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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Nadaka]

1-2 shot compact throwaway handcannons.

Exactly. Perfect kind of weapon for assassination attempts.

Hell, with the right kind of high-density plastic, you could even print flechette ammo.


From my standpoint, this is a seriously disturbing development. Especially in that lawmakers generally do not like Pandora's Boxes. And rather than try to weave their way through all the nuances and potential unintended consequences, they'll just blanket ban the technology.

For example, strictly from a regulatory standpoint: if you print a gun, do you have to register with the government as a firearms manufacturer (and therefore pay extra taxes)? What if you print five? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?

Do you have to report sales? If so, at what threshold does it go from hobbyist to bonafide weapons dealer?
"I just made two and gave one to a buddy for $10" is hobbyist.
"I printed a thousand and donated them to my local militia group"....not so clear cut. 

A gun made for your personal use does not need to be registered or require that you be a licensed manufacturer (for most types of guns).

To sell/transfer a gun to another person, it must first be registered.

Certain types of firearms/accessories require you to be a licensed manufacturer regardless of sale or personal use, i don't have a list of those at the moment, but it includes silencers.

State laws of course will vary.

[10ebbor10]

1-2 shot compact throwaway handcannons.

*These already exist and can be made with household appliances.

You can make suprisingly much things with household appliances and legal chemicals.

Pretty sure you can make a small ballistic rocket for less than 1000 dollars.

[Nadaka]

The trickier legal aspect is someone who rents time on his 3d printer to someone. By a strict interpretation of the law, such events would not count as a transfer that requires the weapon be registered.

[10ebbor10]

Pretty sure many countries therefore require all weapons to be registered.

[RedKing]

A gun made for your personal use does not need to be registered or require that you be a licensed manufacturer (for most types of guns).

To sell/transfer a gun to another person, it must first be registered.

Yes and no. Private firearms transfers are generally unregulated. I can buy a gun off fucking Craiglist, and there's absolutely no paper trail, no background check, no record of transfer, etc. I can go to a gun show and do pretty much the same thing.

Now, if I walk into a gun store and buy one, then there's paperwork involved. Printed guns would be pretty much off the grid in terms of paper trail. I suppose one solution would be to require the gun blueprints coded in such a way that it stamps the parts with a unique ID traceable to the printer, but really what good does that do? You go back to the question of "Do you have to register as a licensed manufacturer if you print a small handful of guns?" And if not, do you still have to report all thefts/losses/transfers? And how do you keep someone from simply editing the blueprint to take out the mfr mark?

If gun printing takes off in a big way, you might as well close up the ATF entirely because they're going to be swamped with untraceable cheap handguns with no paper trail.

Certain types of firearms/accessories require you to be a licensed manufacturer regardless of sale or personal use, i don't have a list of those at the moment, but it includes silencers.

State laws of course will vary.

That's also going to get thorny. Is selling the blueprints for a receiver the same as selling the receiver itself? So far, the answer has been no. In fact, it's been legal to sell "kits" that include the blueprints and all the parts needed to assemble a banned gun accessory, because the legal distinction has been that said kit is not illegal, only the finished product. It's a ridiculous loophole, but going the other way opens up a lot of unintended consequences as well. The idea that distributing information needed to create an item is legally equivalent to distributing the item itself is fraught with pitfalls.

[Scelly9]

Pretty sure there's already such a law now. (As I highly doubt people are allowed to make their own weaponry).

Its legal to manufacture your own weapons as long as they don't break any laws (IE: no automatic weaponry) and you don't sell them, or give them away. This is for the entire United States.

[GreatJustice]

Oh hey, they actually managed to make the barrel out of plastic! Didn't think that was possible. Realistically speaking, though, the "Liberator" is just a proof of concept; it's about as useful as a Flintlock as an actual gun, and it can manage MAYBE two shots before it breaks. They aren't going to be making guns like that until they get the 3D printing of metals down.

Regulating these is, in the long run, basically impossible for the government. Okay, you can ban 3D printed guns, but the information is still there to anyone who has a 3D printer, and in the near future they'll be affordable to most people. You can ban 3D printers, but we've already gone over the problems with that (plus, do you really want a society where the Mafia is the only non-governmental organization with 3D printers). The information is still there, and will still be there in some form no matter what laws are passed, just like how pirated material is still there despite copyright laws. The fact that people are now capable of printing themselves guns (if unreliable, one shot guns) is something governments will just have to get used to.

