We used to ban the undesirable action! Then DEFCAD got that ban overturned, convincing the federal government that they have a First Amendment right to publish 3D-printable firearm plans. So now our choices are to allow widespread 3D printed firearms (which I and many others won't accept) or restrict the means by which they can be made. I genuinely do wish the DEFCAD folks had made different choices that would not have led us here.

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SauciestGNU 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I want to know how on earth restricting the publication of plans could be consistent with the first amendment. That's like prohibiting the publication of books with content you disagree with.

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jstanley an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> We used to ban the undesirable action!

The undesirable action is shooting people, right? That's still banned.

It seems like you think the undesirable action is publishing plans for machines you don't want people to have.

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xbar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you think DEFCAD will get this overturned, too?

	▲	SpicyLemonZest 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Certainly not on First Amendment grounds, and in general I expect powerful AI will quite imminently make people more sympathetic to random manufacturing restrictions on potentially dangerous goods. I can imagine 2A arguments against any regulation that's specifically preventing the use of X for gun manufacturing, but my weakly held best guess is that they wouldn't be persuasive here.

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simoncion 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> ...our choices are to allow widespread 3D printed firearms...

Which parts of a firearm can be printed in a consumer-grade 3D printer? Be as specific as your knowledge permits.

Of those that cannot, how much money does one have to spend in order to purchase a 3D printer that is capable of printing those parts that cannot be printed by a consumer-grade printer?

Are you aware of "slam fire" firearms? If you were not, you owe it to yourself to learn how to make a functional "slam fire" shotgun. The tutorials are pretty widespread.

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jcgrillo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You don't need to print anything, just visit your neighborhood hardware store

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SpicyLemonZest 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm aware of "slam fire" firearms and know why and how it's easy to produce them. They're much less concerning to me because their rate of fire is extremely slow.

I don't know the details of what can be printed in a consumer-grade printer, not having performed firearms manufacturing myself, but I've seen things claiming to be pretty complete kits and it seems to me that most components should be possible. Barrels of any reasonable length might be hard, perhaps firing pins too. (And springs, but of course those are trivial to manufacture by hand.) If it's not actually possible to 3D print an effective gun, perhaps someone should make that argument in detail.

	▲	sarchertech 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You cannot fully 3d print an effective firearm on a consumer 3d printer. When people talk about 3d printing a gun they are almost always talking about 3d printing a single part—the lower receiver. Federal law considers the lower receiver to be a gun, and it is the part with a serial number. A lower receiver is not complicated. It essentially just a quirk of the law that the ability to 3d print a lower receiver is useful to people who want to manufacture “untraceable” guns. You could change the law so that barrels have to have serial numbers and accomplish nearly the exact same thing as completely banning 3d printers. Also buying a kit, 3d printing a lower receiver, snd assembling an effective firearm is about as difficult as buying a kit to assemble an 3d printer and using existing open source slicers (or modifying a 3d printer to let you use an open source slicer).