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this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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Are these lawmakers aware of the fact you can 3d print a 3d printer? Or at least, about 80% of its parts, and the remaining parts are indistinguishable from the random stuff youd buy at the hardware store? (Aluminum extrusion mostly, some gears, etc)
The only part they could theoretically hope to control worth a damn would be the printing nozzles, which are so incredibly cheap to buy bulk and nearly impossible to specialize.
Also you could take this to court and point out that you would need to also include CNC machines, Laser Cutters, lathes, and any of the other variations of tools that can be used to manufacture a DIY gun.
This isnt a problem specific to 3d printers, a CNC mill that can cut aluminum is also just as capable of producing the jigs needed to manufacture gun parts.
I'd argue a cnc mill makes a hell of a better gun than a 3d printer
So the big thing people, including lawmakers, whiff on this is you dont actually 3d print guns. You can 3d print superficial parts like the grip and whatnot, but the actual firing part of the gun is largely not 3d printable.
You can print it, and people have tried, but it usually only lasts 1-2 rounds before it breaks.
However, what you can print that is a huge deal, is the very precise jigs necessary to very easily manufacture the firing mechanisms of the gun, to quite a degree of precision. Then you use a drill or whatever to actually make those metal parts.
Basically, you can easily 3d print a gun maker, and then 3d print all the "extra" parts like grip and whatnot that attach to what you have created, in order to improve it.
Thats the actually serious part, because normally these sorts of jigs need to be extremely precise and are quite difficult to get ahold of. You need a fairly high end CNC machine to make one, or you have to buy it.
But 3d printers, even fairly affordable ones, when fine tuned by hand, do have the necessary precision to print such jigs, which makes them much more accessible for quite cheap... And once you print the jig, it becomes pretty easy to mass produce DIY guns.
People have been making paper templates for a long time, I can't see how plastic would have any real advantage. A plastic guide isn't going to constrain a metal cutting tool, at best it just shows you where you need to drill the same as a paper template. If you wander outside the lines you'll just mess up both the part and the jig.
If I were to set up a clandestine gun manufacurer I would try and design a product that could be made using mostly aluminum extrutions and paper jigs. That way it's easy to compartmentalize each step, harder for one guy to flip on you, and fast/cheap. Plus if you get raided you don't have a bunch of incriminating files cached on your CNC machine from previous runs.
It's a lot more complicated than that. We are talking a lot more than just "guides" when it comes to these types of jigs. Adapters and entire jigs that require a bunch of common parts you can by at the hardware store + the plastic parts to assemble.
Think more like creating bespoke fairly precise CNC stuff to adapt a drill or router. It's a lot more advanced than just paper guides, because 3d printers are for all intents and purposes CNC machines themselves.