Politicians. Just kidding.
3D printers, and the raw material to run them, are expensive. Printing ammo is also going to be difficult. You still have to come up with gunpowder and bullets.
For now, at least, 3D printing guns is more of theoretical issue than a practical one. I don’t mean that it can’t be done. But anyone with the resources and capability will have better options anyways.
And if you have the resources to equip an army with 3D printed equipment, you have the resources to build factories and equip 5 armies with conventionally sourced equipment.
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Due to the very mechanics of 3d printing, I think this will always be the case
As with most technology, there will be an inflection point where it will be cheaper and easier simply to print what you need (even more 3D printers). And, also as with most technology, this will be both a blessing and a curse.
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I think we are getting off what was my original point.
I don’t envision thousands or millions of individuals or groups with 3-D printers, ready to print-out arsenals of 3-D printed weapons to equip armies.
I look at what we are seeing now much like one can view the original printing press compared to the digital information we have now. In other words; I think we are seeing just the very infant stages of much more profound Technologies. (Thus, the “Star Trek” reference).
I don’t see more advanced 3-D printing as being the future…but more the very crude and rough beginnings of something more profound
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Ultimately, you are fighting economies of scale. 3D printers are designed to be flexible. Building specialized equipment to make one thing may always be more efficient than building general equipment to build many different things and then using that general equipment to build something specific repeatedly.
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Yeah I know, but the up front cost of all of the 3d printers you’d need would easily outweigh the expense of arming 4 more armies like in Silyaks example
Right, understood. My comment was based more on what I interpreted Mufasa’s purpose for this thread (taking a longer view as opposed to what could be done over the next few years).
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Oh definitely. I think it’s going to be a massive way to eliminate the need to outsource. Should tip the scales back into the favor of the advanced nation’s over the cheap labor nation’s
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If you really want to bake your noodle, look into nanotechnology and, more specifically, molecular manufacturing (MM). If realized, it would change nearly every aspect of every life on the planet. Dump in raw materials, create whatever you want.
Now you’re talking about an age of abundance where the only scarce resource is land. Water and electricity are taken care of via desalination and renewables; MM takes care of the rest. Raises some pretty interesting questions. (Of course, this is the glass-is-half-full view; there’d be unbelievably dire risks).
I know this is “out there” but I find this topic fascinating…especially because technological progress is not linear and the pace is picking up fast.
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Phew, when I saw this thread title I thought I was being called a space cadet for continuing the gun policy thread.
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Nanobots for the win!
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It seems like once a year or so someone in the national media tries to get everyone scared about 3D printing firearms. I’m not saying that’s what @Mufasa is trying to do here, by the way, but it’s what I’ll address in my post. There’s really nothing to be scared about here.
First and foremost, it is worthwhile to understand two things. It has always been legal to manufacture your own non-NFA firearms. That means no full auto, no short barrel rifles, sawed-off shotguns or suppressors. Second, a prohibited person is breaking the law whether the firearm they possess was procured by a straw buyer, theft or self-manufacture.
As it stands right now, any “working” 3D printed firearms would confer absolutely no advantage to anyone other than the novelty of it. A single-shot .380 or .22 made out of plastic guaranteed to break after a few shots is a shitty gun, period. I’d probably prefer a crossbow in most cases, which doesn’t matter because guns are, and will always be, easy to get no matter what sort of gun control pipe dreams get implemented.
“But wait twojar, Alyssa Milano call’s them ‘downloadable death’, and she used to be really hot and star in movies. We should listen to her.”
Sure, she used to be smoking hot, but the fact that CNN sees fit to publish her thoughts on a subject she knows nothing about is fairly indicative that this is little more than fear-mongering propaganda. Even if we see a rash of crimes being committed with plastic single-shot guns whose creator used a string to fire remotely for safety reasons, what could we possibly do about it?
Well we regulate the transmission of information, that’s it. Make it illegal to download, which will be so easy to enforce and wouldn’t open up a can of worms at all. That’ll fix everything, and gun control people can pat themselves on the back when the first hobbyist who threatened no one gets locked up.
Back to the technology, printing a working lower receiver for an AR-15 is not the same as printing a fully-functional semi-automatic firearm, which will need to withstand chamber pressures far, far greater than those that are destroying our most advanced 3D printed guns in a dozen or fewer shots with dramatically less powerful cartridges. And it isn’t just the strength of the metal materials that makes a semi-auto go bang, it is their other properties (density, thermal properties and chemical coating treatments) that allow the gun to cycle and work reliably over thousands and thousands of rounds.
From a technological perspective, the secrets of firearm design are not secrets. We haven’t made any technological leaps in personal firearms designs in over 100 years. There isn’t a whole lot different between a Browning Automatic Rifle, designed in 1917, and whatever cool-looking black rifle on the rack at Cabela’s today. The former is fully auto, but you’re looking at magazine-fed repeating rifle technology in both cases. The cat is out of the bag, and if the day ever comes where we have the technology to print out working firearms like an AR15 at home, the government will be powerless to stop it without a vast and invasive security state like China.
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We had a separate thread talking about AI (or machine learning) and automation. It died off as it’s hard to talk too much about the things in the future because we don’t know the exact impact new technologies will have. There are people who are optimistic and others who think we are on the brink of disaster.
Agree.
And thanks for the insights, @twojarslave.
This is why I’ve always loved this Forum…I never stop learning.
(MAN I used to have an AWFUL “School-Boy-Crush” on Alyssa Milano…me and probably millions of other pre-pubescent and adolescent boys!)
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I’ll give you that, but I am just not that worried about it. I think it’s one of those things that sound scarier than it is.
I heard this one nimrod on NPR say something like “… all somebody has to do now is get a 3D printer and print out an AK47!”
Because you can pick one up at Walgreens that will use potent enough material to handle the recoil of a 7.62 NATO, etc. etc… Uh, no. That’s just shouting one’s ignorance on firearms from the roof tops.
You are allowed to build your own gun and you don’t need a 3D printer or the computer know how anyway and plans are as close as your local gun store. If you have the tools and the materials and the know how, you can make your own gun.
Most criminals aren’t real bright. And I don’t think your average criminal is going to be printing guns anytime soon. We are presuming the process is easy and it’s not. Possible, doesn’t mean easy.
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Yeah, this.
And besides, now the argument as to whether or not the plans should be available was made pointless the moment the first plans were downloaded. Rabbits have nothing on the internet when it comes to replication.
I think the idea of printed guns are more interesting to people of technology than criminality.
Until you get rid of all the metal in a gun it’s detectable.
Now printing bombs seems more a viable option and probably where it’s headed and scarier. Bombs do not require the precision firearms do. You don’t have to be a braniac to throw a bunch of flammable shit together and light it up.
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But how does a 3D printer make bombs more effective or easier to make? You need explosive material, a detonator, and some way to cause the damage you want either with a pressure chamber, shrapnel, or similar. None of that requires precision printed plastic.
I remember when Troi had to override the computer’s health safety guidelines to get “real” chocolate out of the magic box.
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