The oh so scary 3D Printed gun

[Silvershadow]

The amount of ignorance it takes to think you can actually make a working AR from the ground up using a 3d printer is staggering.

http://gizmodo.com/5991601/the-terrifying-future-is-3d-printed-weapons

My favorite part of the small article:


Motherboard just released a trailer for Click. Print. Gun., its upcoming documentary on 3D printed guns, and you get to see a glimpse of the terrifying future that is having access to guns and gun parts that you can just click and print.

emphasis added by me.

[orionz06]

This is where I would normally mention something about mills and lathes and raw material being easily had and something else about this is not new. Instead I am gonna say that Gizmodo should be better at the Internet than this.

[Silvershadow]

This is where I would normally mention something about mills and lathes and raw material being easily had and something else about this is not new. Instead I am gonna say that Gizmodo should be better at the Internet than this.

I completely agree. Though it would be comical to watch one of their writers "print a full gun" to prove their point and then try to use it. Hopefully they would be missed by the shrapnel.

[peterb]

By BATF rules, a bare lower IS a gun. I suspect that's caused a bit of confusion.

[Dave J]

Doesn't matter, we'll all be dead from the ceramic Glocks that can't be detected by airport security by the time the terrorists get their homemade AR's printed.

oh, wait...nevermind.

[SecondsCount]

Doesn't matter, we'll all be dead from the ceramic Glocks that can't be detected by airport security by the time the terrorists get their homemade AR's printed.

oh, wait...nevermind.

I remember that hype. It helped propel Glock into the mainstream.

The whole thing is really ridiculous.

[TCinVA]

We already did this in the 1980's when a couple of morons from a Maryland paper went ballistic over these new-fangled "plastic" guns that were invisible to metal detectors and were becoming the terrorist weapon of choice. We were all going to die horrible, grizzly deaths because of these super weapons. Congress being the gaggle of retarded lemurs that it is, held hearings to begin the push to ban these awful implements of terrorist doom.

...and it took the ATF showing up to the hearings and reminding everybody that the super-duper-Terroris-special plastic guns were made mostly out of metal, that the ammunition they fired was made mostly out of metal, and that they weren't going to be invisible to metal detectors to stop them from banning something that didn't exist.

So while I'd like to laugh at a novel form of stupidity, I'm afraid I have to say "Simpsons did it!" in reference to yet another scaremongering over weapons that only exist in the mind of idiots.

On the plus side, the whole 3D printing thing does have me thinking about the possibility of making an AR-15 out of mostly carbon fiber. Real carbon fiber...maybe the kind with the titanium reinforcement. It would be expensive, but I bet it would also be really cool.

[Zhurdan]

We already did this in the 1980's when a couple of morons from a Maryland paper went ballistic over these new-fangled "plastic" guns that were invisible to metal detectors and were becoming the terrorist weapon of choice. We were all going to die horrible, grizzly deaths because of these super weapons. Congress being the gaggle of retarded lemurs that it is, held hearings to begin the push to ban these awful implements of terrorist doom.

...and it took the ATF showing up to the hearings and reminding everybody that the super-duper-Terroris-special plastic guns were made mostly out of metal, that the ammunition they fired was made mostly out of metal, and that they weren't going to be invisible to metal detectors to stop them from banning something that didn't exist.

So while I'd like to laugh at a novel form of stupidity, I'm afraid I have to say "Simpsons did it!" in reference to yet another scaremongering over weapons that only exist in the mind of idiots.

On the plus side, the whole 3D printing thing does have me thinking about the possibility of making an AR-15 out of mostly carbon fiber. Real carbon fiber...maybe the kind with the titanium reinforcement. It would be expensive, but I bet it would also be really cool.

*DING*
http://www.christensenarms.com/

I believe most of their Carbon Fiber work is jackets for barrels, and hand guards... and yes, they look pretty cool. ;) My boss just ordered an AR10 from them because he's got more money than patience, I guess.