“I consider it a truly grand thing. It will be an irrevocable part of political life that guns are downloadable, and we helped to do that.” – Cody Wilson in A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora’s Box for DIY Guns [via wired.com]
“I consider it a truly grand thing. It will be an irrevocable part of political life that guns are downloadable, and we helped to do that.” – Cody Wilson in A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora’s Box for DIY Guns [via wired.com]
Now if only 3D printers and accessories would drop in price like laser printers did…
Might be a wait for reasonable prices…especially metal printers
i suspect first DD will see competition for their all-in-one CNC box “Ghost Gunner” and feel pressure to drop the price from $1675.
I mean, I just bought an MonoPrice Select Mini (v2) for $190 like six months ago. It’s a great starter printer, and is capable of printing its own upgrades. I’ve gone through two and a half upgrade cycles (printing out improved parts with better accuracy, then using those parts to create a new generation with even better accuracy, etc) for a total cost of about $280, which includes increasing the bed and print-area to something more useful.
It’s not like a laser printer where you just hit “go”.. you have to have some basic electronic and mechanical skills (like using a gap gauge and how to not strip out aluminum screw-holes).. but it’s easy enough that I figured out how to print… things..
That’s awesome, loved that post. It never occurred to me that such a machine could perform its own upgrades, and stuff like that really makes me think the future’s going to be pretty bright.
“Might be a wait for reasonable prices…especially metal printers”
Be prepared to wait awhile on metal printers, for a number of reasons.
The lasers with the power to fuse metal powders are quite expensive, and the ‘box’ you make them in is flooded with an inert gas like Argon.
What I see happening on that front is someone developing a relationship with a commercial shop that does that work, and the machines being fired-up to make parts after normal shop hours.
‘Ghost shifts’ like that are common in Asia, used to make knockoff consumer products…
Don’t forget that laser are heavily regulated by…wait for it…the FDA
i like this quote:
“All this Parkland stuff, the students, all these dreams of ‘common sense gun reforms’? No. The internet will serve guns, the gun is downloadable.” Wilson says now. “No amount of petitions or die-ins or anything else can change that.”
Typical TAG, always missing the target. Who cares about the 3d printer files. The Ghost Gunner milling machine. Now that is something.
(Hint, read the full article and think)
We didn’t miss them. The Ghost Gunner machines aren’t the news item here.
http://dev.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/02/foghorn/fedex-refuses-to-ship-defense-distributeds-ghost-gunner-cnc-machines-2/
http://dev.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/06/robert-farago/new-defense-distributed-ghost-gunner-2-3d-printing-machine/
http://dev.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/10/jeremy-s/ghost-gunner-cnc-machines-now-completing-80-pistol-frames/
Looks like even I was off target. No caffeine yet.
The article in wired was NOT about the 3d guns but the court case they generated and the precedents set.
What is WAY more important is that it protects the dissemination of information for the construction of firearms. That was the point. But then TAG just has to put in 3D printers into the title.
🙂
What’s I’m curious about it why they settled. They had “won “ so far. Where they afraid SCOTUS , even without Kennedy , would rule in favor of free speech in a much more sweeping way ?
Perhaps the Administration which was attacking DD was replaced by one that didn’t think DD was doing anything wrong?
Don’t be limited to downloads and 3D printers. Guns can be home made from metal with machine tools available to harbor freight and grizzly.
There is this delusion that arms sales are controllable by decree.
Not all of us are gunsmiths! You got some mad skills my friend.
Two pieces of pipe and you can make a slam fire shotgun.
It’s not hard.
“Also frequently purchased with: EZ tourniquet, Home Amputation Kit, Bactine Anti-microbial Spray”
doesn’t have to be that rudimentary. Look at https://www.theflatspot.net/ and sites like http://www.thehomegunsmith.com/
http://www.homemadetools.net/category/firearm-and-weaponry
https://gunplans.com/
Mark,
The important point: a LOT of people can competently operate saws, grinders, drills, lathes, and milling machines. And a LOT more people can operate said equipment (well enough to make functional firearms) after a minuscule amount of training.
In other words there are literally millions of people in the United States who can make firearms in their basement or garage with existing equipment if they want to. And when 3D additive manufacturing devices become affordable and readily available to the masses, millions more people in the United States will be able to manufacture their own firearms.
The phrase, “the genie is out of the bottle,” has never been more apt.
I love it. I want more firearms in this country.. Anything less than a billion is unacceptable. I’ll continue to buy as much as I can afford for now. Kudos to the builders.
“And when 3D additive manufacturing devices become affordable and readily available to the masses”
Yeah, they won’t, for the same reason that CNC never did and never will, either.
