Dpp1978
Posts: 1012
Joined: 2/4/2006
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I've known about this group, and their ringleader, for a while. Gun control was one of my areas of research (I'm all for tight regulation on all firearms for the record) and I try to keep up with it. They first gained limited notoriety for their 3D printed AR recievers and high capacity magazines. As, in the US, the only integral part of a gun that is really regulated is the receiver (the bit that feeds the bullets into the breech), the political fallout from the most recent batch of spree killings put AR receivers (and high capacity mags) under the microscope and interest in his little project picked up.
While his AR products are far from robust and fail after only a few rounds have been fired (although there is the perfectly valid argument that even one is too many), they are certainly worrying: especially as printing materials improve. However the ability to print a receiver is only of use to those in jurisdictions where the other parts are readily available: like the US. You'd still need a lot of parts to make one of his receivers work which render them impractical for those of us living in countries where all gun parts are more tightly controlled.
This new all plastic gun is more problematic; not because it is more easily accessible to would be miscreants than a traditional gun, but because it is made almost entirely out of plastic. Only the firing pin is metal. This would obviously present certain security risks. But this is more about the mode of manufacture rather than the finished product. Bespoke firearms designed to be smuggled into places where firearms are not supposed to be have been made for as long as firearms have been made. It is not a new phenomena. In its most basic form a gun is ridiculously simple. I'm sure this printed gun is prehistoric compared to some of the stuff made from sturdier composite materials out there. What this one has is more self promotion. I dread to think what enterprising nut-jobs the world over have sitting in their home-brew arsenals. There is real wisdom in the notion that the loonies who shout about their intentions are not the ones to really worry about: you can see them coming. It is the quiet ones brooding away in isolation who go unnoticed that you have to really worry about. But that train of thought leads to sleepless nights and paranoia and a desire to wrap everything up in cotton wool. Something equally insidious albeit at the other end of the spectrum.
I suppose a disenchanted kid with access to high end prototyping equipment could print one of these out with relatively little understanding. But I can't see that as a real risk for the foreseeable future. At this point the cost of entry and the learning curve are too steep. I guess universities and engineering firms might have to be a little more vigilant about after hours personal projects but that has always been the case. This is nothing which couldn't be made on a CNC mill. It is nothing that a skilled machinist couldn't make using a manual mill and lathe. They'd be less likely to explode and take your fingers off too as they'd be using better materials and tested production techniques.
Or if you really want a gun you could just buy one. Even in our tightly regulated, gun averse society they are relatively easy to get hold of if you aren't too concerned about little things like legalities. It'd actually be easier for a would be criminal to get a real gun illegally in England than it would be for you or me to get a realistic airsoft gun lawfully. Gun controls only affect those who abide by the law and the vast majority of gun crime, at least in the UK, is carried out with illegal firearms.
The most dangerous thing that comes out of this is not the end product but the politics. It is just about self promotion for the man and his cause and getting worked up about it is playing to his advantage.
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