- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Summary
Americans are posting videos about 3D-printed guns on the Chinese video app RedNote, despite the content being illegal in China.
While some users are uncomfortable with the topic, others see it as an opportunity for cultural exchange.
The future of TikTok remains uncertain as the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the ban.
are 3D printed guns legal in the US?
Home made guns are legal (for the most part) as long as you are making them for yourself.
Until very recently, making a decent gun took a lot of skill, and was pretty dangerous if something wasn’t done correctly.
Part of the issue with gun laws is that gun parts, by themselves, are fairly unregulated. You can buy a gun barrel off the Internet with zero paperwork. You can buy optics, grips, springs, pins, etc without any regulations.
So you can print a gun frame, then buy everything else online, and it’s all perfectly legal… In most states… If you don’t resell, or do anything illegal with it.
The main catch is, if you can legally buy a gun, you can legally make that same gun.
If that gun would be illegal to buy, it’s also illegal to make (full auto, suppressed, high capacity, etc.) but the biggest problem is, with the rise of CNC machines, and high quality 3d printing, how would anyone know?
I used to lurk in s homemade gun forum back in the 00’s. My favorite was the yooper assault rifle made out of 2x4’s and hydraulic tubing with a grease nipple primer holder.
Yes, that’s my concern too. I’m in the UK and I have friends with 3D printers. Of course I know they wouldn’t 3D print a gun, but I’d also never know if they did and it’s a much bigger issue here
3d printing guns is a gimmick. You have been able to buy 80% lowers for years and years, it requires as much effort as setting up and dialing in a 3d printer, and the end result is a real gun made of real steel that will last forever.
It’s also more expensive. The use-case for 3d printed guns isn’t as an heirloom that you’re passing down. It’s either a niche hobby, a way of doing something illegal, or you’re running an insurgency(which I guess falls into the illegal territory lol) in which case, you don’t need something that’ll last forever, you need a tool for a job.
We haven’t seen a lot of 3D printed gun usage yet, but I would bet that they aren’t exactly safe to use themselves. We’re talking about things that are generally made with milling to a much greater precision than your standard 3D printer is capable and which contain something explosive.
It might work for its intended use or it might blow up in your hand. The old fashioned ‘Saturday Night Specials’ that people would make in their garages had that issue.
(Also, I’d be really careful where you downloaded the plans from, because unless you know the source, it might be designed to blow up in your hand.)
We’ve seen plenty of usage, and they’re perfectly safe to use. The important parts are the exact same steel parts used in non-3D-printed firearms. Please stop commenting on matters you don’t know about.
Except for all the 3D printed guns that don’t use a bunch of steel parts, just a firing pin. You know, like the original one? The Liberator?
But then I wouldn’t know anything about that matter otherwise I wouldn’t know that the Liberator is a myth like Australia and homosexuals.
We have seen a lot of 3D gun usage. Not sure why you think we haven’t or what scale constitutes “a lot”. But, yeah. They’re out there. I have one, and they’re only improving. Here’s an entire PDW.
Well for one thing, as far as I know, we have no way to collect statistics on them right now because they aren’t being used very much. They learned the dangers of the old Saturday Night Special thing because they kept being used in crimes.
Not that I’m suggesting these should be used in crimes.
The FGC-9 is being used a lot though? Myanmar’s rebels have been using them for at least three years.
Granted that most of that use is broad use, as opposed to long use. As is customary for insurgents in seeking more robust weapons.
Beyond that, it’s really hard to collect statistics on safety of even one particular model of 3D printed gun thanks to the inherent variations between builds: different filament plastics will yield differently, as will different layer orientations.
But that’s really my point about not trusting them. Because we’re not talking about precision milling of high-grade alloys here.
I mean you do you, but I think firearm safety is kind of a big deal.
Oh for sure, don’t go buying critical/expensive 3D printed shit unless you know or trust the printer, but to me that’s a far broader category than just gunstuff.
Absolutely it’s a broader category, but since we’re specifically talking about 3D-printed guns here, I thought it was worth bringing up in that context.
Well, that, I suppose, or the fact that they’re almost untraceable so we don’t have selling/download stats on them as you’re not legally allowed to sell your own manufactured firearms, and they haven’t been used in crime much so we don’t have crime stats. What statistics are you after?
Ones regarding their safety and reliability. What statistics do you think I would be after?
I’m not trying to be snarky, I can see how it might come off this way. I’m just having a discussion.
Anyway, a lot of that sorta testing is inside the files you download/in blogs of the file makers. You are correct though, there are no studies.
Now, it does definitely get into “he said, she said” type territory there however, I would find it somewhat telling that you don’t hear about people being hospitalized after messing around with them. Someone would have posted it somewhere, and those files wouldn’t be circulated.
Now, my opinion on that is based on as much data as “3D printed guns are dangerous and blow up” is. So anecdotal for sure.
You just might be surprised how well these things actually function, and yes, I’ve had multiple. Honestly, it’s an interesting rabbit hole to go down just to come to grips on how simple(or not) firearms actually are.
I’m not saying they are dangerous and do blow up. I’m saying their reliability is not trustworthy. As someone else pointed out in a comment, we’re talking about all kinds of 3D printer designs and all kinds of types of filament. There is no quality control. If I had an option between a 3D-printed gun and one I know was made with properly calibrated equipment to a high standard, I wouldn’t choose the 3D-printed gun. For the same reason I would choose the car made at the car factory over a car I 3D-printed from online car plans.
For personal use, if you sell one you need to serialize and register it.
Pretty much yes they are
Some places yes, some no. Mostly yes however.