The only reason ‘printing’ seems easier is because the machine can more easily figure out its toolpaths automatically. That capability for CNC is nearly upon us already (along with self-sensing mill tools) and it has not dropped the price of actual machines one iota; quite the opposite, actually. What it does do is drop the cost per part. Having a company machine/print you a custom part is getting cheaper, but because of productivity gains; not because Mohr’s Law applies to machine tools
barnbwt,
I believe 3D additive manufacturing devices will be considerably more widespread than CNC machines for several reasons:
— 3D additive devices can make things that CNC machines cannot
— 3D additive devices are far smaller and lighter than CNC machines
— 3D additive devices generate virtually no waste products
— 3D additive machines do not need cutting fluids
And I did not even talk about how a CNC machine requires the operator to clamp the initial raw block and establish a datum — as well as possible requirements to change the block’s orientation and re-clamp midway through the operation — none of which are necessary with a 3D additive device.
For all of those reasons, I can see 3D additive devices becoming fairly commonplace if the prices come down to under $800 or so.
Mark, I was making functional zip guns when I was ten, and I still have all my appendages.
yeah, but are they still attached?
; P
Am I the only one who remembers “zip guns” most (in)famous in pre-Giuliani NYC?
Or even a piece of mild steel pipe makes a fine 410. Or …
I heard. Personally, I would never even think of doing such a thing.
Why not? as long as you are not a prohibited person, and whatever features you are building are legal (barrel length, etc) it is perfectly legal to build your own firearms from scratch, and use them. no licenses, serial numbers, registering, etc.. required.
What you cannot do is distribute it in any way. No sales, gifting, inheriting.. I am not sure if you can even let someone try it out.
“Guns can be home made from metal with machine tools available to harbor freight and grizzly.”
Dyspeptic has indicated he is working on a book dealing with homemade firearms.
Hopefully, it contain some designs that ‘China Freight’ and similar quality lathes, mills, ect can handle…
I’m stilling waiting for the UN to shit it’s collected pantaloons when metal printers become more common place.
Watch for the Blowback!
While on the surface this is Great news, If anyone here thinks .gov is going to take this Ruling Lying Down, then they are sadly mistaken.
I Fully expect the FBI to launch a STAGED Mass “Shooting” attack ( Possibly FRIDAY THE 13th ), with “Ghost Guns” as the Main weapon of choice and using ‘Crisis Actors’ where no one actually Dies, to Try and Demonize Ghost Guns and immediately pass legislation to Ban them.
Fraud Trump and the entire republican party will be behind this!
If “Anything” happens on FRIDAY THE 13th or the near future, please call it out for the STAGED Farce that it is and DEMAND HD Video proof!
Mass “Shooting” False Flag Alert!
Also, Fraud Trump is overseas and many False Flags are Staged in Countries when the Leaders of that Country are away!
Fully expect an FBI STAGED and Acted out Mass “Shooting” using “Ghost Guns” in the near future to Try and create a pretext to Ban them!
Lower the dosage of what ever your smoking son.
Come on. Don’t be “that guy” .
Enough with the conspiracy theories already.
Conspiracy theory is a term coined by the CIA to discredit people who ask valid questions and offer alternative explanations to the official story. In the last 20 years, conspiracy theory has this funny habit of turning into conspiracy fact, PRISM, operation choke point, CIA drug running (Contra wars, air america, black site funding, etc), fast & furious, corporate censorship via tech sector, we even have bases all over africa that congress apparently never approved of.
The music fest shooting is just one of the latest cluster fucks where the official story and presented evidence has been so bungled up that only a willing fool would believe it.
These things happened…whether by a bad guy or another bad guy (government)….
they are not fake…like most claims of racism are…
9/11 DID happen…people died…buildings toppled…if you choose not to believe the version put out there, fine….
Pulse DID happen…Parkland DID happen…Sandy Hook DID happen…OK city DID happen…Columbine DID happen…etc
I was not there…but I believe WW 1 and WW2 DID happen.,.,.slavery, too
Blame the Rothchilds…Masons…whatever…things DO happen
We may never know the true reasons why…but that is life
get one
Mark1955,
A nefarious person or group doesn’t need to fake an event: there are plenty of unhinged people in our nation who will do the real deal. All that nefarious person or group needs to do is find such an unhinged person, give him/her some “ghost” guns, wind him/her up, and point him/her to the preferred venue.
legislate away. The knowledge cannot be unlearned. Before this lawsuit, there were already 100’s of thousands of downloads worldwide of these files. Forbes even did a great article on it citing from which countries (tip: GB is not as unarmed as their politicos would have people believe).
