3-D printed and ghostgunner laws

[BoogieMan]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...tutional-duel/

How should 3-D printed and GhostGunner guns be regulated or not regulated?
IMHO these guys are opening up a lot of potential problems for legal gun owners. I think that the questions raised by printed guns, gun plans, and laptop CNC machines to make guns is going to spur laws that will lead to criminalizing 80% guns and maybe even home assembled guns. I dont consider this a legitimate challenge on current gun restriction, rather its more of taunting the anti-gun movement with firepower to swing undetermined people into being anti-gun. As well as offering up our current laws and maybe even the Constitution for changes or reinterpretation.

[44 AMP]

How should 3-D printed and GhostGunner guns be regulated or not regulated?

While I'm no legal expert, it would seem that these things are already covered under existing law. Otherwise, how could the inventor and/or the company be charged with anything?

There has to be a law, before you can break a law.

The problem, of course, is that existing law does not cover these things the way the anti-gunners want them to be covered. And that they will lie to the general public to get the support to pass the laws they want, and while that is their standard tactic, in this case it is likely to be more effective, simply because this adaptation of technology is largely new and unknown, and its easy to get the ignorant to fear the unknown.

Look at the lies told about the GLock pistol when it came out, and even later. "Its all plastic". No. "It can pass undetected through metal detectors" again, no. "It is perfection". No. (lies told by the maker count in my book, too!)

As I understand it, current law doesn't care HOW you make a gun. OR how long it takes you. The law doesn't care if it takes you 10 months with a hand file, or 10 minutes with a 3D printer, it only cares about what you make, and what you do with it.

And, I think that is sufficient. The law allows you to make your own gun. You make it yourself, at home, for your own personal use, it is allowed, and allowed without the same regulations as commercial firearms.

The law even allows you to sell it, after you get tired of it. (at which time it has to meet some of the regular gun's legal requirements)

You cannot make it 'for sale". If you do, without following all the current legal requirements for a gun MAKER, you are breaking the law. A few of them, in fact.

SO, "every criminal, felon, and terrorist" who sets up one of these to have a "gun factory in his garage" will be breaking existing law by doing it.

I admit I do get confused about computers and import/export laws. If you put something on the Internet, have you exported it to the world? OR are you just making it available for export? (is there a difference?)

With physical things, I can see it. If you ship a box of XYZ to lower Slobovia, you exported it. If you just put it on the dock, and they come and take it in the middle of the night, without you knowing, are you still exporting it? Because you put it out there for them to take?

These things being covered under existing law won't be enough to stop, or likely even slow down the anti's when they get their steam up. Lie will be piled upon lie, and we will be told how we "need" new laws to keep us safe.

Same old song and dance, my friend, 3D printers just gives them a new line to add to the lyrics.

[bandaid1]

3D printing is just the new flavor of the month for the anti-gun group. I remember when my Dad (born in 1911) told me about when he and his bother got a metal plumbing pipe, a box of 22 shorts, and a hammer for X-mas instead of the rifle they wanted to hunt rabbits (yea, it's amazing they lived to be adults).

When you get right down to it, the governments hold on firearms is based on the interstate commerce clause and the States is on the intrastate clause. If your making something for personal use, be it a chair, a homemade lawn mower, or a gun, what business is it of any ones? There are rules on what classification of firearms that an individual can make, but not how it can be built or with what tools.

I don't see an issue with 3D printers. Interesting idea, but I'm more partial to steel and wood myself.

[Tom Servo]

The crux of the issue is in how the government is pursuing this. They're trying to claim that the software to produce the guns runs afoul of ITAR regulations.

In a way, this is a sequel to Bernstein v. United States, in which the author of cryptography software was told his software constituted munitions. He was expected to apply for a license and undergo government approval. I watched that closely at the time, as it has implications for both the 1st and 2nd Amendments.

As the law stands right now, I can make a gun for personal use so long as it's not an NFA weapon. I can even sell it. When I cross the line into manufacturing guns as a business, I'd need to get a license to do so. That's not the issue at play. What's being litigated is whether someone writing the software and distributing it on the internet is exporting it in violation of ITAR.

These are the issues antis are getting mixed up, whether intentionally or not.

[BoogieMan]

Thanks for your views. I may have been a little blinded by the idea of the new technology being applied. Especially with the ghostgunner. It is after all a pre-programmed box that you insert raw materials into, then it turns out a gun.
My main point of this is that by bragging about how you have applied the new technology to firearms you are taunting those that wish to take away the 2a rights. Why not offer up skateboard plans to brag about? Why guns? Its all for the publicity.

[44 AMP]

Why not offer up skateboard plans to brag about?

My guess would be, because they aren't selling skateboards...

Some business guy once said, "there is no such thing as bad publicity" And he's not entirely wrong, from a purely business point of view.
There are, however, other things to consider.

The anti-gun bigot's would have us believe that you get one of these 3D printers, plug it in, push a button, and 15minutes later out pops a gun, fully assembled, functional and loaded, along with directions to the nearest mall, church, pre-school etc.

And they are going to pass laws to prevent that, and keep us all safe, for the children...

$1500 for a box that turns out a plastic AR lower. Wonderful. If you live in what is still free America, you can buy the entire rifle for considerably less than that, and since the bulk of Americans seems to believe you can get a full auto AK off the internet or at a gun show with no govt. check, for a couple hundred dollars, (so we keep getting told), who would waste their money on one of these printers?

