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The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

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Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#131

Post by hga »

declan wrote: post #119
hga wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the government could ban the manufacture and importation of printers, printer parts, radio and TV transmitters, etc. etc., indirectly negating the rights of free speech and the press? Nope, that's not how it works.

Well put. If Right X is a fundamental constitutional right, as the Second Amendment is according to the U.S. Supreme Court, then laws designed to restrict your ability to acquire the materials required to exercise Right X should be subjected to heightened scrutiny. I'm not aware of a 2A case on point regarding firearm manufacturing (others may know more), perhaps because the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in A…

Although back when the Supremes cared a lot less about the Constitution, or at least some rights, they allowed an ~ $3,500 tax in 2014 dollars for transfers of Machine Guns!!!, "Destructive Devices" and their ammo, etc. Handguns were also almost swept into this scheme, although maybe not at such a high, and inconveniently not inflation adjusted cost.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#132

Post by hga »

seanflyon wrote: post #130
diydsp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the sale of millions of finished AR-15s ITYM millions of traceable AR-15s. If someone wants an untraceable machine gun, they can buy this device and perform mods. ∴ This device catalyzes making untraceable machine guns.

What makes those guns traceable? The fact that they have a serial number on them (which can easily be filed off)?

And why do we give a damn about tracing? It very seldom solves crimes, since the vast majority of guns used in crimes are stolen, or otherwise illegally procured, like most machine guns (all but 2 used in crimes to our knowledge.

If you really want this you have probably either watched too much TV or want to score political points and harass gun stores, distributors and/or manufacturers. See Fast and Furious for the most notorious example of this.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#133

Post by hga »

ctdonath wrote: post #125
barrkel wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by your line of reasoning cars should be outlawed immediately Cars have lots of valuable uses. The valuable uses of guns are a lot fewer.

Preserving innocent life against those who would take or subjugate it is very valuable. Per the rhetoric I regularly encounter, the value of cars should be irrelevant to the discussion due to the loss of life thereto.

The minimum generally accepted death toll of subjects (not citizens because, some how, some way they were disarmed first) killed by their own government is 100 million in the 20th Century. My personal guess is a quarter billion, based on different scoring of the Communists who took over China (that's an additional 60 million minimum) and how much worse it turns out to be when one of these regimes is overturned enough that people are able to poke around.

With stakes that great, a well armed citizenry is cheap insurance.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#134

Post by hga »

na85 wrote: post #122
hga wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming we'd play by some set of rules that would allow these drones to make enough of a difference.

You're kidding, right?

Not in the least. E.g. there are those who are making concrete plans to kill large, Blue cities wholesale http://www.bob-owens.com/2014/02/i-swear-you-write-one-littl...

For the Drone Menace, well, the people who make, maintain, supply, operate and fly them have to sleep somewhere, sometime. The US has never fought a war where it didn't have a safe and secure far rear area, modulo the Civil War at times, and for the South at the end. No drone can detect someone carrying a concealed firearm, or a small anti-personal IED.

For more, check out this book written after the brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution by a Swiss officer at the behest of the nation's Non-commissioned Officer's Association : http://www.amazon.com/Total-Resistance-H-Von-Dach/dp/0873640...

If our betters try this sort of stunt, they'll experience Total Resistance, alright.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#135

Post by jessaustin »

Someone1234 wrote: post #39
buro9 wrote: post #14

This looks awesome. For $1,200 you could set up as a company making little things for others, earn enough to pay for the machine and then benefit from it yourself. What I would do with such a machine is to solve the problem of bike accessories and mounts. i.e. every light has a different mount, as do GPS devices, and cameras, and bag attachments. Yet you could manufacture some common clamp, and then adaptors for each…

I want to do a similar project but for car dashboards. Much like bike accessories we're always buying things like phone holders, fan holders, or CB radio handset holders. But these things never attach to the dashboard well because they depend on suction cups or clips to the vent grate (which aren't standard anyway). All car dashboards should come with a 1/4-20 inch screw thread. Maybe two, one of the driver's side an…

I like the idea (perhaps with some guidelines about what would or would not be safe to attach to one's dashboard), but be careful you don't rouse the metric enthusiasts with this 1/4-20 talk.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#136

Post by ctdonath »

Osiris wrote: post #98
ctdonath wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A casual glance at the deplorable accidental and unintentional discharge rates in the US statistics should make it immediately clear that ...there isn't a substantial problem therewith. Not zero, of course, but by your line of reasoning cars should be outlawed immediately because of the actual accidental & unintentional harm rates therewith ... and the same issue with guns being orders of magnitude less. The problem…

Cars kill tens of thousands of people a year. Human drivers should absolutely be outlawed, as soon as the technology is feasible to do so.

