Discussion
The Dangers of California’s Legislation to Censor 3D Printing
codedokode: Making a bullet is definitely more difficult than printing a plastic gun handle (you need the bullet itself, and the cartridge fit it perfectly), and you have a non-zero chance to lose some parts of the body if you make a mistake.
noxer: Lead melting is not difficult. The brass case you can just collect used ones. The primer would be harder to make (you can buy them online ofc) but with access to fireworks it is possible with no knowledge of chemistry and no realistic risk of losing body parts.The guy who killed Shinzo Abe didn't need any of these things and still shot him.
michaelt: In the movies, you hide the bullets in a pen or something, and it bypasses the metal detector along with the keys, phones and watches.
15155: I've always felt if you really want to impact election fraud, tax the hell out of votes. Like $1,000/vote. For those who believe in democracy, a handful of votes over a lifetime is all you need, and ideally the right candidate wins anyway.Could probably create exceptions for local elections, so you can still participate in your community.Tricky part would be general elections, but restricting such a tax to federal races is probably an 80% solution.
xienze: > I've always felt if you really want to impact election fraud, tax the hell out of votes. Like $1,000/vote.You don’t even have to go that far. $10 and a trip to the DMV is apparently an insurmountable barrier.
bdcravens: States that already have a voter ID law haven't had any issues. The bigger objections are to those who say that the ID you can use to drive, board an airplane, buy ammo, etc, aren't good enough for voting.
mothballed: The states aren't very logically consistent on ID laws. Illinois requires an FOID to bear arms but not an ID to vote. Arizona requires an ID to vote but not one to bear arms. Vermont is probably the most consistent non-ID state, not requiring an ID to vote and also not requiring an ID even to conceal carry a gun.I can sort of buy the ID argument from places like Vermont but the arguments in many/most states are just complete bullshit where they've worked backwards to rationalize it and that's why there is no consistency for ID gating of rights within even the same state.
ginkgotree: yep - an armed Florida man paying low taxes
jimbob45: No it’s not. Xi has power as absolute as Newsom and manages just fine. When your country has large, but solvable problems, absolute power works great for quelling unrest by fixing problems quickly and efficiently. Newsom is just generationally incompetent.
ginkgotree: With all do respect, I do not want to live in anything remotely close to the Chinese CCP. (laughs in Free Floridian)
throwatdem12311: I just laugh whenever I hear “ghost gun”.> On January 13, 2014 a certain State Senator (no reason to name names) held a press conference where he held a modern rifle in his hands and stated, “This is a ghost gun. This right here has the ability with a .30-caliber clip to disperse with 30 bullets within half a second. Thirty magazine clip in half a second.”Anyone that knows even a little bit about guns knows that this is utter nonsense, and it was appropriately memed into oblivion.Most anti-gun activists and legislators seem to have no more knowledge than this - which is to say, none.
bitwize: Hence "assault weapons" which are not a particular type of gun but a list of scary characteristics associated with military weapons—bayonet lugs, folding stocks, and the like—used by legislators to FUD their way into being seen as "doing something" about guns.In the United States we even have a word for an assault weapon on four legs—pitbulls. Most breed-specific legislation, where it exists, targets pitbulls which are not a single breed nor group of related breeds, but basically any large muscular dog with a short snout and blocky head. The American Pit Bull Terrier is one such breed but far from the only one targeted by BSL.I think it was Toyotomi Hideyoshi who said something like, the law is not obligated to logic, but it still must be followed.
throwatdem12311: In Canada a gun might be banned as an “assault” weapon when a slightly different version of the same gun is still legal with the only difference being that one of the guns is painted black, and the other (still legal) has a wood coloured stock. One looks like a “military” gun while the other one is a “hunting” rifle when in reality they are exactly the same weapon and the only difference is cosmetic.I am all for sensible gun regulations but that is almost never the case in practice.
noxer: You can make bullets yourself just like you can make the gun. You may remember the assassination of Shinzo Abe.In the US low powerd black powder is super easy to get you don't even have to take fireworks apart or do home lab chemicals stuff.
codedokode: But you need something better than a 3D printer for bullets. So if bullet sales are regulated, there is no need to regulate 3D printing.
trollbridge: And I'd argue that shell casings are probably harder to manufacture than a fully working firearm. The equipment needed to manufacture working ammunition end-to-end is pretty serious.
