I understand the intent, but feel that there are so many other loopholes that put much worse weapons on the street than a printer. Besides, my prints can barely sustain normal use, much less a bullet being fired from them. I would think that this is more of a risk to the person holding the gun than who it’s pointing at.
I think some people would say the ability to print a gun is more deadly then a knife.
But I kind of agree with you.
If we start licensing people to own stuff that has the potential to do harm, then eventually you are going to run into a never ending list of household items and laws of natural physics:
99% of the what I’ve seen is more deadly to the user than to anyone on the receiving end. You’d really be better off with a pipe pistol or shotgun.
But yeah, almost anything could be dangerous depending on how it’s applied.
If you’ve only seen the liberator and the harlot, the hoffman lowers and FGC9_2 0s? Well…
Looked into the ones you mentioned, both require non-printed parts.
Those are better than what I had seen, but aren’t even on the same scale as what someone can make with a mil or a lathe casually in a couple days
Of course they do, but the serialized part that is run through NICs is printable, the rest you can order online or get at home depot.
Of course plastic, extruded or otherwise, is less strong than metal. That wasn’t the question. You can get a good few thousand rounds out of those before they crack and when they do, they crack along a layer and are not “more dangerous for the user” by any stretch of the imagination.
We already do that, with guns. Precendent is set.
The understandable difference being that a gun has but one purpose: Kill people.
Whereas everything else I have mentioned, including 3d printers are multi-purpose. Not intended to kill, but to serve multiple roles.
Though, it is a good point that few devices could be cobbled together to make infinite guns so long as you had material. So I am not saying it isn’t a class of it’s own, just where does the logic end with that point?
Is it only legal for a company to print guns? How does a license alone protect people? I don’t think that is something I could answer.
The thing is, banning guns is giving them an inch. NYC is already trying to grab 3d printers. Hell the ATF infamously made showlaces into unregistered machine guns, and a felony. https://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring-machine-gun/
And abroad, the UK went after knives.
Never think they’ll stop at guns, because they won’t. Its slippery slope, but that slope is supported by historical evidence.