First fully 3D printed gun now exists

[Seth]

Well any machinist worth his salt could make a more useable firearm in a machine shop

Even easier than that for the end user. Dozens of machine shops mill out "80%" AR-15 (and other) receivers that are not complete enough to be classified as a firearm. They are just a lump of metal that looks like a receiver. You still have to machine the well for the trigger parts and drill it for the cross pins. However, I just bought a kit that includes a machined jig that provides guides for the holes and the action well. You can complete it with a drill press and some files...or a mill. And they include the proper size drill bits and mills.

I've got 4 partials waiting for me to get access to a mill, which should be soon.

By the way, it's perfectly legal to make your own gun in the US. You just have to fill out a federal form and pay a $200 tax and meet the requirements like putting a serial number and other information on it. Of course, you can just go ahead and make one WITHOUT doing all that and what are they going to do about it? Nothing. Because they will never know about it. Derp.

Application To Make a Firearm

§ 479.62 Application to make.
No person shall make a firearm unless the person has filed with the Director a written application on Form 1 (Firearms), Application to Make and Register a Firearm, in duplicate, executed under the penalties of perjury, to make and register the firearm and has received the approval of the Director to make the firearm which approval shall effectuate registration of the weapon to the applicant. The application shall identify the firearm to be made by serial number, type, model, caliber or gauge, length of barrel, other marks of identification, and the name and address of original manufacturer (if the applicant is not the original manufacturer). The applicant must be identified on the Form 1 (Firearms) by name and address and, if other than a natural person, the name and address of the principal officer or authorized representative and the employer identification number and, if an individual, the identification must include the date and place of birth and the information prescribed in §479.63. Each applicant shall identify the Federal firearms license and special (occupational) tax stamp issued to the applicant, if any. The applicant shall also show required information evidencing that making or possession of the firearm would not be in violation of law. If the making is taxable, a remittance in the amount of $200 shall be submitted with the application in accordance with the instructions on the form. If the making is taxable and the application is approved, the Director will affix a National Firearms Act stamp to the original application in the space provided therefor and properly cancel the stamp (see §479.67). The approved application will be returned to the applicant. If the making of the firearm is tax exempt under this part, an explanation of the basis of the exemption shall be attached to the Form 1 (Firearms).

, but being able to manufacture gunpowders and primers is another matter (reloading supplies would be controlled as well - you can reload the same casing.. 3 maybe 4 times?).

That's the critical path...primers. Even gunpowder is not that hard to make, but primers require substantial tooling and equipment, and is dangerous because of the friction-sensitive explosive material used to initiate the powder charge. That's why smart people are buying primers by the hundreds of thousands. Primers are less available at gun shows than ammunition is.

What a clever person could do is make perfectly accurate molds using a 3d printer to cast parts using steel in a backyard forge (easy things to setup). Other parts, such as the barrel, are easily turned in a machine shop. The carrier, the bolt assembly.. All feasible. Of course, it would be extremely hard to hide a sizeable operation - you'd have to make it an after-hours affair in a legitimate machine shop.

Nah. If the Mexican drug cartels can effectively hide their operations, literally anyone with a lathe and a mill...or a CNC mill...can easily hide it in some back-woods hollow in Kentucky. A used CNC mill costs about ten grand for one that will do the job. You can turn out 10 receivers a day with one. The rest of the parts, like barrels, bolts, trigger parts etc. are so ubiquitous and widely available as non-regulated parts that it's a simple thing to put together your own rifle.

Pandora's box is already open. Time to get used to the idea that people want to keep and bear arms and will do so no matter what the government wants.
..but I digress. Ammunition is much easier to control, especially given the ratio of expenditure between ammunition and firearms.[/quote]

[Seth]

The problem with that is it's incredibly hard to reuse primers already set in a casing.

But what I was really getting at is controlling ammunition sales through licensing (which would involve all the stuff a lot of gun people hate like psych profiling, etc.). New ammunition could have an identifying serial number stamped into the primer pocket which would be useful for forensics in identifying the point of sale and purchaser of said ammunition and would be extremely unlikely to be filed off as it would require a complete reload, be very time consuming, and possibly damage the casing. Or perhaps laser etched on the interior of the casing - that would be very reliable and solve the reloader problem, but add to the cost of new ammunition and require manufacturers to add another step (and some expensive equipment) to their process.

