3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
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Cue politicians calling to ban 3D printers in 3 ... 2 ...1 ...
Already trying to
Sure, ban hardware stores after that.
Reminds me of a time when I went to a maker space open house, and they were showing all kinds of cool stuff, including fairly advanced 3D printers for time. They mentioned there was programming to halt prints of things like gun parts, so it would be very hard to make guns using them. I commented, "Besides, you can make better ones in the metal shop in the other room." He replied, "Yeah! No!"
Four Winds Shotgun is a good thing to know about. I don't think you even need a machine shop.
Is that the sliding pipe gun? I think all you need is materials, a hack saw, and a drill. But with a machine shop, the materials list is just steel and some springs, and you can have a gun as good as any we had prior to the last century.
Even rifling can be cut with nothing more than a hardened piece of tool steel, a green sapling and a bit of time and patience to make what's called 'Scratch rifling'. Even a wooden rifling machine isn't hard to make if you want to boost production a bit.
And yes, the metal working shop I own is perfectly capable of making every piece of any firearm you might want. I have even made a black powder 2" Coehorn mortar to launch baby food jars filled with concrete 100s of yards. I know guys who have made full sized and functioning Gatling guns down to the horse-drawn trail it was mounted to. An expensive and time-consuming endeavor.
But it makes the general populace feel good and gives politicians more power.
While I am fully opposed to a 3d printer ban (and abhor the efforts of Bambu et al to sneak that in), it is very important to understand why that is not a fair comparison and, if anything, sets a threshold that can be used to argue FOR a ban.
I've ranted in detail before so I'll do the short version this time:
You are not going to make a barrel or springs yourself. And the good news is that you don't need to. None of that is a controlled/registered part (for the vast majority of guns) and you can literally buy those at a walmart equivalent. And there at least used to be pre-packaged bundles available online for your ghost gun needs.
So that mostly leaves the receiver and fire control unit. I will bet you money that giving a rando off the street 24 hours to figure out how to go to the local communal machine shop and make even a frigging sten and they will fail miserably. Whereas there are videos (fuck vice for how they abused their workers but old-vice has a really good video where they literally made the gun Luigi allegedly used) of people going from 0 to glock in 12 hours of print time and 4-5 hours of filing.
And that is the big difference. How much that matters when you are considering a country where you can buy the same gear that Tier 1 Special Forces use to abduct (admittedly really shitty) world leaders for under a thousand bucks is a HUGE question. But from the "ghost gun" perspective? There is VERY much a big difference between having a CNC and machining a receiver+FCU versus doing the same with an Ender 3.
Why don't they make firing chambers and barrels out of plastic? Are gun makers stupid?
There actually are some really cool proof of concepts where people have 100% 3d printed a gun. And "potato cannons" are generally a PVC firing chamber and barrel.
For legal purposes: Preface everything after this with a dozen "allegedly"s. A couple years back I went to a really cool event where people had built machine guns out of wood and plastic (FDM). No metal. Everyone went old school with leaf springs and the like. None had any issue with doing well over 100 rounds (5.56 or 5.45) each. That said, anyone with half a brain cell was literally hiding in a bunker nearby out of terror when the firing was going on. But... yeah. Also for legal purposes: I am sure every weapon was registered with the ATF prior to the event and completely destroyed on day two.
Like anything, it is about pressure, strength, and geometry. And, as The Troubles in Ireland can attest... you don't need THAT much skill to make something that will fire... once. Which is why there are so many shed machine guns and rifles with split barrels and completely exploded receivers in The Royal Armouries.
But if you want to make a barrel that can hold up to even a few dozen rounds? You need to understand what metal to use (hint: it isn't mild steel) and some pretty decent lathe skills.
Stop. Giving. Them. Ideas.
(Kidding. Kindof.)
Philip A. Luty smiles
Washington state already started making moves against it, as an attempt to prevent 3D printed firearm components. Specifically, it requires 3D printers sold within the state to have firmware-based scanning to cancel prints it suspects are used for firearms, alongside criminalizing the possession of files ruled as 'firearm compoments'.
One bill is in the House, the other passed into law. Gonna make it a real rough ride ahead for tinkerers into 3D printing, especially if we've gotta design around "Oh boy, I sure hope my pencil holder doesnt get flagged as an illegal item."
Edit: One of two bills passed: HB2320 and HB2321. HB2320 is currently law, and HB2321 is awaiting presentation to the House.
California is joining in too with AB-2047 and New York has AB-2228 requiring a criminal background check for buying a 3D printer.
I’m imagining a bunch of first amendment challenges to these laws
In this shithole? Good luck. They do whatever they want regardless of whatever rights you think you have.
Yea that’s true
Good fucking luck. That’s completely impossible
One passed, the other has yet to be presented. These legislators have no clue how they'd even do it, but circumventing the scan is also made illegal.
So yeah, flashing Open-Source firmware is something they dont like either, but fingers crossed they just choose to not allocate resources to enforcement. Wouldn't be surprised if this 3D printed missile mentioned in the article above comes up ad a taking point during the legislative hearings.
Sounds like something that wouldn't be worth going out of the way to enforce. But rather used to tack on extra charges when someone commits another crime where the extra level of investigation would uncover the flashed firmware. Not that it would do much to deter or prevent what they're afraid of from happening.
Doesn’t matter if it’s passed or not. It’s not possible to implement, and therefore completely unenforceable. Legislation cannot change the fundamental limits of software.
This is either a blanket ban on all 3D printers, or none of them.
Or a way to arbitrarily charge anyone or to add to anyone's charges in case they own something that fits the bill.