I do find it ironic that the gun who puts his design for a plastic gun on the internet gets slapped with "unauthorized exporting of information", and the major TV network that SHOWED THE WORLD, ON TV, where to put explosives to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge, gets applauded for its "in depth coverage"...

Especially with the ghostgunner. It is after all a pre-programmed box that you insert raw materials into, then it turns out a gun.

As I understand it, from the article, it doesn't "turn out a gun" in any functional sense. It turns out a gun part. Made of plastic. In this particular case, the gun part (AR lower receiver) is legally a gun, the way a bare auto chassis with a VIN # is legally a car. Without the rest of the parts, it's useless.

[Tom Servo]

It is after all a pre-programmed box that you insert raw materials into, then it turns out a gun.

As has been pointed out, that's not exactly the case.

However, even if it was...so what?

No, really. Has regulation on the manufacture of firearms kept us safer, or have we simply come to accept it as a given? Think carefully on this.

My main point of this is that by bragging about how you have applied the new technology to firearms you are taunting those that wish to take away the 2a rights.

By that logic, we're looking a self-imposed gag order. We're back to 1st Amendment issues and chilling effects.

This is an innovation in manufacturing efficiency, especially for smaller businesses. There are already regulations covering manufacture as a business, so why go after this? Because it's new technology? I don't like where that line of reasoning leads.

The counterargument will come that says, "oh, he'll manufacture off-radar guns for the criminal community." There are already laws and penalties against that. Do we outlaw the means to do something because it might potentially be used nefariously?

There's already plenty of that happening.

[tyme]

Just a reminder, as per Tom's earlier post, this case is about ITAR export regulations, not the prudence or legality of selling 3d printers capable of printing lower receivers, or being able to buy and print such, domestically.

This specific case has less to do with gun grabbing philosophy, and more to do with antiquated government rules about export of information technology. As Tom pointed out, we went through this with crypto, we're going to have to go through it again with easily 3d-printed schematics of physical guns.

In more general terms, imagine a world in which Star Trek replicators, or Charles Stross's Cornucopia Machine, or any of the other similar technologies in scifi, exists. Assume we agree that nuclear weapon technology needs to be prevented from exportation to certain (most/many) less-developed, more-dogmatic countries. How do you do that, when a nuclear weapon simply means "bits of information" plus "replicator" (which has become, or could become, ubiquitous, and is not subject to regulation itself)? The information has to be kept secret, even domestically, for there to be any hope of preventing export. Preventing export becomes equivalent, not just to keeping information classified, but keeping it classified to such a high degree (in the TS/SCI realm) that so few people have access that the probability of leaking the information technology is low enough to be acceptable.

One parallel, other than crypto or sci-fi, would be printers/photocopiers and paper money. I don't know how true it is any more, but some printers would actively try to detect money designs and corrupt the copy somehow.

Unfortunately for the regulators, 3d printer designs are a lot more open than paper printer designs. Even for commercially sold 3d printers, they have the disadvantage (I think?) of not necessarily being able to "see" the entire 3d design. It's only printing one layer at a time; as long as the entire design isn't buffered in the 3d printer, trying to prevent 3d printing of dangerous objects would be nearly impossible. Even with the entire design buffered, trying to determine the nature of a 3d object based on a schematic seems like a more difficult problem than trying to detect a 2d drawing based on a reference copy.

[Dan F]

44 AMP:

GhostGunner is a CNC machine, as opposed to a 3D printer... as such, if you place an aluminum 80% lower into it, an aluminum completed lower is what you'll pull out of it. Of course, analogously, a polymer 80% lower... you get what I mean

Of course, complicating the scenario, I have heard that there are 3D printers that use powdered metals and sintering to produce metal products.

Really exciting tech.

[44 AMP]

Thanks for the clarification Dan.

Assume we agree that nuclear weapon technology needs to be prevented from exportation to certain (most/many) less-developed, more-dogmatic countries. How do you do that, when a nuclear weapon simply means "bits of information" plus "replicator" (which has become, or could become, ubiquitous, and is not subject to regulation itself)?

I understand this scenario, but in our world, that genie is long out of the bottle.

Anyone who doesn't sleep through High School Physics is taught the basic principles of a nuclear reaction. It is deceptively simple.

What is difficult is obtaining and working with the nuclear materials, which is a different discussion, anyway.

[TimSr]

I'm thinking of using a 3d printer to print 3d printers.

[44 AMP]

what happens when you put a 3D printer between two mirrors?...

[Tom Servo]

what happens when you put a 3D printer between two mirrors?

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. Total protonic reversal. Don't cross the streams.

[44 AMP]

ok, that would be bad, thanks for the tip Egon!

[62coltnavy]

You cannot regulate the printer or the cnc machine as they have an abundance of uses that are more than legal and needed in industry. All you can "regulate" --or try to--is the software. Which is why DD is suing, because the government refuses to tell him whether posting the software on the internet is or is not a violation of ITAR. We are getting to the point, though, where you simply can't stop the signal.

[johnwilliamson062]

I use smile.amazon.com and select SAF(Backing this lawsuit) as my charity of choice.

If SAF filed the Suit I think there is a VERY VERY good chance they will win. They are very particular with where they spend their resources.

There are all kinds of sites from outside the US hosting this information.

[rickyrick]

TimSr

TimSr

I'm thinking of using a 3d printer to print 3d printers.

Actually, that's the way some people do it. They get a smaller cheaper 3D printer to make parts for a better one...
They are not even hard to build.