Old brass can only be reloaded a few times before it becomes dangerous, so in time all ammunition would be traceable. This would make it much more difficult for criminals to get ammunition as they would either have to pass the rigorous checks to obtain a license or obtain their ammo from another source who could be held criminally liable if their ammo was found used in a murder. Thus legislating institutionalized responsibility.

Of course, that would never happen.

This "microstamping" idea has already been tried, along with "forensic" shell casing requirements that require a manufacturer to submit a used shell casing to the police whenever a handgun is sold.

Doesn't work.

The microstamping involves a tiny, nearly invisible serial number on the bolt face that's supposed to stamp itself into the case head when the round is fired. In theory this, combined with an ammunition registry, will allow police to track crime casings.

Turns out that even if it worked (which it doesn't) all anyone has to do is lightly sand down the bolt face to remove the microstamp, and run a stainless-steel bore brush through the muzzle a few times to alter the scratches left on the bullet enough to frustrate a ballistic analysis...or just toss the barrel in the bay and replace it with a new one. That's what's so nice about the Model 1911 Colt pistol... it uses a barrel that's not attached permanently which can be replaced in literally a few seconds.

Then there's the incredible expense of trying to maintain a gun, much less an ammunition registry. Canada tried it and spent something like a billion dollars and had to give it up because it was too hard. And that was just for guns in Canada. For every gun in the US, there are probably 10,000 rounds of ammunition made and consumed every year. I just bought 3600 rounds of .308/7.62 Nato Lake City 147 grain cartridges at Knob Creek. I'm schlepping that 500 pounds of ammo all over Pennsylvania and New York at the moment because I haven't been home to drop it off. Lake City ammo is the best there is, it's mil-spec made FOR the military. I'm going in on a bulk purchase from a wholesaler for perhaps 90,000 rounds (a whole pallet) at $0.60 per round, which I can sell at gun shows for a buck a round...because it's so hard to find right now.

How is the federal government going to track the billions of rounds of ammunition that are fired ever year in the US?

Answer: They aren't. It's simply not possible and the cost would be prohibitive, and nobody would obey it, they'd just reload. That makes "microstamping" perfectly useless as a forensic tool, because there's no way to prove that the person who fired the bullet is the same one that bought the "registered" package of ammo. "Sorry officer, I gave a bunch of ammo to a guy I met at the range...it must have been him. Name? No, sorry, I don't know who he is..." Poof, there goes your probable cause.

[Seth]

The usual argument presented by gun lovers as to why gun control will not work, is that criminals will not obey the laws. So, if we ban hand guns, criminals will get them anyway - in this case by 3D printing.

Well, the latest American Skeptic magazine has an article on gun control, and it quotes official FBI figures. It turns out that all felony related firearms murders is less than 3,000 (for the year 2009). That is less than 25% of the murders carried out in that year. Of the rest, about 3,500 murders came from simple (though emotional) arguments between two people who were not listed as criminals. Two people, usually young men, get into a potent and powerful, possibly screaming, argument. One of them, when his anger is hot enough, pulls out a gun and shoots the other one dead. That simple cause outnumbers all felony related murders put together.

In other words, if we make hand guns illegal, and non criminals obey, the hand gun murder rate will drop massively even if felony related murders continue unabated.

That's a really interesting point. Will be interesting to see the reaction from the pro-gun faction. (I can guess.)

People who pull out guns and shoot one another without legal justification are called "felons." It's a felony to possess a firearm with the intent to use it unlawfully. And you'll find, if you examine the FBI numbers a bit closer, the vast majority of those "arguments" are between people who are not legally permitted to possess a handgun. They are either too young or they are otherwise disqualified from possessing a handgun, which means that merely by shoving it in their waistband long before the "argument" they are already committing a criminal act.

