Feb.20, 2013

Anyone with a computer is able to download the plans for guns and turn them into real gun parts. 30-year-old software engineer Travis Lerol uses a 3D printer to make a lower receiver for an AR-15 at his home. The process takes about 10 hours.

(image courtesy of Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post)

Lerol said he has no plans to print anything outlawed by the government. Making guns for personal use is legal in U.S. But Lerol is nervous that the push for gun control will infringe on his Second Amendment rights.

(image courtesy of Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post)

"There's really no one controlling what you do in your own home," says Travis Lerol. He has not yet tested his parts at a gun range.

To make a gun you still need machining know-how and a variety of parts. But gun-control advocates and technology experts say the specter of printable firearms and ammunition magazines poses a challenge for Obama and lawmakers to push for new restrictions.

"Restrictions are difficult to enforce in a world where anybody can make anything," said Hod Lipson, a 3-D printing expert at Cornell University and co-author of the new book, "Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing." "Talking about old-fashioned control will be very ineffective."

Lipson agrees that a more effective gun control solution worth exploring might impose legal limitations on gunpowder rather than gun parts and accessories such as magazines.

Says Lipson: "If I were talking to lawmakers, I would encourage them to address the most basic part of a firearm – the energy source. You must have gunpowder to fire a weapon. The law could regulate the explosives. To fire a bullet, you need high-energy propellant like gunpowder. After all, 3-D printed and arbitrarily shaped plastic firearms are going to be increasingly hard to detect using traditional screening techniques. A high-capacity magazine might look like something else. It may be more effective to control the gunpowder."

It is unclear how many people are trying to print their own gun parts and magazines. But at least one site, Defense Distributed, could tell how many blueprints are downloaded already. Cody Wilson, a University of Texas law student who started DEFCAD, a website that allows people to upload and download files for printable gun components, annouced yesterday on Twitter that "250,000+ files have been downloaded from DEFCAD so far!" He told venturebeat on the phone that "DEFCAD gets an average of 3,000 visitors per hour, representing roughly 2TB of traffic since launch."

"People all over the world are downloading this stuff all the time — way more people than actually have 3-D printers," he said.

What printer and material can be used for printing a receiver and mags? What Travis Lerol uses at home is a $1,300 Cube 3D printer made by 3D Systems. Actually all those cheap entry-level 3D printers can be used to make plastic gun parts.

"The threat is not of 3-D printing military-grade weapon components from standard blueprints on industrial 3-D printers," Lipson said. "The challenge is that [do-it-yourself] 3D printers can be used by anyone to print rogue, disposable and shoddy guns that could be used to fire a few rounds, then be recycled into a flower vase."

Legislators start to worry and want to add additional gun control. Rep. Steve Israel, a New York Democrat, wants to renew the Undetectable Firearms Act, a law due to expire at the end of the year. It prohibits manufacturing or possessing a gun that can't be detected by metal detectors. Israel says he does not intend to ban 3D printer, but about the use of a 3D printer to manufacture a weapon that can't be detected by airport security scanners.

3D printer manufacturers are also worried. Abe Reichental, CEO of 3D Systems, said he is open to working with members of the industry and legislators to restrict certain shapes from being printed.

"We don't want to prevent printing anything that is legal and proper," he said. "But we want to be responsible. We want to do good. We want to be a force that helps shape the goodness of this technology and its use."

 

 

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Source: Washington Post

 

Posted in 3D Printing Applications

 

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Anonymous wrote at 7/7/2015 3:28:00 AM:

Control the parts that can be printed? WHAT?!? In America, doesn't the 1st ammendment protect the creation of any IP? What's next? A hammer that can't be used to build a house? maybe a screwdriver that refuses to work on certain cars? You simply can't place limits on the functionality of tools. If they are limited, they are broken and people will use the tools that work. If a 3d printer can't print what I want, then why would I buy it? I would simply build my own 3d printer. You can't regulate people's actions, only their responsibility for their actions. IMO, most people should be allowed to own firearms, they just need to be held responsible for how they use them. If you want a blue plastic magazine on your AR-15, thats your problem.

