I'd like to ask about societal implications for a sec...

Folks,

My question is in three related parts:

1) How soon before Reprap achieves 100% self-fabrication of parts, including high-grade steel or equivelent (cobalt alloy, high-grade titanium or the like)?

2) Roughly how far out are we from somebody being able to print the parts for an easy-to-assemble gun?

3) What are the societal implications when THAT happens? Does the whole concept of "gun control" simply evaporate?

Ummm...now, I realize a lot of people on this forum are from Europe, Australia and other places with usually heavy gun control. I'll tell you flat-out I'm in Arizona (USA), with very mild gun control laws bordering on none at all by the standards of most of the world. With a background check and training, I obtained a permit letting me legally carry a loaded handgun concealed or open, my choice - and I do, daily, along with a lot of other people in 38 US states so far (and the number of both permitholders and states allowing same is increasing rapidly).

I didn't however come here to debate gun control as a social policy. The question really is, how does an advanced model of Reprap (esp. with scanner) equivelent to what Jay Leno has now:

[www.popularmechanics.com]

...affect society, including weapons access?

It's dead obvious that Leno's gear could, right now, produce a fully functional gun. What costs him in the millions today will be free from your buddy who has one, what, 15 to 20 years out? Less?

What happens then?

My belief is that violence is a product of culture - societal and family. Solving cultural violence is hard, and RIGHT NOW it appears easier to most politicians to try and control guns directly instead of trying to control cultural root causes of violence.

But throw Reprap into the mix, and now which looks easier? Right. Controlling the hardware is now totally out of the question.

What it looks like to me is, we better start the conversation on cultural violence NOW before the Reprap hits this stage, or half the planet is gonna look like a pizza with the toppings ripped off when it does hit.

?

I don't think it would have a great effect.

After all, you can make a functional gun today out of parts that you can get from the hardware store. These are called "zip guns" and can get pretty fancy sometimes.

matrix printers would only make it easier to swap designs with one-another.

If I wished to commit a murder, and I was intelligent enough to build and use a matrix printer, I'd opt out and use a pipe and nail instead. The fewer hints to give the police, the better!

Another social issues might include printing masks to change your identity Or gender even, what a boon to peeping toms! How long did it take once camera phones were available before someone took one into a locker-room?

How about someone who scans a person's keys and then prints a new housekey and robs them?

Joe Wrote:
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>
> How about someone who scans a person's keys and
> then prints a new housekey and robs them?

[blackbag.nl]

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

A zip gun isn't ever going to be popular among either criminals or people who want to defend against criminals. Issues include safety, accuracy, firepower (number of shots) and from the criminal's point of view especially, "can this go head to head with the cops?"

An advanced metal-fabbing Reprap could build something "police grade" or better.

From a technical angle, let me show you one interesting "twist" pardon the pun.

Y'all know what rifled barrels are, right? At present, any reasonably accurate gun, from pocketsize on up, has one. It means there's a series of spiral grooves inside the barrel that put a "spin" on the bullet to stabilize it in flight.

The rifling is a stone-cold bitch to do right and would be one of the hardest things even an advanced Reprap could do. (It's also a feature lacking in any zipgun I've ever heard of...)

American tanks (the military kind with a cannon on board) are very accurate, but they don't have rifled barrels. Instead, the "bullet" (big sucker of course) is an elongated steel-cased thing with fins on the back that put a spin on it - basically it's no different than a 16th Century arrow with goose feathers at the back except it weighs a hell of a lot more. Physical principle is the same. Except that while in the barrel, it's surrounded by a softer-material "sabot" ("shoe") that fits around it, providing a "gasket" against the hot burning powder behind it and protects the inside of the barrel surface while this big steel arrow goes by. As the projectile leaves the barrel the sabot parts fall away and the projectile heads downrange.

Sabots are used to some degree in personal-size guns now, usually made of plastic. People who shoot, say, .54cal muzzle-loading traditional rifles sometimes want to use non-traditional modern bullets, but those are very scarce in .54, very common in .45cal. So they use a plastic adapter. (The deer-hunting season is longer in most US states for people using antique-style rifles - but they don't require the *bullets* be antique-style!)

A Reprap could take this to the next level, fabbing in one step a lead-core bullet with a brass jacket, brass tailfin assembly stuck on and the plastic breakaway coating all laid out as one ready-to-load projectile - suitable for use in a smoothbore gun easier to Reprap.

