Posted on 12/16/2012 11:24:01 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The tech industry cheerleads the displacement and reconfiguration of huge institutions like the music industry and telecoms. The arms industry shares many of the attributes of those industries, and is poised for fundamental change that is much like the changes they have experienced. If the product of the arms industry were not arms, the inevitable upheaval would be anticipated and prophesied with glee by the usual pundits (this website included).
It’s not, because the general availability of weapons is not something we as a community can agree on as an unmitigated good. For that matter, even free speech and assembly are by no means goals universally agreed upon. But advances in technology are providing all of these things, regardless of the preferences of any one group.
If we as a country, and indeed we as a global community, are going to seriously address the question of gun control, we need to address the issue of fabricated weapons and weapon plans, or else the discussion will be moot. This is because the proliferation of 3D printed weaponry changes both the definition of “gun” and of what it means to “control” it.
What is a gun? A barrel is not a gun, nor is a stock, or a sight, or a trigger. But at some point you put these and a few other objects together and you have a gun. As it turns out, strictly speaking, the receiver is how such things end up being defined in this country, at least as a rule of thumb. Buying, selling, and creating the receiver, into which a cartridge passes from the magazine and is prepared for discharge, is buying, selling, and creating a gun...
(Excerpt) Read more at techcrunch.com ...
I’d like to see one of those 3D printers in action. Fascinating.
I guess despite what the author says about not taking sides it is obvious what side he is on; the anti-gun side.
As far as safety or security goes 3-D printing changes nothing. Those who can legally own guns can still get one, only cheaper.
Those that can not legally own a gun can get one just as they can today.
The only thing that 3-D printing changes is that now you can get a firearm with out a manufactures serial number. (Actually you could get one before if you built it at home not for resale. So really even that has not changed)
The real change is that firearms should get much cheaper and more profitable to produce. The down side is that skilled machinist in the gun industry will be loosing their jobs.
As far as safety or security goes 3-D printing changes nothing. Those who can legally own guns can still get one, only cheaper.
That's true, for the present. Home 3-D printing is currently done in plastics. But Industrial printers are already out there, that laser-sinter powdered metals into the equivalent of milled parts, that can be heat-treated and/or annealed, and have the same mechanical properties as current commercially-manufactured parts.
That tech will show up in home/hobbyist 3-D printing relatively soon, I'd say 5 years at the most. And then a printed weapon WILL be quite possible. . . Even now, a modestly-equipped home workshop can build an AK rifle . . . I have friends who have done it. . .and fired the weapons. . .
What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts
Which is fine. Handguns with plastic receivers are pretty common.
Good luck with that.
dd conv=swab if=gunfile of=what_gunfile_is_that split what_gunfile_is_that -b 64K -d my_letters_to_mom total 3060 drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 400 Dec 17 04:00 . drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 320 Dec 17 03:54 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1041218 Dec 17 03:58 gunfile -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom00 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom01 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom02 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom03 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom04 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom05 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom06 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom07 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom08 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom09 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom10 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom11 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom12 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom13 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65536 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom14 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 58178 Dec 17 04:00 my_letters_to_mom15 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1041218 Dec 17 04:00 what_gunfile_is_that cat my* > oh_my dd conv=swab if=oh_my of=my_new_gunfile |
I don’t read it that way.
He goes on to say that the only way the gun banners will be able to “control” guns in an era of 3D printed guns will be to be maximally invasive of everyone’s internet privacy... which techies/nerds find beneath their contempt.
In this case, what he’s saying is, in effect, “even if you think you’re for controlling guns, by doing so in the era of 3D printing technology you might be taking a position with unintended consequences for the technical privacy which you find to be a Real Big Deal.”
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