Legislating the banning of ghost guns is like trying to legislate water to be dry.
You’re wrong; the knowledge is unlearned faster than you could ever imagine. Look at the insanely dangerous and impractical weapons produced in African, Indian, and other such countries; Khyber Pass can turn garbage into mostly-functional guns that resemble working designs, but only because they have the knowledge.
Y’know, I was going to post this last night on that other thread where you went on about satanists and Friday the 13th, but I didn’t want to be rude to someone who just forgot to take their medication today. I’m a live and let live type, really. But if you’re going to spam your message, people should also be aware….
BE ALERT THAT FRIDAY THE 13TH IS ALSO A MOVIE FROM 1990 STARRING KEVIN BACON, WHO IS FACTUALLY KNOWN TO HAVE ONLY SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION FROM EVERY PERSON EVER, WHICH IS PROOF OF ILLUMINATI SOCIAL ENGINEERING.
ALSO, IF YOU ADD THE DIGITS OF JULY (7) AND 13 (1+3), 7+1+3=11, WHICH REPRESENTS THE TWIN TOWERS. THE MOVIE ALSO INVOLVES A HOCKEY PLAYER, WHO IS THEREFORE CANADIAN!!!! PROOF OF UN INVOLVEMENT!”
Im thinking “they” are going to have a mass murder by stampeding a hurd of elephants through a veteran’s retirement home and conveniently have no camera footage or witnesses. “They” will then leave behind an unconscious round of 6.5 CM to take the fall. It is absolutely possible because of the amount of hate for 6.5 CM! Especially the hate coming from the establishment military indistrial complex that is heavily invested in 7.62x51mm!!
I kept waiting and waiting… and it showed up…
Creedmoor saves the day again.
More likely, the ATF will come out with a ruling that anything with a chamber is a “firearm” and will require a serial and a full category of licensure to manufacture and background checks to purchase, doing an end-run around any price drop in 3d metal printers. As of now, the only controlled piece on an AR is the one part DD is helping people make, out of aluminum(if you read the wired article, you realize how ignorant and left-leaning the writer is about firearms since he thinks that printing parts in sintered aluminum is “printing any gun part at home; “such as consumer-grade aluminum-sintering 3-D printers that can print objects in metal—can make practically any digital gun component materialize in someone’s garage”. Imagine how long an aluminum sear would last, let alone the incendiary results of an aluminum barrel?!). This would be the fastest way for the ATF to stem the tide of this information flow. Then, you couldn’t just order the rest of the parts to make and AR, you’d have to go to your LGS to get what you need. Making a decent rifled barrel is the next level in machining and most are not going to go buy a lathe…
If memory serves Afgahnies were making rifles to fight the Ruskies back in the 80’s and drilled the barrels by hand, which sounds impossible, but they were surprisingly accurate all things considered. I am also surprised no one has brought up the venerable spud gun. Consider this before you ROTFL, we have a local pumpkin cannon that will chuck a 3 – 5 pounder about 200 yards. That’s an impressive breaching round, or defensive ability.
Good point, accuracy is, after all, relative to distance/target size.
Since you brought up your punkin chunker, my boys and I built a 2-man portable ballista with bundles of mule tape as the torsion springs. It’ll fling a sharpened broom handle about 200 yards with a pretty high degree of repeatability.
It’s a great time to be alive.
eeeeeeeeeh !
You know once upon a time I dream of making own open source firearm designs and making a YouTube channel about building them complete with downloadable designs. With this ruling I might be able to make that happen after all. Although, sadly, I’ll not be able to put the videos up on YT, I could at least try to put them up on one of the new and upcoming streaming platforms.
All that is probably already available on the Dark Web…but since I don’t venture there…it must not exist…at least according to some posters here…
Oh I’d imagine so. But making the designs open source could accelerate development of new designs, or perhaps even replacement parts for designs of parts that are hard to come by. Say for instance replacement cylinders for the old M1895 Nagent revolver.
… aaaaand, the “Dark Web” you’ve heard about isn’t so dark.
There’s a thing called “The Internet Telescope.” Why? They’re listening in on what’s flying around, not the content because they can’t, but the activity. Metaphorically, like radio telescopes scanning the sky to see if there’s something out there.
The amount of traffic unaccounted for, and they can’t even tell what it is is … astounding.
Dark *Webs*, I think.
/Tech rant…
When the light of retribution falls upon the Dread Pirate Roberts, and chatter-bots who can’t tell a high-capacity clipazine from a folding thing that goes up are all a-talking about that dark web thing … the real fringers have already moved on.