Smoothbore handguns are currently illegal in the US but...if enough people ignore that on the scale the Reprap would allow, it would soon become unenforceable.

Oh that won't stop the left from trying, though. The idiots decided yesterday that they could make the sale of certain recalled items in garage sales a federal offense. No idea how they plan on enforcing that piece of foolishness.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Good points, those.

But these are all things that you could currently build out of readily available materials with about as much effort as building the reprap itself would be.

I was thinking more along the lines of committing a crime, not shooting it out with the cops. In the latter case, I don't think I'd want a home-made gun of any kind. I'd want a Glock that I know won't stick or jam.

I'm sure that printers will, someday, be able to print out the parts to build an accurate gun, but I doubt it'll ever be easier than buying one on the black market.

Jim March Wrote:
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> A zip gun isn't ever going to be popular among
> either criminals or people who want to defend
> against criminals. Issues include safety,
> accuracy, firepower (number of shots) and from the
> criminal's point of view especially, "can this go
> head to head with the cops?"
>
> An advanced metal-fabbing Reprap could build
> something "police grade" or better.
>
> From a technical angle, let me show you one
> interesting "twist" pardon the pun.
>
> Y'all know what rifled barrels are, right? At
> present, any reasonably accurate gun, from
> pocketsize on up, has one. It means there's a
> series of spiral grooves inside the barrel that
> put a "spin" on the bullet to stabilize it in
> flight.
>
> The rifling is a stone-cold bitch to do right and
> would be one of the hardest things even an
> advanced Reprap could do. (It's also a feature
> lacking in any zipgun I've ever heard of...)
>
> American tanks (the military kind with a cannon on
> board) are very accurate, but they don't have
> rifled barrels. Instead, the "bullet" (big sucker
> of course) is an elongated steel-cased thing with
> fins on the back that put a spin on it - basically
> it's no different than a 16th Century arrow with
> goose feathers at the back except it weighs a hell
> of a lot more. Physical principle is the same.
> Except that while in the barrel, it's surrounded
> by a softer-material "sabot" ("shoe") that fits
> around it, providing a "gasket" against the hot
> burning powder behind it and protects the inside
> of the barrel surface while this big steel arrow
> goes by. As the projectile leaves the barrel the
> sabot parts fall away and the projectile heads
> downrange.
>
> Sabots are used to some degree in personal-size
> guns now, usually made of plastic. People who
> shoot, say, .54cal muzzle-loading traditional
> rifles sometimes want to use non-traditional
> modern bullets, but those are very scarce in .54,
> very common in .45cal. So they use a plastic
> adapter. (The deer-hunting season is longer in
> most US states for people using antique-style
> rifles - but they don't require the *bullets* be
> antique-style!)
>
> A Reprap could take this to the next level,
> fabbing in one step a lead-core bullet with a
> brass jacket, brass tailfin assembly stuck on and
> the plastic breakaway coating all laid out as one
> ready-to-load projectile - suitable for use in a
> smoothbore gun easier to Reprap.
>
> Smoothbore handguns are currently illegal in the
> US but...if enough people ignore that on the scale
> the Reprap would allow, it would soon become
> unenforceable.

Reprap is about building things, not destroying things.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Reprap is about building things, not destroying things.

Yup. And it is inevitable people will build, among other things, guns.

Untraceable, individual, in spite of anything nations do.

The good news is, that's not necessarily a bad thing - IF they're introduced into a culture that can handle it. Drop this tech into, say, Detroit MI right now and...um, it'll get ugly.

(The murder statistics of the US and Canada say that if you took Wayne County Michigan containing Detroit, packaged it all up as a present and gave it to Canada no questions asked, the average murder rates between the US and Canada would equalize. Literally. Violent crime in America is unbelievably concentrated in a few areas, most are far LESS violent than most of Europe. Including the areas with the least gun control.)

All you're doing is working on a rationale for denying people tools. The coercive, authoritarian state that is in the making these days is perfectively capable of trying to destroy Reprap without Reprappers showing them how.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Maybe we ought to also outlaw eggs and urine, since they are prime sources of sulfur and saltpeter (along with charcoal, are the main ingredients of gunpowder).

Wow a chicken farm can overthow us, give me a link to the details!

You don't know you history, obviously. Bird droppings were used directly as the main ingredient in medieval gunpowder. If ever you wondered why people built dovecotes, it wasn't just for fertilizer. Oddly, the Wikipedia entry doesn't wonder why peasants weren't allowed to build them. Stupid gets. :-p

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Joe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How about someone who scans a person's keys and
> then prints a new housekey and robs them?