Telling it like it is.......... wrote at 2/24/2014 5:42:54 AM:

Sane you are a class a fucking retard cunt of the highest order. Do some research then spout off in an informed manner instead of making up bizarre scenarios based wholly on the fantasies conjured up in your diseased brain.

norb wrote at 8/29/2013 6:59:36 PM:

Sane, it is you who are dumb...and extremely ignorant! You cannot print a home-made plastic, fully functional firearm. What kind of acid did you drop? Give your head a shake and get back into the real world.

An american idiot wrote at 7/24/2013 8:51:55 PM:

As an American, I try hard to distance myself from other people in my country that bring discredit and shame to my country. Often people here are lulled into buying shoddy products, terrible food, and they often have laughable values. Also, as an American I have had to learn that rolling people into a stereotype is not only wrong, but inherently idiotic. Take blacks, some blacks steal, murder, use crack ect. The same could be said for any race because these crimes know no ethnical boundaries and people commit them regardless of skin color. So to say all black people are kleptomaniac thug, drug users is retarded. The same could be said about the following word association: Muslims = terrorist. Muslim religion is very popular in the world and the extremist that give all Muslims a bad name is painted across the whole group. So then too, when I see “American idiots…” in your post I can’t help but think something is wrong with you. How do you know people posting aren’t Canadian, British, or your own country of origin? When guns are outlawed people who want to do harm will likely create IED’s using HME. When that is outlawed, all farmers will be criminals because they will have the precursors to create the explosives. The point is, people who kill other people for no apparent reason are the people that you should place your hatred, not people who fear the US government and the powers that be. The ability to defend ones home, life, and property is a right to all men and women in the world. The power to take life, rather for good or for evil should exist and be something governments need to understand as a right of the people. Evil people do not care about good people’s laws, otherwise they would have followed the first law of not killing people. So on and so forth… this rhetoric is passed out by gun ho republicans that give my position a bad name. But please, try to remember to not paint me and those who think like me as 5 year old killing psychopaths like that one troubled kid at Sandy hook.

Bob wrote at 7/1/2013 2:09:51 PM:

Sane - you stupid fear mongering cunt

jake wrote at 5/15/2013 12:30:33 PM:

If you had a choice between the Liberator and a slingshot for going against the zombie apocalypse, Which Would You Choose?

James wrote at 4/15/2013 5:33:54 PM:

american idiots.. leave your dumb comments out of a forum. This has nothing to do with any country or enthnicity. 3d printing can bring the end to a huge part of monopolies.. altho, the ingenuity and $$ to make things is still an issue, but a lot of things can be made that replace expensive and environmentally unsafe products...

John wrote at 2/26/2013 1:45:13 AM:

^ tactful

common sense wrote at 2/22/2013 12:14:44 AM:

Anyone can go out and buy a gun on Craigslist. Trying to block particular shapes from being printed sounds like something big business is pushing for to protect their old manufacturing models the same way the music industry has battled mp3's over the last 2 decades. Latching onto the gun-control band-wagon is just a cheap ploy and stinks of fear mongering.

sigh... wrote at 2/22/2013 12:00:01 AM:

A person can make a zipgun with zero tools and $5 worth of parts from the hardware store in a few minutes but you're concerned someone with a $1000+ 3d printer and technical expertise might spend hours printing a single brittle plastic gun part? I bet you'd be terrified to learn about automated CNC mills that have let people make real, METAL guns at the push of a button for decades.

Jeff wrote at 2/21/2013 5:59:44 PM:

Personally, I refuse to deal with any company that will restrict what I can make with thier product. Doesn't matter if its guns, auto parts or paperweights. If you, as a manufacturer of a 3d printer or a company making software, try to block me from making a type of item, I will boycott your company.

anon wrote at 2/21/2013 3:40:25 PM:

And you're missing the point. The technology is there, if this weren't done in the public eye for all to see, it would be done in the shop of a smart criminal. Then as you say if one were used in a crime the end result would be no different. This will necessarily motivate lawmakers and the public in general to evaluate the underlying causes of these criminal actions rather than passing continual useless laws directed at inanimate objects.

Sane wrote at 2/21/2013 9:19:58 AM:

You are so fucking dumb. You see no consequences to your actions? will it only take someone shooting your kid in kindergarten with a home-printed plastic rifle for you to put the dots together?? fucking american idiots...



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