because of the social ills which push people to feel the need to pursue such a thing to begin with. As the social ills are not fixed, more people will turn to violence to be heard, whether that’s with traditional methods or modern technology. Violent people are just as likely to use a drone with a bomb strapped to it as they are a molotov cocktail. As you said, it’s not about the level of technology, it’s about why people feel the need to get violent to be heard to begin with.
Dumb question: how do the Europeans get ammo for these 3d-printed guns? Isn’t ammunition also tightly controlled / regulated over there?
No clue to the answer to your question but it’s not difficult to load your own ammunition. Gun powder, shells and slugs aren’t usually as heavily regulated in the US I’d assume to some degree that’d be true elsewhere. Can prolly buy it off eBay or craigslist if you really looked.
Then it’s just a matter of measuring and packing it all into a single bullet with a special fitted hand press. Super tedious and time consuming but easy to do. Wanna say old timers did it back when it was cheaper but the only people I know who still do it do it to controll their ammo consistency for either competition shooting or rifle hunting.
eBay does not allow the selling of ammunition components, but you can buy some gun parts. I can’t say for certain, but I strongly suspect that powder, brass, primers, and projectiles are all tightly regulated in countries that have strict firearm regulations.
Reloading isn’t particularly tedious unless you’re using a single-stage press. A progressive press moves things along pretty well; once I have my brass prepped (cleaned, sized, trimmed, crimps removed, etc.), I can usually load 100 rounds in 15 minutes or so. Pistol ammo is faster, since I don’t have to spend as much time worrying about trimming or removing primer crimps; it’s just clean and go (decapping/sizing is the first station in the progressive press). Does it save money? Absolutely. I’ll save about $.01-.02/bullet on 9mm, and about $.1/bullet on 5.56x45mm. BUT I’ve spent well over $1000 on reloading equipment (!!!), which means that I’d need to reload 10k 5.56x45mm bullets to break even.
Americans can turn a handgun into a machine gun with a cheap piece of plastic.
As someone who can count the number of guns I’ve ever seen on my hands, this is incredibly sensationalist. Machine guns are rifle-calibre automatic weapons with significant weight and recoil. You aren’t making one out of a handgun and some cheap piece of plastic if you are not living in Naked Gun.
In typical American legal parlance a “machine gun” is any firearm that fires more than one round per trigger pull, so it’s more or less correct.
I would say it is a problem when criminals have a way to magdump a police cruiser in literally under a second with a concealable weapon.
I understand.
Though the only piece of news that reached me recently about magdumping police cruisers, it was a cop magdumping his own car.
That acorn was coming straight at him.
Thin out their numbers
As a other commenter mentioned machinegun is a legal definition in the US, for a firearm capable of automatic or burst fire.
Here the author is referring to Glock switches an aftermarket design that exploits the design of semiautomatic Glock pistols to convert them to be automatic.
My understanding is that typically most of them tend to be ones bought online and shipped from China in bulk then resold once in the states.
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Residential printers typically can’t copy money.
Can’t something be built in where it does not allow printing a gun?..
Let me introduce you to RepRap which is how all home 3D printers were built before there were commercially available printers that didn’t cost $25,000.
It’s like saying “maybe we can stop lathes from turning gun barrels”, which frankly is more of a concern than someone blowing their fingers off printing a plastic gun, but equally impossible to regulate.
Two different things. Money’s usefulness is in its scarcity and authenticity. So, making fake money identifiable by making real money harder to reproduce renders the fake money worthless.
Unfortunately, adding a watermark to a gun doesn’t really stop it from being a gun.
If you can find a way to embed this in every possible gun design maybe.