Here's what I found online:

In addition to concealed carry laws, states have recently enacted “Stand Your Ground” or “Castle” laws, first in Florida in 2005 and in 20 states since. In every state, everyone is allowed to use deadly force to protect themselves in their own home, provided the attacker isn’t retreating. But everyone was expected to retreat from a fight in a public place until these laws specifically allowed a person not to retreat (that is, “stand your ground”). A recent study by Cheng Cheng and Mark Hoekstra at Texas A&M University indicates that an extra 600 homicides occur in the U.S. each year because of these laws.25, 26 Why might this be? Of the 13,756 homicides counted in the 2009 FBI27 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) data, 3,368 (24.4%) were started because of “Other Arguments” (an argument not over money or property). This is more than all the 2,051 (14.9%) “Felony Homicides”28 and 1,495 (10.9%) “Non-Felony Homicides”29 (excluding “Other Arguments” listed above and the 1,996 or 14.5% of “Non-Felony Not Specified”). That means that alcohol, drugs, prostitution, and gangs combined killed fewer people than arguments did in the U.S. in 2009. The only category with more homicides is “Unknown,” which could mean unsolved, solved enough for the detectives to get an arrest and move on to the next case, or fully solved but poorly documented (Figures 11 and 12).

This is just so much bilge. Author David Hillshafer makes fatal assumptions in his "analysis" and draws unwarranted conclusions. The primary error is the assumption that an argument classified as an "other argument" not related to money or property means that there was not felony or criminal behavior involved prior to the gunfight. He amplifies his opinion by referring to concealed carry laws and makes the demonstrably false statement, "But everyone was expected to retreat from a fight in a public place until these laws specifically allowed a person not to retreat (that is, “stand your ground”). This is quite simply a falsehood. "Retreat to the wall" states, where prior to using deadly force a victim is required to try to retreat, disengage or escape, existed mainly along the east coast, whereas in the west, and almost totally west of the Mississippi the laws do not require retreat. I haven't done a survey all state laws, but probably should, but in many cases where states have enacted "stand your ground" laws, like Florida, there was no "retreat to the wall" statute to begin with. Rather, the laws were amended because of the penchant for anti-gun prosecutors to wrongfully prosecute innocent victims who shot their attacker in order to "send a message that violence is unacceptable." Also, the laws were designed to address the civil arena, where innocent victims who rightfully exercised their right to self defense (like Zimmerman) were hauled into civil court by bereaved relatives unwilling to acknowledge the criminality of their dead relative, which ends up costing the victim tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend against even if they are eventually found to be perfectly justified in killing the perp.

It is mostly the wrongful, vindictive prosecutions by DAs (like my least-favorite DA former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, Denver DA) who are anti-gun, pro-criminal liberal prosecutors who abuse their discretion to take people who obviously used justifiable deadly force to criminal trial to punish them by throwing them in jail, forcing them to post bond, ruining their reputations by arrest, and subjecting them to the enormous cost of defending themselves in criminal court, along with the civil suit abuse, that triggered "stand your ground" laws. These law are intended to force the police and prosecutors to properly investigate the incident and if they conclude there was lawful justification for the shooting they CANNOT file charges. And if they do, then the defendant has a right to raise the law as a defense (as Zimmerman is certain to do) at trial. If the defense is accepted by the judge, then the case gets thrown out right then and there. Likewise, if it's a justifiable shooting, relatives are prohibited from harassing the victim with frivolous civil suits.

So Hillshafer is drawing bogus conclusions from his "data." There is NO credible evidence that "other arguments" between otherwise law-abiding citizens, much less those licensed for concealed carry, are any sort of a problem in the US. Nor is there any credible evidence that "stand your ground" laws have actually been responsible for an increase in "other argument" shootings.

Keep in mind that an "other argument" shooting is likely to be two inner-city gang members dissing one another and then shooting each other over turf battles and reputation issues. Such shootings are NOT classified under "money or property" arguments, and so they fall under "other arguments."

Further, homicide rates in the U.S. in 2010 show that for every woman who committed homicide, 9.3 men committed homicide, and 3.8 homicides went unsolved. For both men and women, the peak age to both kill and be killed was 20 to 24 years old. That is, most homicides take the form of a young man killing another similarly aged man, probably as a result of an argument.

In other words, gang bangers throwing signs and fighting over turf and "respect."