15155: All of these manufacturing equipment and processes existed more than a century ago.If you have a capable VMC, you can make the die and other equipment necessary to stamp shell casings from commonly-available parts and machinery.From there, with a modern Dillon or Hornady reloading press, you can crank out thousands of rounds per day without issue.Primers are a legitimately difficult thing to manufacture, but (good-enough) bullets, casings, etc. are completely doable.
rolph: [delayed]
bmurphy1976: Some of these bills are written in such a way that they would apply to CNC manufacturing, such that they could even make building your own machine from scratch illegal. They are terribly oppressive and short-sighted.
themafia: > oppressive and short-sighted.Which usually means "we're willing to ignore short term damage to get long term results for our political patrons."
pensatoio: A dollar bill is exactly the same (roughly) always. Banning models of gun parts (or anything 3D printed, for that matter) is like trying to ban the patterns of dust in the wind. There are millions of permutations and ways to slice the problem.
sunrunner: Having never seriously looked into 3D printing and knowing essentially nothing about firearms, a few mostly-unserious questions come to mind:1. Is there any value in 3D printing the inverse of the shapes one would need to use as a mold?2. How many subdivisions of gun-shaped part I wonder are needed before the ultimate intended shape is obscured without impacting the functionality3. Given 2, is there even any value in 1.
iwontberude: Like everything in the United States, it’s actually gun manufacturers that want to clamp down on this cottage industry which threatens their profits. I don’t buy for a second that this is some gun control attempt.
abtinf: This is the most likely answer. Just as it was the large grocery chains that have funded all the plastic/paper bag bans.The gun lobby has a long history of trying to ban low cost market entrants.
convolvatron: I don't know the situation with the actual charge, but if you can make a gun, you can certainly make ammunition.
subhobroto: > if you can make a gun, you can certainly make ammunitiontheoretically true but having re-sleeved ammunition, the chances of injury is tremendously different. That said, a lot of people in California are having to resort to re-sleeving ammunition, not out of choice but because for all practical purposes, California has made buying ammunition impossible.While you can crawl and bite your way through getting a horribly castrated gun in California, the real struggle begins buying affordable ammunition.For regular people to own a gun that you can actually use in California, (not LEOs or certain other people), you either needed to have inherited them or bought them from the cartels. Otherwise you own something of limited use that insanely expensive to operate.
asdff: Can't you make a blunderbuss pretty easily with some rocks and scrap? I wonder how straight shooting a musket you could make? Probably pretty straight if you happened on something manufactured that already happens to fit pretty precise into your cylinder I'm guessing. You could probably get pretty far with airguns too. I mean a pellet gun is already enough to kill a bird or squirrel outright and pretty damn accurate. I probably wouldn't want to take one of those to the neck or soft part of the head.
rolph: [delayed]
richwater: Making bullets is trivial. It's black powder, a case of metal (brass, aluminum, etc), and some molten lead.This doesn't even address the constitutional right. You can't ban the printing press and claim it doesn't affect the freedom of speech.
themafia: As a citizen with a gun I can shoot you before the police arrive.
sunrunner: > slice the problemPun intended
max51: >And in the end, what's to stop someone from assembling an unlicensed 3D printer to make unlicensed prints?You really don't have to go that far. A very high quality control board (eg. an original Prusa) is like 125$ and cheap ones go for like 25$.You could buy the licenced printer and swap the board.
nitwit005: Successful mass murders with a knife are fairly rare. Killing people that way is physically difficult, and it's relatively easy to just tackle you.Traditionally, arson was the means of mass killing, as it didn't have either problem. That's gotten much more difficult due to fire safety.
aidenn0: I'm not on top of the current SOTA in 3d-printed guns, but the way it typically was done in the past is that you don't actually 3d-print all of what you or I would call a complete gun.The barrel will be metal. In designs made for the US market, it will almost certainly be an actual manufactured gun barrel, since gun parts other than the receiver are not closely tracked in the US. In designs for Western Europe, the metal parts will be either milled or things you can buy at the hardware store[1].The barrel and chamber being made of something tougher than you can get from an FDM machine is basically a requirement for making a gun that doesn't explode in your face when you shoot.1: Here's an image of all of the parts going into a gun designed to be made in the EU. Per the wikipedia article, the barrel rifling can be added with electrochemical machining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9#/media/File:FGC-9_Compon...
horsawlarway: yeah, but at some point you're just banning "manufacturing".if someone wants to make a gun... they can. It's not complex to manufacturer simple firearms - we managed it as far back as the freaking 10th century.So why freak out over this, for example, and not CNCs? Or Power tools? Or forges (CHF barrels are a thing too!)?
tim-tday: Manufacturing a firearm is already regulated by state law in California. (Be it by cnc, 3d print, or drill press)
nullc: Reason #5382 to not live in California.