You don't need anything as fancy as that.
I few years ago I saw a proof of concept where someone reproduced (by hand) a key from a photograph.


(general reply)
I think by the time someone has gone to all the trouble to get this machine up an running to the point where it can make things of this tolerance, they are probably going to just make what they want, rather than making a gun to steal what they want. Also, I'm hoping society will have evolved a little by this point

"Drop this tech into, say, Detroit MI right now and...um, it'll get ugly. "

lol.

I don't think it's exactly difficult to procure whatever kind of firearms you want in Detroit right now, even without 3d printers.


The thing is, general purpose manufacturing tools (such as a RepRap) will never be able to perform as well as specialize machinery. Both for quality (strength, tolerances, etc) as well as speed. Sure, Jay Leno can 3d print some components for his old cars, but you don't exactly see him printing himself a new engine block -- for such high pressure requirements, you need to use a traditional machine shop.

You can't print high performance gun barrels, just as you can't print jet engine blades with a 3d printer. Even if you could get the tolerances right, you still have to run it through proper heat treatments. If you've ever done any gunsmithing, I'm sure you'd know that so much about proper barrel creation is much more than just getting the proper shape, but also the strength of the chosen steel and how to properly harden it.

As far as rifling zip guns, it's only as hard as running a reamer up and down the barrel, giving it twists as you go. Or you can just put the rifling on your bullets -- it's not exactly hard.


I think you're underestimating the power of the current machining capabilities of the average garage tinkerer, and that you're overestimating the power of 3d printers.

The pre-prototype AK47 was made in a train yard machine shop in WWII. I think that really you can basically get all the basic weapons that you want already with a machine shop if you really really want to and are willing to spent a very long time to get some basic weapons. The Current middle eastern wars have proved nothing if not that you can do some serious damage with little more than a huge amount of will(friendly allies helps of course). Yeah you can't make tank Armour penetrators, but you can still make some serious stuff.

I think that most people will not really be wanting to make weapons, mainly based on the fact that most people don't currently have IED's capable of taking out a police car in their garage. A primitive homemade claymore wouldn't really be difficult to produce and test, but people don't make them constantly because they don't feel the need to have anti-personnel mines just hanging around.

Interesting bit of history that Forrest pointed out. I remember reading something about how for a while you were essentially forced to give the households urine to the gunpowder producer cos of it's saltpeter use with war production.

I'm more in favor of the free use of technology, to a degree because I think that removing poverty will save much more lives than the effect of easy weapon access will do(I don't think all violence stems from poverty,but it is increased by it). To paraphrase the health and safety section of the main site, when they invented the internal combustion engine they could have worried that people would make tanks, but always remember that people also make alot of ambulances.

For those into that sort of thing, the novel Iron Sunrise has this issue as it's theme for one of the first few chapters. But that's for a future where you can even get enriched uranium for your printer.

No offense, but I fail to see how this is anywhere close to being a reality.

"It's dead obvious that Leno's gear could, right now, produce a fully functional gun."

I don't know how you came to that conclusion. I can't speak to the actual resolution of his 3D scanner, but Leno has a Dimension brand 3D printer which can't print anything even close to the strength of gun quality steel (it's, mostly, limited to plastic like the Reprap). There are laser sintering systems that can print in steel similar to how some 3D printers print in plastic, but they're expensive like any other industrial fabrication equipment, big, and dangerously hot. I, also, don't know just how strong the finished product is, from those machines, compared to the metal normally milled to produce guns. Another problem would be the fact that, even if you don't rifle your barrel, you would, probably, still need to do a lot of skilled finishing work to ensure that the moving parts were bur free and highly smooth.

Of course, Leno is wealthy enough that he may have a full machine shop worth of tools (professional mill, lathe, drill press, etc. all CNC) but it takes a lot more skill to use that stuff, even if it is CNC, and there are already people that use that kind of stuff to custom build guns in their homes.

In the end, while rapid prototyping is progressing at a thrillingly fast rate, we are still a long, long, long, way from having a low cost, and easy to use, device that can produce functional fire-arms that only require simple assembly before use.

As a child I once saw a cheap revolver that had been destroyed by an over-loaded round. The revolver chamber was ripped open like it was cardboard. I would not trust a sintered metal chamber.