The likely explanation that Concealed Carry plus Stand Your Ground laws result in 600 more deaths per year is that a young man with a concealed weapon in an argument is more likely to escalate the dispute and think he is standing his ground. As a result, arguments that would have ended in a fistfight are more likely to end in a gunfight.

And here's the crowning piece of bum custard from Hillshafer. This is a completely unwarranted and unsupported conclusion in large part because "young men" under the age of 21 are not legally permitted to possess handguns, and of those over 21 who might be, I suspect the vast majority of them are known gang members and felons who are disqualified from possessing firearms. Moreover, if a "young man" carries a handgun concealed without a permit, he's committing a crime right there. Add to that the fact that unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon with the intent to shoot someone with it if they "argue" with you is a crime too.

There is absolutely NO credible evidence that permitted CCW holders engage in spontaneous gunfights resulting from "other arguments" or anything else. The facts show that those who lawfully carry firearms pursuant to a permit are much LESS likely to be involved in ANY sort of crime, specifically gun related crime, than your average unpermitted citizen.

Hillshafer tries to link "stand your ground" laws to an increase in homicides by "[a] young [man] with a concealed weapon in an argument" by falsely implying that a gang-member thug illegally carrying a handgun for the purposes of shooting a rival gang member who "disses" him is not going to be able to avail himself of the protection of a stand your ground law because the principal requirement of such laws is that the shooter is NOT involved in the commission of a crime and was NOT the one to instigate the conflict.

Here's Colorado's statute.

18-1-704. Use of physical force in defense of a person

(1) Except as provided in subsections (2) and (3) of this section, a person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he may use a degree of force which he reasonably believes to be necessary for that purpose.

(2) Deadly physical force may be used only if a person reasonably believes a lesser degree of force is inadequate and:

(a) The actor has reasonable ground to believe, and does believe, that he or another person is in imminent danger of being killed or of receiving great bodily injury; or

(b) The other person is using or reasonably appears about to use physical force against an occupant of a dwelling or business establishment while committing or attempting to commit burglary as defined in sections 18-4-202 to 18-4-204; or

(c) The other person is committing or reasonably appears about to commit kidnapping as defined in section 18-3-301 or 18-3-302, robbery as defined in section 18-4-301 or 18-4-302, sexual assault as set forth in section 18-3-402, or in section 18-3-403 as it existed prior to July 1, 2000, or assault as defined in sections 18-3-202 and 18-3-203.

(3) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (1) of this section, a person is not justified in using physical force if:

(a) With intent to cause bodily injury or death to another person, he provokes the use of unlawful physical force by that other person; or

(b) He is the initial aggressor; except that his use of physical force upon another person under the circumstances is justifiable if he withdraws from the encounter and effectively communicates to the other person his intent to do so, but the latter nevertheless continues or threatens the use of unlawful physical force; or

(c) The physical force involved is the product of a combat by agreement not specifically authorized by law.

(4) In a case in which the defendant is not entitled to a jury instruction regarding self-defense as an affirmative defense, the court shall allow the defendant to present evidence, when relevant, that he or she was acting in self-defense. If the defendant presents evidence of self-defense, the court shall instruct the jury with a self-defense law instruction. The court shall instruct the jury that it may consider the evidence of self-defense in determining whether the defendant acted recklessly, with extreme indifference, or in a criminally negligent manner. However, the self-defense law instruction shall not be an affirmative defense instruction and the prosecuting attorney shall not have the burden of disproving self-defense. This section shall not apply to strict liability crimes.

Gang members throwing signs and dissing one another doesn't fall under the self-defense justification because it's provocation.

While it may, and I emphasize "may" be true that gang bangers engaging in "other arguments" might THINK that they are covered under a stand your ground law, they are not, in most cases, entitled to that protection because the are not innocent actors in the confrontation, and it's pretty rare that a prosecutor or a jury is going to accept such a defense if the shooter escalated or provoked the argument.

