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The Ghost Gunner has been updated to allow the CNC milling of a much more popular and accessible form of firearm: a handgun:
For the past five years, Cody Wilson has applied every possible advance in digital manufacturing technology to the mission of undermining government attempts at gun control. First he created the world's first 3-D printed gun, a deadly plastic weapon anyone could print at home with a download and a few clicks. Then he started selling a computer-controlled milling machine designed to let anyone automatically carve out the body of an untraceable AR-15 from a semifinished chunk of aluminum, upgrading his provocations from plastic to metal. Now his latest advance in home firearm fabrication allows anyone to make an object designed to defy the most basic essence of gun control: A concealable, untraceable, and entirely unregulated metal handgun.
On Sunday, Wilson's gun rights advocacy group, Defense Distributed, announced a new release of software for his computer-controlled milling machine known as the Ghost Gunner. The new code allows the 1-foot-cubed tabletop machine—which uses a spinning bit to carve three-dimensional shapes with minute precision—to not only produce untraceable bodies of AR-15s but to carve out the aluminum frame of an M1911 handgun, the popular class of semiautomatic pistols that includes the Colt 45 and similar weapons. Wilson says he plans to follow up soon with software for producing regulation-free Glocks and other handgun models to follow.
Wilson's goal now, he says, is to do for small arms what Defense Distributed did for AR-15s when it first released the $1,500 Ghost Gunner milling machine exactly three years ago to the day: Give people the ability to make a lethal weapon at home with no regulation whatsoever.
This story came out before the mass shooting in Las Vegas, on the third anniversary of the initial release of the Ghost Gunner, just in case you were wondering.
Also at Ars Technica:
"It's a certain type of person who builds and enjoys an AR-15—that's a lot of gun, and most people don't feel the need to have a big ol' battle rifle," Wilson says. "But we believe lots of people are interested in the conversation about an untraceable, concealable handgun. It's been on the roadmap the whole time for this project. It's just always been a question of how we get there, and it ended up being very, very difficult—kinda like the brass ring of the project, if you will."
Previously: FedEx Refuses to Ship Defense Distributed's Ghost Gunner CNC Mill
Man Who Used CNC Mill to Manufacture AR-15 "Lowers" Sentenced to 41 Months
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:58PM (8 children)
Well, the other matter is that sure, to make one gun, the Ghost Gunner is quite pricey. However, what happens when you want to make 10-20 to arm your neighborhood? As far as I'm aware, with Nevada and Texas law (maybe others, and IANAL), this would be legal, as third party sale of used guns is allowed without any paperwork required. Even if you can't sell them, you can rent out time on your machinery so they could make their own, which obviously accomplishes the same end.
Heck, this machine could be purchased for a maker space and end up being potentially cheaper than just buying the guns by the time you've milled about 20-50 guns. And as was pointed out, they're untraceable (or at least, harder to trace). For better or worse, that's value added for many people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:18PM
I forgot to mention that the cost could be spread over multiple guns. As for the maker/hackerspace getting one, it seems plausible. You can use it to mill other stuff. You could slap a sticker over the Ghost Gunner logo to avoid offending someone's sensibilities.
https://www.midweststeelsupply.com/store/7075aluminumplate [midweststeelsupply.com]
I plugged 1.5" x 5" x 9" in and got about $50. Not sure if those measurements are correct but eh. The AR-15 80% lowers are sold for $65 on the Ghost Gunner site, and a Wired writer made the AR-15 lower receiver for $80.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mhajicek on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:57PM (5 children)
In the USA each person can legally make up to three unregistered firearms per year, so long as you don't sell them before two years from the date of manufacture. Any more than that, or if you sell them sooner, and the BATF will conclude that you made them for the purpose of sale, which is not legal without a firearms manufacturer license. If you, your spouse, and your multiple children each make three, that's a fair number.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:00PM (4 children)
I smell an arbitrary restriction in violation of the Second Amendment.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday October 03 2017, @10:09PM
That isn't a matter of law; as with many things in the US it's a matter of precedence. That's where the BATF decided to draw the line between "making for personal use" and "manufacturing", since "obviously" no "reasonable person" would want to make more than three per year for personal use.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 04 2017, @02:16AM (2 children)
Flamebait? Come on mods - it isn't flamebait, despite the fact that I disagree with AC.
The second amendment guarantees our right to own and to bear arms. One phrase, "well regulated militia" stands out. Obviously, if I can build and keep three guns per year WITHOUT any regulation, then in a few years, I can have a real arsenal. Basically, the regulation only separates the hobbyist from a commercial operation. If I'm building ten guns per year, or a hundred, then I'm probably selling them for profit.
You can argue the number as being arbitrarily low - it might be reasonable to set the number at twelve. But it is also reasonable to presume that high volume production indicates a commercial operation, and gubbermint reserves the right to regulate and tax commerce. You're not going to get around that taxation thing by citing the second amendment, unless and until Colt, Browning, S&W, and others get around it.
As has been pointed out already - if i can build 3, my wife can make 3 of her own, and each of my sons can make 3 each, that's fifteen firearms for my home alone. They can sit in a safe for three years, then we can give them away, sell them, or whatever the hell I want to do with them. Obviously, this isn't going to make us rich, but it's a decent supplement to our incomes. 0 sales the first year, 0 sales the second year, 15 sales the third year, 15 sales the fourth year, and on it goes. We probably can't get what Colt gets for their firearms, but we don't have as much invested as Colt does either. The market value of our firearms will probably depend on the brand of parts we put into the frames - I MIGHT get $400 each for them, more likely nearer $300.
Of course, if a lot of people are using these printers, the value will be even lower. Flooding the market tends to do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:05PM (1 child)
are you actually defending the pieces of shit at the at fucking f? are you such a bootlicker that you can't see that that agency has no business even existing, never mind it's blatant crimes against america? disgusting.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 05 2017, @01:04AM
Think. Don't act all fucking emotional, THINK.
I pointed at commerce, which government claims all rights and authority to control. No one has successfully challenged government's claim on that score. If government has the right and authority to control commerce - especially interstate commerce - then, yes, they can put limits on the amounts of items you can produce before you must get all the business licenses and crap to go into business.
How does that defend the ATF, exactly? Next, you'll claim that I have defended all of the asinine decisions that the IRS has ever made, based on the same post.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:54PM
Knowing every stop in the road from factory to user's hands is not all that useful really. More than likely the last tracked sale will be a legal one (because paperwork defines legal) and the next sale/transfer/lost/stolen/barter will be undocumented, yet not provably illegal. The best you get is word of mouth.
But for any of that police have to already have captured the weapon. They will/may still be able to match breach face to spent casing, recovered bullet to rifled barrel. These can all be swapped out by Joe Sixpack, and anyone with ability to do a little smith work would have no problem changing the signature of key parts.
(if you load your own, and fire a hot load in your cases, recover, reload lighter rounds, and fire them in a different gun, chances are matching that breach face to those casings is impossible. Not even to the most recent weapon - especially for light loads. Of course the FBI would probably invoke some voodoo science [latimes.com] as they have in the past [wikipedia.org] to trace it via mitochondrial DNA deposits).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.