🚀 go-pugleaf

On 8/4/2018 12:02 PM, Scott wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Aug 2018 08:21:01 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
> <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
> 
>> J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 4 Aug 2018 06:56:09 GMT, ma...@mail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> As someone who has used a lathe (eyesight gone too bad to do it any more)
>>>> I get hot under my collar when I read of people 3dprinting stuff like
>>>> that. I suppose that if you 3dprinted a gun, you might only use it once
>>>> or twice, but do a lot of damage.
>>>
>>> As I understand it, mostly to yourself, unless you know what you're
>>> doing and have access to some very expensive equipment.
>>
>> As I told a friend who asked me if I'd downloaded an STL for a Colt
>> 1911, "I like having two hands".
> 
> I've been following this 3D-print gun thing for a while. I've actually
> got the lab boys downstairs printing me some firearm accessories,
> though nothing that you couldn't mill out of scrap HDPE with a few
> hand tools.
> 
> My take is that there's a serious freedom of speech issue at hand;
> trying to restrict this information is about as unconstitutional as
> restricting the Anarchist Cookbook. Also, attempting to actually make
> use of either resource is a kind of intelligence test, and of this I
> very much approve.
> 

Exactly. If money is speech, blueprints or computer files certainly 
are as well. We can remember the episode a decade or so ago about 
encryption, but I'm not sure these files are small enough to have 
their hex printed on a T-shirt. And the cat is out of the bag anyhow, 
the files are on Pirate Bay and other file-sharing sites.

There's no way I'd attempt to fire one of these guns without wearing 
the kind of gear that bomb squads wear. Maybe when the time comes that 
home 3D printers can produce sintered metal parts. If you're an 
evil-doer, you could (in the US, and probably in most of the rest of 
the world) acquire a real metal gun made by a real factory via several 
(legal or illegal) paths, far easier, faster, and cheaper.

In any case, in the US, making an otherwise-legal firearm is perfectly 
legal (google "80% lower"), you're just not allowed to transfer it to 
anyone else without considerable legal formalities.