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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: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 13 2018, @01:50AM (8 children)
So, the kiddies are going to pump out toy guns, made of pot-metal instead of plastic? Oh, the humanity! If they had any knowledge of firearms and metallurgy, they would see that this is not a good idea, just a stunt, and a rather stupid one, at that. We are talking about material that may have to withstand 35.000 pounds per square inch, and not become a fragmentary grenade. Even cast metal is not suitable; barrels and receivers are best made of forged steel.
Now go back to your video games.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 13 2018, @02:11AM (3 children)
Hey, dude! I should mod you up, for pointing out something that should be obvious. The first 3D printed gun was a POS. The damned thing was as likely to kill the shooter, as it was to kill the target. So far, the art hasn't progressed terribly far. But, some pretty smart people are working on improving it. Metallurgy. Given time, I suspect that alloys will be formulated that can be printed out, giving whatever qualities are necessary for the finished product. Given time, 3D printed weapons are probably going to be equal to, and possibly superior to, the best weapons on the market today.
Time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEvcj_cmn6U [youtube.com]
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday July 13 2018, @04:02AM
Looking at the iro3d, I'd say that once you've fused the steel in the kiln, it object can be heat treated like usual. With a density of 99.8% I'd expect someone vaguely competent would be able to make something that lasts quite well.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 13 2018, @05:14AM
Who's first going to seed the web with slightly flawed designs that will blow up in the user's face ?
There's a lesson opportunity for people who hate Americans, people who hate self-armed Americans, and people who hate the idea of non-Americans getting blueprints...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @09:29AM
Is it me or is Runaway starting to a adopt a slightly Trumpian sentence structure and vocabulary? Nothing too obvious yet, just little hints.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Friday July 13 2018, @03:33AM (1 child)
AR lowers, which are the part that's legally a firearm, don't need to hold much force at all. Industry standards are aluminum or fiberglass filled plastic. It's the barrel and bolt that need strength, and those can be mail ordered.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday July 13 2018, @04:45AM
That is true now. The idea behind 3d printed guns is that outlawing them becomes pointless. If they outlawed them you couldn't order those off the shelf mass produced parts and would be forced to use whatever you could print or repurpose other metal bits into being components of a weapon. Look at the current nightmare of regulation of "precursors" in the War On Some Drugs to see how crazy that could get before 3d printing got good enough to make the entire thing from raw feed stock.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @01:31AM (1 child)
35ksi sounds like 9mm (or .357 magnum), but why would you use such a high pressure cartridge in a pot-metal barrel?
Wouldn't you choose a cartridge suited to the limitations of your materials and production methods, like .38 special, which delivers ~70% of 9mm's energy at half the pressure? or .45 colt, which matches 9mm's energy at 40% of the pressure? And of course there's nothing wrong with good old buckshot; shotshells run from 11ksi to 14ksi.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday July 14 2018, @02:33AM
And you expect someone doing kewl 3-D printing to have any grasp of such things? Blinded by material science! Ammosexuals with a bomb in their pocket!