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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: 1) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday October 05 2017, @03:51PM (3 children)
The nitpicks were entirely worth it, as I learned quite a bit, thanks!
And now that you mention it, and I'm sorry for making this hearsay but I can't cite details now, I do remember something-or-other about someone in a state in the Northwest (Montana, maybe?) defending the idea that as long as the unserialed guns are sold only in-state to other in-state owners and not with the intent of doing business that interstate commerce cannot attach and therefore ATF has no jurisdiction on the transactions. I'd be surprised if that actually flew if put to the test (if I were ATF I might think about playing the "it affects commerce of out-of-state sellers so all such transactions have interstate impact.")
But really the point of this post is saying Thanks for the corrections, AC, and now I wish I haven't posted the thread so I could give you some mod point love!
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @07:42PM
Funnily enough ...
that's the same logic used by states legalising marijuana. If you look at the regulations passed by states like Washington, they're very clear that this is all about in-state stuff only.
It's actually a pretty interesting situation. If the feds go after them and win, it's a big PR black eye for the feds and falls right into the federal-overreach scenario. If the feds go after them and lose, a whole bunch of other things suddenly slip from the fingers of the feds. So far the feds haven't called the states' bluff - and if they're smart, they won't. It's a no-win scenario for them.
Funnily enough, the all-commerce-affects-interstate-commerce argument dates back to, and was a sore point as of, FDR's New Deal. You can look it up, but it's very controversial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @11:31PM (1 child)
You're welcome, and thanks for taking it in the spirit it was meant.
You may be thinking of Montana's Firearms Freedom Act [wikipedia.org], and similar laws passed in several other states. Montana's law, at least, was struck down by the Ninth Circuit using exactly the reasoning you suggest, that even sales of firearms that can't cross state lines still affects the national market for firearms. However, to my knowledge the Supreme Court has not heard any cases involving any of these laws, so it's still possible they could uphold laws of this sort in the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @03:48AM
The thing is, that the Ninth Circuit taking it that way doesn't really matter as much precisely because they're bound by SCOTUS precedent going back to the New Deal. It's also an issue that does not get the same kind of excited attention in the big coastal cities, so it's not a situation that would actually highlight the federal jackboot in the same way that marijuana prosecutions would.
Same logic, different political reality.