I feel that it’s important to note that “proper printing techniques” are difficult enough to achieve that it’s basically impossible for some random person to just decide one day to print a gun.
I may be particularly dense, but I’ve been a casual printer (about a 1kg of filament a year) and still struggle to get beyond about 80% success rate. And much of that 80% is accepting something as good enough, which I think is probably the wrong standard for a firearm.
Then there is time to print and time to “tune.” The last time I looked into it, people who were fairly expert in gun printing were spending at least 20 hours per printer followed up with several more hours of testing and tuning to get one usable firearm.
I think to get a throughput of one a day, you’d probably need a bank of a dozen or more printers attended by 3 or 4 skilled operators and tuners.
None of that makes me think it’s currently a real issue. That said, we must consider that things only ever get easier and more reliable, so our laws and investigations should reflect that, if they don’t already.
And don’t forget that teenagers have been building zip guns since at least the 1950s.
By proper printing techniques I mean angling the model 45 degrees so layer lines are not in the stress zones of the frame. And yes it takes dozens of hours to tune your printer but once you have its set and forget. I’ve printed a few models myself (sans the mechanics that actually make it a firearm, obviously. They’re for display purposes). You can print and tune a functional firearm in about 6 hours. And yes, ghost guns are really an issue. Not so much here in Canada where it’s much more difficult to get the parts required, but in America it’s a huge culture.
Thanks for the corrections and updates. I’m obviously out of the loop. Well, I was never in it, having only researched the state of the art a year or so ago. As I said, everything always gets easier and more reliable. :)
I do remember grabbing a print file a decade before I even had a printer, for much the same reason that I purchased a T-shirt version of the PGP algorithm back when encryption was under strict US export control.
Perhaps you can answer a couple of questions. My understanding of ghost guns is that it’s less about origin or manufacturing techniques and more about traceability via serial numbers.
Is that correct?
If so, can this not be solved by requiring that serial numbers be applied to any non-printable component large enough to carry one?
Yes, it’s due to tracing. If you’re building a firearm with readily available parts from other firearms there should be a serial number on the barrel, however that doesn’t apply if it’s fully custom or you somehow import a barrel from a country that doesn’t require serial numbers on the barrel
You print them in carbon fibre or a metal polymer alloy, the barrel, sear and pin are all metal. Many modern firearms are injection Molded polymers, the only difference with 3d printed guns is the structural rigidity of the frame due to the layer lines
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