I challenge Hillshafer, or anyone else, to provide credible evidence that stand your ground laws are factually responsible for an increase in UNLAWFUL shootings by non-criminal properly permitted law-abiding citizens. I suspect the number of otherwise sane and law-abiding people who get in an argument with someone and pull out a gun and shoot them purely because they lose control of their emotions closely approaches zero in any given year. I know it does happen, but I suspect it's very infrequent, and even if it isn't, it's still not rational to infringe on the rights of the law-abiding majority merely because some tiny percentage of citizens "snap" and shoot someone as the result of an argument. I'd say that the vast majority of the time when someone gets shot as the result of an "other argument" involving otherwise law-abiding members of society (ie: not gang members) it's because one of the participants gets aggressive and threatens the life or safety of the other participant, who may then be lawfully entitled to use deadly force in self defense.

This is why it's said that an armed society is a polite society. People are far less likely to engage in arguments and let their emotions run away with them if they know the person they are arguing with carries a gun and can shoot them dead if things get out of hand.

So, in sum, we have here another bad try at supporting the unwarranted and untrue notion that less guns equals less crime.

Better luck next time.

[Blind groper]

To Seth

Young men are ore violent than women or older men. That is a simple fact known for centuries. It has nothing to do with whether those young men are gang members or not.

Nor does it matter in a shooting whether the young man is under age for possession of a hand gun or not. As I have pointed out before, under the US very slack gun laws, anyone who wants a hand gun can get one. If a guy who is just 18 wants to buy and carry a hand gun, he will do so.

The "other argument" situation is simply two young men in an argument. The study carefully separated out felony related situations, and even separated out arguments over money or drugs (which came to about 200 murders per year), from that kind of argument.

It is most probable, with money, drugs, and felonies separated out, that those arguments leading to murders were simply young men getting too hot under the collar. I suspect, knowing young men, that the most common cause of those arguments would be sexual jealousy.

Other words, most murders are not criminals killing each other.

[Jason]

Unless you count murder as a crime that is.

[JimC]

Unless you count murder as a crime that is.

I think BG meant career criminals/gang members, where killing is to them as writing a quadratic equation on a whiteboard is to me...

[Jason]

Unless you count murder as a crime that is.

I think BG meant career criminals/gang members, where killing is to them as writing a quadratic equation on a whiteboard is to me...

I know. It's seems an absurd distinction to draw in any case.

[JimC]

Unless you count murder as a crime that is.

I think BG meant career criminals/gang members, where killing is to them as writing a quadratic equation on a whiteboard is to me...

I know. It's seems an absurd distinction to draw in any case.

Its intent is to counter the argument from some that most of the excess US gun deaths are the result of gang wars, and nothing to do with happy, peaceful red-neck gun nuts...

Which seems to me to contain an unstated racist sub-text...

(Well, not unstated by Tyrannical, I guess...)

[Jason]

The problem with that is a large part of gangs are made up by young men (under 18) with no criminal record.

I'll be interested to see Groper mount a successful counter-argument from that base.

[Jason]

Which seems to me to contain an unstated racist sub-text...

(Well, not unstated by Tyrannical, I guess...)

Racial, yes, but not racist. The correlation between race and gun violence is down to other factors such as poverty, environment (being ingrained into a culture of crime to survive which is just a vicious circle), and the contributors to those factors. Racism certainly played a large role in initiating the cycle, and perhaps perpetuating it, but making that connection in an argument is not remotely racist of itself. Tyrannical makes it a race issue because he's a racist.

[JimC]

Which seems to me to contain an unstated racist sub-text...

(Well, not unstated by Tyrannical, I guess...)

Racial, yes, but not racist. The correlation between race and gun violence is down to other factors such as poverty, environment (being ingrained into a culture of crime to survive which is just a vicious circle), and the contributors to those factors. Racism certainly played a large role in initiating the cycle, and perhaps perpetuating it, but making that connection in an argument is not remotely racist of itself. Tyrannical makes it a race issue because he's a racist.

Fair point...

[Seth]

To Seth

Young men are ore violent than women or older men. That is a simple fact known for centuries. It has nothing to do with whether those young men are gang members or not.

So what? "ore violent" is a meaningless phrase. They are also larger, stronger and less likely to lactate. Generalizing in that way is just a weak excuse for admitting that your argument is crap. Generalizing about "young men" as a bolster for an argument as to why handguns should be banned is a paltry effort and unworthy of regard.