[Nadaka]

When I said registered, I meant the gun, not the sale itself. A sold/transferred gun must be registered and receive a serial number.

And from a federal standpoint, no you do not have to be a licensed manufacturer to produce most types of guns for personal use.  Short barreled rifles, destructive devices, silencers, full auto, undetectable by metal detectors and probably a few other types I can't think of right now are exceptions.

For sale? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think there is any dollar value/volume that can explicitly separate a hobbyist who sells some of his toys vs a manufacturer who's job is the creation and sale of weapons.

[Bauglir]

I'd guess the way to go would be chemical additives to the plastics. You work out a few hundred of them that don't degrade the strength, and have manufacturers assign particular ratios to each batch of plastic manufactured and keep track of which lots have which ratios when they sell them, and you can probably get a system going where any given object can be narrowed down to a few possible stores that could have sold the plastic used to produce it, and you can get an investigation going from there. With a few hundred ingredients you can vary, you should have enough unique combinations to last until the end of time, and I'd guess altering the base plastic is more dedication than the vast majority of people will be able to muster (which is the main thing that keeps most gun regulations working, anyway, as far as I can tell). No oppression potential, since you'll only have after-the-fact tracking available if you can find the objects themselves (probably bullets more than guns, in this case), and no additional pressure on the consumer, except possibly to pay with some easily traced form of payment, such as a credit card.

Trying to regulate the information is a losing battle, and legally limiting access to the machines themselves is an imposition I'm not really willing to accept. Between the existence of shame as a social concept, and the potential for "By using this machine, you agree that we own all rights to any intellectual property used in the construction of any items you produce" sorts of agreements, I don't think it's a good road to go down.

[Scelly9]

Except if you're going to printing illegal items, just buying off ebay and dropping the package at an abandoned house could stop an investigation in its tracks.

[Nadaka]

Adulterants will almost always weaken the plastic to some extent.

And a filament extruded can blend plastics from multiple sources, rendering your chemical markers moot.

[Scelly9]

Besides, at the moment you can CNC a gun out of metal in 12 hours, add another 6 for putting it together, and you have a much better gun that what you can get from plastic.

[RedKing]

For sale? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think there is any dollar value/volume that can explicitly separate a hobbyist who sells some of his toys vs a manufacturer who's job is the creation and sale of weapons.

But somebody HAS to set a threshold. Otherwise, I could open up a factory with fifty 3D printers cranking out guns and day and night and still claim to be a hobbyist. And whatever threshold is set, there will be a number of entrepeneurs who place themselves just below that threshold to avoid taxes and regulation.

[Mephansteras]

For sale? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think there is any dollar value/volume that can explicitly separate a hobbyist who sells some of his toys vs a manufacturer who's job is the creation and sale of weapons.

But somebody HAS to set a threshold. Otherwise, I could open up a factory with fifty 3D printers cranking out guns and day and night and still claim to be a hobbyist. And whatever threshold is set, there will be a number of entrepeneurs who place themselves just below that threshold to avoid taxes and regulation.

Which is probably a good way to set the threshold. You set it so that anyone doing that is too insignificant to be a threat.

[Nadaka]

For sale? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think there is any dollar value/volume that can explicitly separate a hobbyist who sells some of his toys vs a manufacturer who's job is the creation and sale of weapons.

But somebody HAS to set a threshold. Otherwise, I could open up a factory with fifty 3D printers cranking out guns and day and night and still claim to be a hobbyist. And whatever threshold is set, there will be a number of entrepeneurs who place themselves just below that threshold to avoid taxes and regulation.

Setting a threshold creates certainty, which is in the interest on neither side. An overly convoluted and ambiguous system of laws is not in the interest of either major party. For those who align republican, the fear keeps them voting against the majority of their interests to defend the one and only right they recognize. For those who align democrat, the confusion over what may or may not be permitted provides a chilling effect that reduces the number of people who exercise their rights within the law.

There should be an explicit threshold, it wouldn't be unique, there are such thresholds for other hobbies/businesses. But I don't see it being an easy political fight.