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For those in the US with a combined interest in 3D-Printers, intersections of the 1st and 2nd Amendments, and legal precedents; Cody Wilson has been fighting the US Government for half a decade.
Short version: after Wilson uploaded his 3D pistol plans to his site, over 100,000 people downloaded it - this drew the attention of the US authorities, who tried to use the International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to force a take-down.
The authorities argued that by posting the 3D printer plans for a firearm, Mr. Wilson was effectively exporting firearms, and subject to federal regulation. Eventually the Department of Justice dropped the case, paving the way for DIY'ers to publish such things freely.
The article cites 'promises' made by DoJ to move the regulations to another department.
Wired's article: A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora's Box for DIY Guns (archive)
Related: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home
Japanese Gun Printer Goes to Jail
Suspected 3D-Printed Gun Parts and Plastic Knuckles Seized in Australia
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
Ghost Gunner Software Update Allows the Milling of an M1911 Handgun
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Friday July 13 2018, @01:45AM (4 children)
This whole take-down is a clear example of the law of unintended consequences. Wilson published the files for a single shot (per barrel) fragile plastic gun shooting an anemic cartridge. The Feds order him to stop distributing the files. He decides to file a lawsuit but it will cost at least several hundred thousand dollars which he doesn't have. In order to fund that lawsuit, Wilson and his team develop the Ghost Gunner, a CNC mill that allows people to finish 80% lower receivers (the actual gun for legal purposes) for both the AR15 and 1911 pistol. So what the gov't ended up with is BOTH the files for the toy being available, and thousands of desktop CNC machines capable of cranking real full power weapons. The price of being heavy handed.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday July 13 2018, @01:45AM (3 children)
I meant to add above, that unintended consequence is what I find to be the most amusing part. Sigh. Preview.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @03:57AM (2 children)
Can you get the 1911/AR15 80 percent kits in a manner that is actually anonymous?
Mail ordering isn't anonymous (credit card and mailing address), and buying from a gun shop isn't (you can be 9/10 or more of them are funnelling video feeds directly to the feds now to keep from having in-person visits on a basis bordering on but not surpassing the qualifications for harassment.)
Taken in that context, does allowing lower recievers really make a difference, or just provide a false sense of complacency while the g-men careless dot their i's and cross their t's and get ready for the crackdown of all crackdowns?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday July 13 2018, @04:23AM
80% lowers are a cheat. Better to just buy bar stock and do a 0% lower: https://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?id=60&step=2&top_cat=1 [onlinemetals.com] Even better, get it at a scrap yard. Or melt aluminum cans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on1d9Bz34bU [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @02:28AM
You can gain a measure of privacy by getting some other guy to order the 80% receiver and parts kit online, and sell it to you for cash; it's not a firearm, so there's no legal "straw purchase" concerns.
But of course that's not really anonymous, because most people approached by a total stranger with such an offer would suspect it for some sort of ATF trap; only someone who knows you would be willing to participate.
That crackdown is never happening. There's too much risk of a literal cold-dead-hands martyr inspiring widespread rebellion against those knocking on doors and taking guns. Whether that revolt is successful (whatever that means), embroils the nation in endless civil war, or just gets squashed like so many bugs, the one constant is it that it ends badly for whoever gave the confiscation order.
So guns may be outlawed, and people may be told to turn them in, but there will be no immediate effort to round up those who don't comply. If people keep them in defiance of the law, they must keep them hidden, and not tell others about them. From there, the problem takes care of itself. Within a generation or two, and depending how careful their owners were about the hiding and shutting up, the guns are either already siezed after the owner blabbed to the wrong person, being discovered in the attic by kids who dutifully turn them over to the police, or lost in a buried cache that nobody knows about.
The more rational concern is not a massive crackdown, but that you as an individual become interesting (for whatever reason) to someone in some law enforcement agency, and in searching for dirt on you, they turn up 80% receiver and/or parts kit purchases.