Nor does it matter in a shooting whether the young man is under age for possession of a hand gun or not. As I have pointed out before, under the US very slack gun laws, anyone who wants a hand gun can get one. If a guy who is just 18 wants to buy and carry a hand gun, he will do so.

Yes, we've long established that criminals of whatever age can and will get handguns if they really want one, and that's a fact in the US and quite literally everywhere else on earth, including the UK, OZ and NZ. So what? We're not going to ban handguns, a tool that's used by hundreds of millions of people safety and legally, merely because a couple of hundred, or thousand gang-bangers or wannabees shoot each other. Frankly, I'm perfectly satisfied for gang-bangers to shoot one another. The only real problem is the collateral damage. We could solve that by throwing rival gangs into a bullet-proof arena well stocked with guns and let them "paintball" themselves to death. We can take bets who's the last man standing.

Since we cannot disarm them, even if we succeed (in your fantasy land) in disarming EVERYONE ELSE, because they can always, as you said, get a gun...or make one...if they really want one, the only rational alternative is NOT to disarm everyone else, but rather to encourage them to lawfully carry firearms for self defense and defense of their loved ones and communities. Shortly after the good citizens of a community undertake to shoot dead known gang members on sight, the gangs will dissolve and the "young men" will find something else to do.

The "other argument" situation is simply two young men in an argument.

Horseshit. It's two gang-banging criminals illegally possessing firearms getting into a confrontation and you know it. You don't see high school athletes busting caps on each other over a football rivalry too damned often.

The study carefully separated out felony related situations, and even separated out arguments over money or drugs (which came to about 200 murders per year), from that kind of argument.

No it didn't, not in the way you're assuming. Go read the manual.

Moreover, the table you refer to lists "arguments other" under non-felony types, and "gang banging" is NOT included in the list of felonies, as anyone who cares to look at the table can see.

Furthermore, of the 3,128 "other argument" homicides, fewer than half (1,416) were committed with handguns. So your numbers are bogus from the get-go. Again.

It is most probable, with money, drugs, and felonies separated out, that those arguments leading to murders were simply young men getting too hot under the collar. I suspect, knowing young men, that the most common cause of those arguments would be sexual jealousy.

Ignorant speculation with no basis or foundation in facts.

Other words, most murders are not criminals killing each other.

Irrelevant. You can't make that statement because you don't have the numbers to show whether those 1,416 "other argument" homicides were committed by "young men" much less horny young men killing each other over sex.

You're making ass-umptions which you're pulling out of your ass. They stink the place up, so knock it off.

[Seth]

The problem with that is a large part of gangs are made up by young men (under 18) with no criminal record.

Which does NOT mean they are not criminals. Just because they haven't been caught and convicted doesn't mean they aren't involved in criminal activity, like carrying illegal concealed weapons, and are therefore properly classified as criminals, as opposed to people who LAWFULLY carry handguns concealed, who are NOT criminals and don't deserve to be treated like they are.

I'll be interested to see Groper mount a successful counter-argument from that base.

I'll be interested to see Groper mount a successful argument of ANY KIND on the subject of handguns. So far he's batting 0/0.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

...Yes, we've long established that criminals of whatever age can and will get handguns if they really want one, and that's a fact in the US and quite literally everywhere else on earth, including the UK, OZ and NZ....

That is factually incorrect. In western countries other than the US, it is very difficult and/or very expensive for criminals to obtain handguns, simply because there are vastly fewer in circulation (due to restrictive gun laws). The most successful of the criminal fraternity will obtain them, to be sure, but not the young, punk wannabees...

[Collector1337]

Seth wrote:

...Yes, we've long established that criminals of whatever age can and will get handguns if they really want one, and that's a fact in the US and quite literally everywhere else on earth, including the UK, OZ and NZ....

That is factually incorrect. In western countries other than the US, it is very difficult and/or very expensive for criminals to obtain handguns, simply because there are vastly fewer in circulation (due to restrictive gun laws). The most successful of the criminal fraternity will obtain them, to be sure, but not the young, punk wannabees...

It's not about status, it's about money. If you have enough money, you can buy one.