The internet is intrinsically a point-to-point protocol. There’s choke-point channeling at the lower layers sometimes, as telcos and bulk data people “consolidate” in one way or another. BUT, once you get to the routing layer, it’s adaptive, point-to-point. Aaaand all the higher level protocols are just payloads. They could be anything. Often are.
The point is, when there’s actual specs (RFC in internet entineering speak) for deep space “internet” and “internet over carrier pigeon”, it’s hard to stop the signal.
The point is when Usenet and *modem BBS* systems self-cooperated to connect conversations across countries, and the whole world. At 2400 baud (Roughly “bits per second.” Or maybe 1/1000 your current slowest intenet connection. Maybe 1/10,000.)
Following up on a regular media report on Berners-Lee’s cri du cour about the corruption of his creation, I found viable projects *making and shipping* encrypted, decentralized, point to point apps for “social media” “microblogging / Twitter replacement”, and “video streaming.” That’s not counting things like the BRAVE browser. (I question the libraries that have to come in, based on their platform technology choices. Maybe not a complete solution.)
It’s hard to stop the signal.
Suck it, libs.
Just last week I was wearing my “Math is not a crime.” t-shirt. And got questions. You don’t wear a provocation shirt without having your message ready.
Yeah, ban all the things. Ban talking about all the things. Thinking about all the things. Because …
It’s inhuman, inhumane, creates incredible bad consequences, and doesn’t work besides. So yeah, ban all the talking about how the world works, because an uninformed citizenry is ideal for governing themselves to their own advantage.
Or maybe that’s not the goal.
A tinfoil hat is not a good look for me. I wish they wouldn’t work quite so hard to make even the most out there conspiracy theories seem sane.
/Rant…
They tried to ban math. Literally. Just talking about the math behind encryption, secure identity, and similar. You can’t talk about that. Now you kinda can, that is until some enterprising prosecutor, decidey-guy in the security apparatus, or just flat-footed gumshoe decides that you able to talk about how that stuff works is just too skeevey.
Back in the day they harassed the guy who wrote PGP for over a decade. Because math. After it was already out there. Been published. Repeatedly. Not by him. They went after some guy publishing the same stuff, again.
That round was about Making The World Safe For Democracy, under the legal fig leaf of “alternative use” technologies that might enable our exestential enemies. The Russians. From the decade that called and wants its foreign policy back.. They tried again under Clinton. Anybody remember the clipper chip with special “good guys only” master keys, to be put in literally every consumer data device? And they’ve been at it again, with The War on Terror, the Obama-era Administrative / Surveillance State expansions. There’s doubtless more. I can’t keep up with the endless shenanigans.
The “disarm the citizens” attitude that “Everything not compulsory is forbidden!” applies to way more. No, you can’t do anything on your own. No, you can’t understand how stuff works. No, there are no trade-offs, and you are certainly not qualified to discuss them.
Trump is a lightweight compared to these other guys. When you are way, way, way worse than a shallow, reactive, sketchy “business” man with authoritarian tendencies n no particular grasp of the theory of natural rights … maybe reflect on yourself a bit. Just sayin.
And who’s idea was it to put the guy in charge of Surveillance in occupied Iraq in charge of internal “security” here? And who’s idea was it to keep him on through the following administration?
Anywho… one of the “data freedom” kinds of groups funds themselves in part by selling SWAG, including t-shirts with their logo, “Math is not a crime.” No, math is not a crime. And if we can talk about this stuff we may find that every damn consumer CPU chip sold for the last 15-ish years has not one but two vulnerabilities that defeat *literally every attempt to keep one thing on your computer clear of any other.* People aren’t nearly scared enough about Spectre and Meltdown. And not nearly P-O-ed enough. They knew.
Information wants to be free, like the CDC stat on reported DGUs, which got out eventually, despite their decades’ effort to suppress data that didn’t fit their a priori agenda.
I wouldn’t wear a tinfoil hat if they weren’t always beaming this stuff into my head to control me.
Think about this governments. How long do you think it will be with the advent of semi-autonomous computers that are mated to advanced metal 3-D printers before you can tell a computer “I’m going to need a .45acp type 1911A1 pistol.” “Start making me one.” And that’s all you’ll have to do to get a gun.
Am I the only one who reconized the optical comparator in the background. Kind of funny using something from the 40s when talking about 3D printing.
When you want to measure something pretty closely, optical comparators work pretty well. Your other alternative is a CMM machine, and they can cost much more.
I wish people would support all new gun technology like bump stocks, $175.00, not just very expensive 3d printers.
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