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“3-D printers are printing with everything from concrete to ceramics to human tissue to sintered metals now.”

Ya, good luck getting one of those for a reasonable price. Even the do-it-yourself ABS plastic printers are running around $600-1000. I’ve seen the technology used for other materials and it’s not cheap, strictly industrial and doesn’t look to be something most people will ever be able to afford, hell be the cheap ABS printers are out of the reach of most people. Who wants to drop $1000 just to be able to print this out? Not many. If you really want to go that route you’d be better off with a good CNC machine, then you could make anything you wanted in pretty much any material.

I've got a lathe and milling machine already. They are unregistered. ;)

The prices are coming down quickly on 3-D printers.

Nobody's talking about buying one just to print out this plastic pistol V1.0. But if you have access to a printer, the plans are opensource. I'm sure V2.0 will be much better.

Just like the AR-15 lower designed to be printed on a 3-D printer. They went through several iterations before they got something reasonable.

What you are looking at is proof of concept, not the finished design.

/johnny

But it's the principle. In 1783, a printing press was kind of a big deal -- ordinary people didn't have one, but the government told them they could or they could make use of a press owned by someone else, if the owner agreed.

It's the opposite of homosexual marriage: in that situation, government removes the standard of one man-one woman and then there is no standard: polygamy cannot be banned because there is no longer a standard.

Well, if anyone can make a plastic gun at any time, then how can the government infringe on gun rights anymore? By what standard can you say "There is a law against that"? You can't infringe on plastic guns because ... well, you can't. It's like calling me an art forger because like laserjet printer is making copies of the Mona Lisa. If the government can't stop people from making plastic guns at home,how can the government infringe on Smith&Wesson? That's selective prosecution.

You don't need to have super fancy equipment: just the fact that you could have super fancy equipment is enough to make this a game-changer. Basic $1000 printers making single-shot plastic guns is like allowing homosexual marriage in MA -- the principle is established and now nothing can stop it. Real arms manufacturers will be the big winners here.