In review, I wasn't clear: accidental deaths with guns numbers in the low hundreds, if that high. Tragic, yes, every one of them, but so are falls down stairs and swimming pool drownings (comparable numbers).

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#137

Post by ctdonath »

hga wrote: post #97
diydsp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, i forgot to mention the numerous modifications which can make an AR-15 automatic. It's true this device alone doesn't make an automatic weapon, but it certainly catalyzes the process of making an untraceable automatic weapon. Once you have made an untraceable semi-auto AR-15 with this device, you can then make it untraceable auto with numerous ways.

It turns out the BATF has a metric in terms of tools, skill and time needed to turn a semi-auto gun into full auto, and has banned ones that fall below that threshold, like MAC-10 and -11 clones with fixed firing pins in the bolt face. And, no, it doesn't catalyze this, or at least no more than allowing the sale of millions of finished AR-15s. Those are a lot closer than a 80% receiver and a pile of parts, "Some asse…

It turns out the BATF has a metric in terms of tools, skill and time needed to turn a semi-auto gun into full auto

The metric is absurd. As one gunsmith noted, he could turn a VW Bug (car) into a machine-gun well within the BATF metric.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#138

Post by ctdonath »

dreamweapon wrote: post #102
giardini wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict: https://www.gunowners.org/sk0802htm.htm Articles, anecdotes and statistics: https://www.google.com/?q=guns+save+lives

Guns save more lives than they take; Whether or not this is true, "guns" != fun toys like the AR-15 or the M&P15, the ownership of which is touted by pro-gun activists as some kind of an inalienable right.

Why not include those "fun toys"? They are extensively used for hunting & home defense, and are used far less in crime (on a per-item rate) than mundane handguns.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#139

Post by hga »

mmcwilliams wrote: post #124
hga wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per that item, and memory, those guys were outside the campus when it started, and only one was armed. And I think you're missing the point. Absent a total ban on citizens of good standing possessing guns inside (including administrators in this case, or, say an arms locker in the teacher's lounge), the duo wouldn't have had free reign as the police cowered outside (experience shows teachers and administrators are a…

No, I actually get the point I just completely disagree with it. The repeated suggestion that guns will make people safer just isn't demonstrated by reality. Not to keep trading anecdotes but here is the case of the Police/Walmart shooting in Las Vegas[1]. Joseph Wilcox was armed, intervened with the thought that his gun would neutralize the situation and wound up becoming another victim. This is your principle put i…

Point me at a second incident where a spree shooter had an accomplice watching his back. It's not something that's happened before, to our knowledge.

Heck, the Columbine incident is very rare in having two shooters. Per Wikipedia and my memory this only happens every few decades in the US and no other time at a school, and it's equally rare in the rest of the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(Ameri...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(schoo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(workp...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers#Religi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_familicides_in_the_Uni...

Whereas we know of tens of incidents stopped, or so we suspect since a spree killer/mass murderer who's stopped early by definition doesn't succeed in killing lots of people.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#140

Post by poopchute »

mcmancini wrote: post #49
mercwear wrote: post #4

I have to agree with the initial comment on the article, this is a fear mongering piece. Anyone that has a working knowledge of firearms can put together a usable weapon using readily available parts. In fact, a trip to home depot is all you need in order to build a crude (and pretty dangerous) shotgun. I also think it goes without saying that a criminal would probably opt to spend the $1,200 required to buy this CNC…

And to underscore how a usable rifle may be constructed with readily available parts, I present a personal favorite, the AK-47 built from a receiver recycled from a shovel: http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DI...

I wouldn't exactly say those are readily available parts. The guy needed all sorts of metal working tools and a kiln to melt the shovel down.
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