LibriumArcana.Games

From here

Get ready. It's now possible to print weapons at home.
An amateur gunsmith, operating under the handle of "HaveBlue" (incidentally, "Have Blue" is the codename that was used for the prototype stealth fighter that became the Lockheed F-117), announced recently in online forums that he had successfully printed a serviceable .22 caliber pistol.
Despite predictions of disaster, the pistol worked. It successfully fired 200 rounds in testing.
HaveBlue then decided to push the limits of what was possible and use his printer to make an AR-15 rifle. To do this, he downloaded plans for an AR-15 in the Solidworks file format from a site called CNCGunsmith.com. After some small modifications to the design, he fed about $30 of ABS plastic feedstock into his late-model Stratasys printer. The result was a functional AR-15 rifle. Early testing shows that it works, although it still has some minor feed and extraction problems to be worked out.
HaveBlue has also been testing the "marketplace" for 3-D printing weapons. To do this he asked Thingiverse, the 3-D design sharing site run by Makerbot Industries, whether it was permissible to post weapons designs or not. According to HaveBlue, Makerbot's senior leadership decided to not disallow, but to discourage, the posting of weapons designs. Haveblue then posted a design for an AR-15 part on Thingiverse, but in the intensive legal discussion that followed Haveblue's posting, Thingiverse decided to ban weapons designs outright. However, since Haveblue's design is still on the site, it's unclear whether Thingiverse is enforcing a ban or not.
While there are still some details to sort out, it's pretty clear that making weapons at home using 3-D printers from commonly available materials is going to become much more commonplace in the near future. In fact, as 3-D printing technology matures, materials feedstock improves, and designs for weapons proliferate, we might soon see the day when nearly everyone will be able to print the weapons of their choice in the numbers they desire, all within the privacy of their own homes.

This is fascinating, and something I was expecting to see from 3D printing sooner or later, I'm just surprised that it's this soon that someone could make functional firearms. Weapon control laws are about to get really messy, and 3-D printers are going to be looking at some serious restrictions now that it's possible without question to make lethal weapons with them with relative ease.

I'm not sure how they're going to stop this without just banning 3d printers. Bluntly, if I decide to print out each piece individually, how the on earth are you going to stop me? Ban me from printing out inch long pins? Stop me from printing out springs?

Well step one would be classifying 3D Printers themselves as potential weapons, like they did with encryption past a certain degree of complexity, barring them from being sold outside the US, but even so, the tech is out there, and the things printed from them aren't metal, they are composite materials, which means metal detectors won't be nearly as useful.

But yeah, it's going to get interesting soon. I suspect that any guns made from this method will have problems with longevity though, but if your objective is to make relatively untraceable guns for a crime spree, there's little point in making them to last.

If you can simply print out a new part when the old one degrades, are you really all that worried about it's durability?

Well, yeah. We're talking about an AR-15 or other assault rifle that is made out of composite resins. I'd be concerned about a misfire or jam, or worse yet, the barrel melting at much lower temperatures. Worse yet, if the gun starts to crack from the force of the shots, you could have the entire assembly blow up in your face.

Granted, I have no idea what the ultimate tolerances of this stuff are, but those are the things I'd be concerned about, since aside from a few handguns which are made from special polymers, I'm not aware of any sort of professionally created gunsmiths that make weapons out of non-metallic materials for the working parts of the weapon.

Honestly I would machine the barrel out of metal. It's been done before. As for misfires, the chamber is designed to prevent a new round from loading if the first one misfires so the odds of it blowing up in your hands are rather low. Even then I would replace alot of parts before I hit a thousand rounds just to be safe. But again if you can just print a new piece out... It doesn't matter if you have replace chunks of it every 300 rounds or so.

Well, yes, you could machine the entire weapon out of metal if you have the right tools though. The point of this is that you wouldn't need specialized metalworking equipment like a gunsmith might have on hand, you could do it with these printers, and the material may even improve over time.

I was under the impression (and that might be erroneous) that lathe usage for turning barrels was somewhat regulated. I'm going on hearsay from a couple of machinists with that.

Regardless, this is huge and it means that the lid is off. I mean, restricting the printers won't prevent firmware hacks (we've seen how well software restrictions work with the stunning successes of copy protects and DRM) and getting component schematics is a matter of web access.

However, there's still the bottlenecks of propellant and primers and so on, which is where regulation will turn for countries that restrict their citizenry. If that's not already restricted anyway, that is.

This is the sound of another genie leaving the bottle, though.

Thought that came up when I was musing over this...what does this mean for ballistics testing? If the (particularly in this case the barrel) are going to degrade by having bullets run through them, would you still be able to identify, say, a murder weapon via ballistics if the weapon is a 3d-printed gun that's had a few (or many) more bullets fired after the killing?

Never mind, of course, that a nonmetallic gun would be far easier to destroy after a crime in the first place.

Why would a 3D printed gun be any harder to identitfy than an ordinarily manufactured one? Wear and tear on the barrel and the rifling would be the same for both far as I can tell.

Because you could replace those parts after committing a crime alot faster and easier then you could a traditionally made weapon.

Okay, here's the basic version just for you Bats.

1. The Printed Gun is made from a composite material made from a specialized dust and a liquid that reacts to make a solid, and not-metal item. The wear and tear on such an item is not going to be the same as one made from metal, or even other materials. So no, the "lans and grooves" will not be the same, they may not even be similar, especially if they move from merely copying existing guns to making entirely new ones using engineering software.

2. Normal firearms are created, given serial numbers, and several other tell-tale markings on them to help law enforcement find out who purchased a gun, from where and when. It's not perfect, but it can be used to find suspects in shootings, especially if there is any kind of legal paper trail to follow. Because they are physical objects, and must be transported physically from the point of their creation to their ownership in the home, this creates a lot of paper someone can follow.

3. Printed firearms require none of these things, and even if there are laws passed requiring them, or outlawing the printing of firearms, there is no reasonable way to regulate this process. It's literally moving illegal firearms into the same status as illegal music and entertainment. The only difference is that instead of a CD burner, I need a 3D Printer. Oh, and before you say, "well, just limit the sales of 3D printers then", the problem is that you can make a 3D printer in your basement with otherwise perfectly innocent parts that can be used for dozens of legitimate applications.

The only saving grace here is that you can't print the ammunition, but even in the US's most strictly controlled weapon state, New Jersey, you don't need a special license to buy ammo, just guns.

So, yeah, utterly untraceable weapons with no paper trails that can be made in anyone's basement and just as easily destroyed? Yes, that presents a problem.

And the best part? Even if you could track the wear and tear of the barrel to a particular type of weapon (note: Not an individual weapon, but a model or series of firearm), you could only narrow it down to that wide range of weapons that potentially every criminal could have. Moreover, that anyone could have. So, yeah, not helpful.

To be fair, things like 3D Printers are nightmares for authorities and corporations on many levels.

Also with regards to ballistics testing it encompasses a bit more than just comparing markings on the rounds. They also study the markings on the cases and the firing pin imprint on the primer.

However, the printer option does offer the savvy a way around all that by replacing the components and if printed weapons become a thing then there'll be cases that get borked by that.

As for ammo even if they crack down on sales it'll just create a bootleg manufacture market that'll be more contraband to watch out for. They undoubtedly can print bullets and probably casings. If they can, then what's left is propellant and primers and it'll be a bitch staying on top of those. Hell, how good are we at keeping drugs out?

Like I said, genie is out of the bottle with this.