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The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the gun-without-a-bang dept.

AnonTechie writes:

When Cody Wilson revealed the world’s first fully 3-D printed gun last year, he showed that the “maker” movement has enabled anyone to create a working, lethal firearm with a click in the privacy of his or her garage. Now he’s moved on to a new form of digital DIY gunsmithing. And this time the results aren’t made of plastic.

Wilson’s latest radically libertarian project is a PC-connected milling machine he calls the Ghost Gunner. Like any computer-numerically-controlled (or CNC) mill, the one-foot-cubed black box uses a drill bit mounted on a head that moves in three dimensions to automatically carve digitally-modeled shapes into polymer, wood or aluminum. But this CNC mill, sold by Wilson’s organization known as Defense Distributed for $1,200, is designed to create one object in particular: the component of an AR-15 rifle known as its lower receiver.

That simple chunk of metal has become the epicenter of a gun control firestorm. A lower receiver is the body of the gun that connects its stock, barrel, magazine and other parts. As such, it’s also the rifle’s most regulated element. Mill your own lower receiver at home, however, and you can order the rest of the parts from online gun shops, creating a semi-automatic weapon with no serial number, obtained with no background check, no waiting period or other regulatory hurdles.
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/cody-wilson-ghost-gunner/

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Thursday October 02 2014, @02:07PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Thursday October 02 2014, @02:07PM (#100950) Homepage Journal

    So...why do people like the parent just assume that milling machines like this should be banned?

    Because they're "thinking" with their emotions. Emotionalism and logic mix about as well as oil and water.

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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by BasilBrush on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:18PM

    by BasilBrush (3994) on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:18PM (#100985)

    You're confusing emotion with morality.

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    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:50PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:50PM (#101001) Homepage Journal

      I don't think so. People want to ban guns out of fear. What does gun ownership have to do with morality?

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @12:35AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @12:35AM (#101206)

        Women and women-like men.

      • (Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Friday October 03 2014, @01:12PM

        by BasilBrush (3994) on Friday October 03 2014, @01:12PM (#101369)

        You demonstrate your confusion well.

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