3-D Printer Company Seizes Machine From Desktop Gunsmith

What a dumb project.<p>You could build a single-use .22LR pistol out of ABS, sure. The barrel would have to be three inches thick to contain the pressure, there'd be tons of propellant blowby as the barrel warped under pressure, it'd only work once, and the total lack of rifling would give you pathetic accuracy.<p>It would "work", but be totally impractical, as well as expensive. (Printing giant blocks of solid plastic on a FDM machine is spendy) It's like the actual goal of this project is to get the ATF to take an interest in regulating 3D printers.

Stepping up just slightly from the fact that this is about a gun, this is really just part of the movement to get access and production closer to people, with fewer intermediaries. Linux and other open source. Servers. Personal assistants. Music, books and other media production and consumption.<p>(And in that vein, if companies are intent on getting more done with fewer employees, then I'm fully on board with getting more stuff from fewer companies. But that's another rant.)<p>In the US, we have the unique atmosphere of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, and so this is also a way to make it easier for citizens to exercise their rights.<p>Finally, 3D printing and its effects have shown up here on HN a couple times recently. HN'er cstross's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_34_%28novel%29" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_34_%28novel%29</a> is a great novel that features exactly that idea as a sub plot. I really enjoyed the book.

The guy on the video seems like a sociopath. I think his goal is to raise his profile amongst gun-rights activists. Politician in training.<p>Thank god there isn't a 3d printer for viruses. (yet)

Shouldda used a RepRap...

The main issue with restricting availability of 3d printers is an economic one. The potential for engineering improvements, cost savings, insanely tight development cycles and mass bespoke manufacture-to-order would seem to strongly favour the society with the least regulation on this.<p>Is not as though it is really going to widely cut the cost or massively increase the availability of handguns however.<p>The economics of established mass manufacture of simple mechanical items will have an edge over 3d printing for a while yet for any items that derive negligible economic benefit from uniqueness or short runs.<p>There is little economic benefit in 3d-printing basic guns, in the same way as there is little economic benefit in 3d-printing paperclips. People who really want guns can get them dirt cheap already. I think grips will start being 3d printed however and the existing high-end market for bespoke crafted guns will start using technology like metal laser sintering, if it doesn't already.<p>I am just hoping that a few idiots won't manage to completely hijack the public perception of this technology, just to play the violent-paranoia politics of gun rights, when there are far more interesting uses for this tech than adding more guns to a world that already has a massive surplus of the bloody things.

That will surely stop him (and others).