New York Times article about printed weapons

[www.nytimes.com]

Our community is mentioned and a few of us are cited

I think the article is pretty objective and well written. No longer the fearful hype we've seen before. Except for the meaning of "Open Source" in 3D printer software ... trying to disallow printing specific geometries isn't "can be hacked", but IMHO simply pointless.

P.S.: after all, perhaps this "misunderstanding" of open source is for the better in such an article.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2013 04:53PM by Traumflug.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

haha yes, its like trying to make a car from cheese

> A Danish company, Create it REAL, which makes 3-D printers, says it might have another possible solution. It has developed software that looks for the characteristics of weapon designs and, when detected, blocks the printer from making a firearm. “If certain features align, the software will not allow the user to view and print the model,” Create it REAL says on its Web site.

That is just nutty of course, afaik computer software has difficulty recognizing a cat,(not sure how far that is along now tho) let alone the much vaguer concept of a gun. And trying to push this on slicers or CAD will just piss people off. Maybe the company just wants its name in the paper, and to look like the most compliant school boy.

Yes, a car made from cheese isn't possible. That's why I'm building a cheese motorcycle.....

vegasloki Wrote:
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> Yes, a car made from cheese isn't possible.
> That's why I'm building a cheese motorcycle.....

It might be worth your time checking my marmalade scooter.

TC

you cant even make skateboard trucks from plastic, what makes someone think a plastic gun could work.

aduy Wrote:
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> you cant even make skateboard trucks from plastic,
> what makes someone think a plastic gun could work.

I'm sure you can make skateboard trucks from plastic - they'll probably work, but just as with a fully printed plastic gun, they probably won't work very well.

Consider the printed gun to be an analogue of the concrete canoe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_canoe). Is it practical? Hardly. But it's a great way to explore the limits of the materials and process, even if the result is a 'car made of cheese'. In all, a good article that hopefully dispels some of the hype.

- Michael (a Traumflug certified 'gun nut' :-) :-)

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[haveblue.org]

there was a set of trucks made from plastic, the issue is the material doesnt stand up to the abuse put on them by the skater. I actually had a discussion with one of my friends the other day about why they even make longboard trucks from crappy cast aluminum, because they get bent after a month or so, we concluded that they were made using the same methods as skateboard trucks which are shorter and needed to be lighter so they could do tricks. In reality the truck companies took the cheap way out instead of making them out of a stronger material. now there are "precision trucks" that are made from cnced 6061 aluminum which is a lot stronger, but more expensive, you would pay about 6 times as much for these. anyways the name of the plastic trucks: nuclear pickle.

Interesting - have any of these companies looked into having the trucks forged? Machining from bar stock is certainly better than casting, but forging is better yet, as the grain of the metal gets aligned to the shape of the part itself.

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[haveblue.org]

You cant make a reprap out of plastic either, you work around that. Obviously the same goes for a gun. I dont want to give any of the idiots who would make a gun this information, but i dont want 'naivity' to be the defense of 3d printers either.

Trying to restrict it is a violation of peoples rights. Making stuff is a big part of being human, and access to this should not be taken away because we live off the tits of some companies in this regard. The reprap is clearly not a weapon. Other tools are still better for making guns, and tools as such have existed for longer.

In particular article 27(more loosely 19),opponents probably mention 29-2, however no real criminal events have taken place, and even if so.. How many axe murders would it take to make axes illegal?

... this is true for gun made from plastic ... but we're on the way to printing (or generally fabbing) with other methodes and materials too - there are threads about fiber-enforced fabbing, ceramic printing and tests and developments for sintering with metal-powders ...

So this discussion will start anew, when the mechanical stability of a 'printed' object will overcome the 'only plastic' state

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

VDX Wrote:
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> So this discussion will start anew, when the
> mechanical stability of a 'printed' object will
> overcome the 'only plastic' state


And when it does, I'll still be there to remind people that milling machines have been available at their neighborhood Harbor Freight store for years and are able to produce much better firearms at far lower cost. Of course, there will always be those of us who enjoy the challenge of 'building cars out of cheese', but I don't think criminals are the sort of people to engage in such pursuits of whimsy.

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[haveblue.org]

Have Blue Wrote:
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>
>
> And when it does, I'll still be there to remind
> people that milling machines have been available
> at their neighborhood Harbor Freight store for
> years and are able to produce much better firearms
> at far lower cost. Of course, there will always
> be those of us who enjoy the challenge of
> 'building cars out of cheese', but I don't think
> criminals are the sort of people to engage in such
> pursuits of whimsy.

So true, honestly I believe that the people who are worried about 3d printers making guns should be more worried about people with mills and lathes haha. The price on a mill or lathe is similar to a printer and if you can learn 3d printing then you can learn machining and could produce a much better gun. But on the other hand since the governments are worried about criminals printing guns I think the average criminal will just steal a gun then learn how to make one at least here in the US where they are more prevalent.

From the NY Times article:

“Our interest was to see if the manufacturing of a working gun using this technology is possible,” said Karl-Heinz Grundböck, a spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry, which performed the test in May. “The answer was a very clear ‘Yes.’ ”

It is also possible to achieve the same end result after a trip to the local hardware store (saving the cost of the 3D printer). This has always been true, because firearms are very simple mechanical devices. These people have no sense of what is pertinent in the world!

I think the article was just samo samo, with the usual plethora of quotes from the fear mongerers. As for the Danish company? Idiots like that don't deserve my business and I doubt that gun grabbers will flock to their products, simply because of their absurd anti-gun marketing and product definition practices either.

[www.northeastshooters.com]

I taught myself how to run a mill, lathe, and 3D printer. I found the learning learning curves required to effectively produce work with the mill or lathe to be shallower than the 3D printer! Like a 3D printer, hobby mills and lathes fit on a desktop or kitchen table and, in general, they produce more efficacious firearm parts than 3D printers. For a hobby gunsmith, the overall costs are similar too. Homemade plastic molds can also be used to produce parts that are similar in performance and quality to 3D printed parts and the fabrication method has been available for decades. When it comes to making guns, the emergence of 3D printing has changed nothing, other than increasing the awareness of the otherwise ignorant public of the possibility for individuals to make guns.

Yes--criminals simply steal or unlawfully purchase weapons, as necessary for them to commit their acts of violence. The unconstitutional gun control under which we suffer in the U.S. does not deter criminal acts of violence at all. It merely creates criminals out of good, common, and ordinary people who recognize that firearms are highly useful tools. They offer a number of benefits, including thwarting tyranny, which is the benefit that motivated the nation's founders to pen the Second Amendment and Bill of Rights, Nothing has changed in the world since they did so. People don't change in a mere couple of hundred years. Evolution requires many millennia!


Josh_mp5 Wrote:

> So true, honestly I believe that the people who
> are worried about 3d printers making guns should
> be more worried about people with mills and lathes
> haha. The price on a mill or lathe is similar to a
> printer and if you can learn 3d printing then you
> can learn machining and could produce a much
> better gun. But on the other hand since the
> governments are worried about criminals printing
> guns I think the average criminal will just steal
> a gun then learn how to make one at least here in
> the US where they are more prevalent.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2013 04:33PM by calinb.