“Just as the printing press made the distribution and printing of books easier and more widespread, this 3D Printer makes the manufacture of a firearm easy for anyone.”
People that advocate for gun control base a lot of their solutions on the changing of a law or the confiscation or outlawing of certain particular guns or gun parts. But what if the average Joe could simply make their own guns or parts, without having to go through “universal background checks” or even having to buy them from a Federal Firearms License dealer? What if the average Joe could simply make their own unregistered and un-serialized firearm? Kind of makes all the regulation, and confiscation a moot point doesn’t it?
Well that is now the case. Anyone can simply buy a small, easy to run desktop milling machine, attach a computer, download the plans from the internet, and bang (pun intended), you can 3D mill your own pistol, or rifle lower, or even other parts and assemble your own firearm. No serial number and as long as you are not selling it, it is not illegal to make your own.
That is just what has happened. A company called Defense Distributed has put the issue of firearms regulation and control behind them and created the ability for anyone to make their own firearms without any issues or regulations. Their web site states, “The organization’s goal is to evaporate the container described by the Second Amendment, making obtaining a firearm trivial enough that even trying to place restrictions on gun manufacturing becomes useless.”
And that is exactly what they have done.
No serial number and as long as you are not selling it, it is not illegal to make your own.
If you visit the website you will see exactly what all the press is about. They have plans for a pistol (a 1911 style called of all things the “Liberator”), and for making the 80% lowers you can buy anywhere online into fully usable firearms, without serial numbers or any way of tracing them since they are not “firearms” until you put them all together. 80% lowers are basically partially completed rifle lower receivers that still need to be milled out to be usable. This machine and the plans do that for you very easily.
Just as the printing press made the distribution and printing of books easier and more widespread, this 3D Printer makes the manufacture of a firearm easy for anyone. You do not need to be a computer programmer or have any special knowledge other than how to download a plan from the internet and put the pieces into the machine. The computer does the rest.
Now on to the big question. How do you regulate something that is not a firearm by making more firearm laws? How do you stop someone from making their own firearms using this machine? Currently there is no law or regulation against it, and to be honest there is very little chance of any new laws prohibiting 3D printers. They are the up and coming technology for everything, from firearms, to heart valves and other very useful tools.
You may be asking yourself why in the world they would release this information to the world in general?
They even have plans and instructions for making a completely plastic gun, one that would make it through most screening processes.
You may be asking yourself why in the world they would release this information to the world in general?
To prove a point. You can outlaw all the assault rifles you want (even though the term assault is a verb not a noun) and you can outlaw the high capacity magazines, but that all becomes a stupid and futile endeavor when the average Joe can buy a 3D milling machine, and make their own, as many as they want without anyone knowing, and there is no law against it.
To those anti-firearms and anti-rights people out there, how do you want to deal with this new technology?
Outlaw 3D Milling machines?
Outlaw making your own firearm, even though it’s for private use and not resale?
Sorry but the reality is that in the scheme of things, that will never happen. Why you say? Because the genie has already left the bottle, and getting the over 350 million genies back in their bottles is never going to happen because it is impossible.
So now, you can buy a 3D milling machine, download a few plans, and mill yourself a really nice pistol. All without government regulation or oversight. No background check, no forms, no registration, and no way to regulate ideas and freedoms that go along with this.
Heck you could even legally buy one of these machines and then mill 80% lowers and pistols for friends and neighbors that want them, as long as you don’t sell it and they provide their own materials.
You can find out more about this at Defense Distributed.
