video of a 3D printed semi-auto rifle (gun bans are useless)

[NotFunny008]

Is it morally responsible to put this video out there, allowing people to gain this knowledge?

Good job helping out the future mass murderers and terrorists.

[Deleted]

Far better use for the printers than printing guns...But maybe that's just me ^^

probably would lower kill rates

[Kalis]

probably would lower kill rates

But increase trips to A&E.

"I just slipped and fell on it."

[Deleted]

But increase trips to A&E.

"I just slipped and fell on it."

But much hilarity for A&E staff

[Deleted]

I seriously doubt he 3D-printed those metal parts. Guns need some high quality metal elements with properties that just can't be printed.

[I Push Buttons]

I seriously doubt he 3D-printed those metal parts. Guns need some high quality metal elements with properties that just can't be printed.

You can 3D print metal.

Even if you don't though, you can just go to some hardware store and order some custom metal parts to your spec. Short of ordering a long rifled barrel, they won't have any idea what its for.

[Masark]

You can 3D print metal.

Yeah, with a printer that costs upwards of $500k.

[Rukh]

You mean that laws don't always instantly prevent every single incident of the thing its meant to prohibit ever? Holy fuck you've changed the entire world with your amazing insight that nobody else has ever thought of.

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I seriously doubt he 3D-printed those metal parts. Guns need some high quality metal elements with properties that just can't be printed.

3D printing is neat and all, but thinking that somehow this is the first time anyone ever thought to make their own gun is so laughably ignorant.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/zip-gun

[Auxora]

Where to start on the ways in which this is wrong...

The main one is that a law prohibiting something doesn't guarantee a person can't make the thing at home. Look at meth, it being illegal doesn't mean people can't make it if they choose to break the law. But it's certainly illegal and they risk going to jail. And it being illegal makes it much harder for dopeheads to get than being able to go down to a corner store.

Also, it isn't really dependent on 3D printing. A person could have a lathe and metalshop in their garage and make a crude gun fairly easily. But like the prior point it doesn't make it legal.

Lastly, I think the only gun regulations that have really ever been discussed fall into 2 categories:

#1, better review before allowing a sale to nutty/dangerous people and restrictions on people deemed dangerous enough to make the no-fly list. Personally I still think that's something that's only marginally useful. There are plenty of nutty people with no felonies or a past record that would flag them, but that are still wacky enough that they shouldn't own a gun. Likewise like SB showed, it's easy enough to get a gun from someone else through a straw buy. Maybe the straw buy penalties just need to be way harsher.

#2 Assault rifles, and it seems unlikely anything will ever happen there as far as restrictions even though there's a good argument to restrict those.

Either way, there's virtually no chance of the ~180M guns already in circulation being reduced (and certainly not taken away). Any regulation would just affect new AR production/sales. And there are already such a ridiculous amount of ARs in circulation that any new restrictive laws are kind of all talk anyway.

[AeneasBK]

Let anyone have guns. Make ammunition illegal.

Probabably not as easy to make the ammunition.

[Hooked]

Forget 3d printing. You can construct a rudimentary gun from some metal pipes and wood.

Yeah they used to be called zip guns.

[Gorehowl]

#2 Assault rifles, and it seems unlikely anything will ever happen there as far as restrictions even though there's a good argument to restrict those.

assault rifles and full auto rifles are already illegal for normal civilians to own, you cant just go into a gun shop, sign some papers and get an assault rifle.

A semi automatic rifle that happens to look like a fully automatic one does not make it an assault rifle.

[Hooked]

assault rifles and full auto rifles are already illegal for normal civilians to own, you cant just go into a gun shop, sign some papers and get an assault rifle.

A semi automatic rifle that happens to look like a fully automatic one does not make it an assault rifle.

If you go into a gun shop and ask for an assault rifle they will kick you out. There is no such thing.

[Gorehowl]

If you go into a gun shop and ask for an assault rifle they will kick you out. There is no such thing.

the shop i go to the most wouldnt kick you out, theyd probably look at you funny then educate you on what a semi auto civilian rifle is compared to a military select fire assault rifle :P Something that needs to be done for a lot more people apparently. Every news article i see is throwing around the words assault rifle like theres no tomorrow...but then again these are the same people that say "ghost gun" and "magazine clips" etc.

[Lochton]

People doing that kind of shit is the kind of people who waste the actual ability of a 3D printer, if I had room to build one, I would right now. Could save me so much time. 3D printing a gun is the most useless thing and showing this basically proves that gun restrictions are even more needed, that or education in common sense. I see a lot in need of that.

[Nadiru]

Forget banning Makerbot, are you ready to ban paper and glue?

[Endus]

We have a gun control thread for this kind of topic. Locking this here.