Digging Into the Legal Status of 3-D Printed Guns 404
Posted
by
timothy
from the point-of-clarification-your-honor dept.
from the point-of-clarification-your-honor dept.
jfruh writes "Defense Distributed, a U.S. nonprofit that aims to make plans for guns available owners of 3-D printers, recently received a federal firearms license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. That license doesn't cover semi-automatic weapons and machine guns, though — and there are questions about whether the legislation that defines that license really apply to the act of giving someone 3-D printing patterns. Experts on all sides of the issue seemed to agree that no clarification of the law would happen until a high-profile crime involving a 3-D printed weapon was committed."
Already legally settled (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why does 3d printing matter (Score:4, Interesting)
Fact is, the parts of a modern machine gun (including full-auto) that a skilled metalworker can't easily fabricate at home ARE legally available online with no restrictions or background check.
And if you dont care about making a good gun, just something that can cause some damage, its even easier.
Re:Why does 3d printing matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Legally, it shouldn't matter. Practically, 3D printing has big implications for gun right/gun control.
I disagree. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but I finally worked it out. 3D printing is not a revolution, it's just popular. You can put a CNC mill together for between 1.5x and 2x the price of a hobbyist 3D printer. It will work with metal and it will produce a smoother and more accurate final product. Why is 3D printing being singled out when CNC mills are a much more viable problem?
3D printing changes the world so that making a gun no longer requires specialized equipment nor specialized skills. So from the gun-control point of view, there is a real risk of guns being made in secret, in a decentralized way that is hard to detect, and being trafficked outside the existing system of licensed dealers and background checks. So the old framework of gun-control laws won't work. A would-be criminal who can easily make his own gun neatly evades the whole system.
This simply isn't true. Home CNC has been around for over a decade, in the $2000-$10,000 range. The more DIY you want to get, the lower it goes. The software is open source (LinuxCNC) and the electronics are simple.
There big question is, what will replace the old legal model? There are many possible things the legislature could try, from giving up on gun control (unlikely) to trying to regulate the plans for gun parts (impractical, as we know from file sharing) to trying to clamp down on the printers themselves (scary).
This is a good question. The problem, though, is that the ship has sailed on controlling the printers. There are so many plans available from so many people (see file sharing) and the printers themselves are cobbled together from hobby electronics and parts you can buy at Home Depot.
This is how the tech used to make the gun parts matters.
You may be right that someone in government will try and crack down on the printers themselves (Think of the children!), but it won't be long after that happens that someone with a CNC mill starts producing "controlled" items. The technology used is irrelevant.
Re:Why does 3d printing matter (Score:4, Interesting)
The skills required is essentially "can operate a power drill". It's really not that complex.
As someone who owns both a 3D printer and some CNC machine tools, I very much disagree. Precision machining of weapons-grade steel requires a huge amount of skill and experience. I started CNC machining 15 years ago, and I would probably need to do a few weeks of research and practice, and probably buy some new equipment, before I could make a functional rifled barrel. I have done most of my machining work with plastics such as actetal (Delrin), and aluminum, but I have worked with steel enough to know that it is significantly more difficult.
With 3D printing, on the other hand, you just push the button and wait. The downside is that for 3D printing at home, you are limited to plastic. But that will change soon enough.