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Australian police issue warning on 3D printed guns

techworld.com.au

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Re: Australian police issue warning on 3D printed guns

#2
I can understand the worry about 3d printed weapons, but I don't see much of a difference between this an a zipgun besides that a common zipgun uses a metal tube for a barrel so it would show up on a metal detector.

I am completely disinterested in any of the fearmongering about this weapon. There is no way to hold back technology to prevent violence, we just need to accept that and deal with not being asshats to each other that causes the violence.

Re: Australian police issue warning on 3D printed guns

#5
post #2

I can understand the worry about 3d printed weapons, but I don't see much of a difference between this an a zipgun besides that a common zipgun uses a metal tube for a barrel so it would show up on a metal detector. I am completely disinterested in any of the fearmongering about this weapon. There is no way to hold back technology to prevent violence, we just need to accept that and deal with not being asshats to eac…

Indeed. It's a typical moral panic. The fact is that improvised guns have always been easy to manufacture from very cheap materials. Anyone could make a gun as capable as the 3d printed gun using less than $10 of parts from home depot and no more than a day's labor.

Re: Australian police issue warning on 3D printed guns

#6
Is anybody surprised? Even the inventor of the gun seems quite hesitant about how many times it can be fired safely. Anyone setting out to show how dangerous it can be can simply keep firing it until failure occurs. Voila!

If article made any mention of how many times that gun was fired until it failed, I missed it.

Re: Australian police issue warning on 3D printed guns

#8
They didn't say if they used the acetone vapor process to harden the barrel or the heating process during printing overall to increase the strength. Defense Distributed did this and the .380 test did not explode.

It would work in the Australian police's favor to make the gun look as dangerous to the user as possible.

I'd still like to know how dangerous the explosion is. It's plastic, so I'm imagining it fracturing and releasing all the pressure quickly.

Re: Australian police issue warning on 3D printed guns

#9
post #2

I can understand the worry about 3d printed weapons, but I don't see much of a difference between this an a zipgun besides that a common zipgun uses a metal tube for a barrel so it would show up on a metal detector. I am completely disinterested in any of the fearmongering about this weapon. There is no way to hold back technology to prevent violence, we just need to accept that and deal with not being asshats to eac…

So is it perfectly acceptable to kill people with home made guns and bombs for the progression of technology?

This is actually terrorism. I see someone creating guns and killing people to be no different than boston bombers.

Re: Australian police issue warning on 3D printed guns

#10
post #6

Is anybody surprised? Even the inventor of the gun seems quite hesitant about how many times it can be fired safely. Anyone setting out to show how dangerous it can be can simply keep firing it until failure occurs. Voila! If article made any mention of how many times that gun was fired until it failed, I missed it.

Better still, did they mention what ammunition was used? Police typically use +P+ ammunition, especially in smaller calibers like .32 and .380. I have no doubt that the original inventor used standard pressure loads or even sub sonics to decrease the chance of a failure such as this. In the end the gun was a POC anyways, designed to show what could be done.

What I find more disconcerting is the continue emphasis on how the gun is "undetectable". While it is certainly harder to detect because of the small number of metal pieces, you still have the ability to detect bullets!! Or are they so focused on the gun itself that they haven't kept up technology to detect gun powder?

As others have mentioned.. its all about drumming up noise to defend their removal of this information from the Internet.

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