fasterik: Citizens of a democracy do in fact have the power to hold the government accountable, by voting against the incumbent. Are you trying to imply that California's elections are not free and fair?I see two problems. One is that regular citizens routinely support bad policies and the politicians pushing those policies. The other is a lack of good alternatives. There's a reason why the Republican party is often perceived as the worse of two evils when it comes to civil liberties.
jandrewrogers: Explosives are a weird case because Americans can just buy industrially manufactured high explosives. Attempting to DIY an explosive that is almost certainly inferior to what you can buy commercially is a red flag.Before 9/11 caused them to tighten up the rules, buying high explosives in the US was cash-and-carry. You could walk in and select different kinds of high explosives from a giant menu. If you wanted something unusual they could special order it. The only real requirement was that you had a non-sparking container for it (basically, no exposed metal) when you carried it away. Most people aren't familiar with this because most regions of the US don't have much need for these types of stores.It still isn't difficult today from my understanding, there is just more paperwork. The more practical hurdle is complying with safe storage regulations since they want some distance between where you store it and the neighbors. You can't just stash a few hundred pounds in your suburban garage.
cucumber3732842: >before 9/11 caused them to tighten up the rules,You mean "before the Weather Underground blew up a bunch of random shit with hardware store dynamite in the 1970s".>It still isn't difficult today from my understanding, there is just more paperwork.The paperwork and compliance is enough of an expensive PITA it precludes everyone who isn't a regular commercial user, which is exactly the point.It used to be that farmers just cleared forest and blew stumps and rocks up. This might sound absurd but when you start looking at the cost of doing that job with equipment it's preferable if you're rural enough to not endanger anything.
jandrewrogers: It worked how I described in the late 1990s. I know someone who went through the new process and it didn't seem that onerous. As I recall it isn't that different from the process for getting Global Entry on your passport.Explosives are still heavily used in mining and construction. Many of those operations are just a couple individuals, not any kind of real company.
pfannkuchen: Is this not like a schizo conspiracy theory? Like why would the grocery chains fund the bag bans? So they can save a tiny amount of money on paying for bags?But having to bring your own bags limits how much you can buy. If someone has a plan to just use their own bags, they will likely forgo purchases at a higher rate than if the bag is not in the equation for them.It's not obvious to me that the buying limit effect sales decrease would not outweigh the savings on physical bag purchases. Maybe I'm not following?
abtinf: The grocery chain campaign is well documented. Just search for it.The short answer is that bags are a non-trivial cost for the larger chains. Now, they get to charge for them at an astounding markup and no longer have to compete with any grocery store on this point. All grocery stores are affected equally, which means it is disproportionately damaging to mom-and-pop stores and smaller chains.
rolph: you need tight tolerances for modern ammo, a shotgun, or muzzle loader is more forgiveing. reloading materials are not federally regulated as firearms, you just dont want to have more than 2lbs at a time, or that could bring trouble.you want to be able to KNOW and SEE the difference between a blackpowder, and a smokeless powder, and what not to put it in.one thing that would add a lot of friction is if the primers are regulated.thats the funny thing, felons cant possess firearms or ammo, however you can possess reloading materials, and be fine there until you start actually reloading, then you are in possession of ammo.
some_random: For maximally effective commercial ammo, yes. If your goal is just to propel a projectile it's super easy.
mvrekic: I don't care how good you are, you cannot 3D print a barrel that will withstand the pressure forces generated by a centerfire round.
bell-cot: > So my assumption is immediately that some relatively large lobbying group feels threatened by 3d printing...I'd say the real groups behind this are the anti-gun ideologues, the "do whatever it takes to stop my panic attacks over Bad Things maybe happening" left-wing control freaks, and the old-fashioned "big state" authoritarian crowd.And the only reason they're paying attention to 3d printers is that some pro-gun ideologues and provocative makers have been talking up the concept of 3d printing guns.
whynotmaybe: Or the gun lobby isn't really happy that anyone can "print" a gun.
jandrewrogers: Electronic primers are a thing that already exists commercially. In the early 2000s, Remington sold electronically primed hunting rifles next to their non-electronic equivalent (see: "EtronX").It is a mature technology. The main issue is cost and simplicity, since it often requires adding electronics to weapons that normally would not require them. The military uses electronically primed cartridges for things like chain guns and autocannons, since those require electronics to fire regardless of how it is primed.
Teever: What advantage do they have over chemical primers?
aidenn0: Thanks for the correction. I haven't really been following this stuff closely.
cucumber3732842: > I know someone who went through the new process and it didn't seem that onerousMy understanding is that it's nigh on impossible as an individual now but I may be wrong.>Many of those operations are just a couple individuals, not any kind of real company.In my limited experience the guys who do the explosives have typically made a business out of it and get subcontracted to many mines and jobsites to blow this or that up.
