3D Printed Guns
Stuff about 3D printed guns are mostly ghost tales that the Gun Controllers use to scare the ignorant.
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2019-10-02 |
| Left | Right |
|---|---|
| The left pretends that 3D printing guns would empower criminals, because they make untraceable weapons, and untracable ballistics. Thus is would allow unsolvable crimes. | Virtually zero crimes are actually solved by tracing gun serial#'s and by tracing ballistics. But 3D printed guns usualyl have the same balistics evidence or worse. The foresnsics and circumstanial evidence on a 3D printed gun are liklely stronger. And the practicalities make it more likely that someone would get caught trying to use one. |
I'm not a ballistics expert, but I have been around guns, made guns, and have a pretty good bullshit detector. Here's some common sense points that I'd love to see an author or "expert" refute any of:
- (1) Zip guns (home made guns) have been around forever. This country was founded on people making, modifying or fixing their own guns. So this isn't unique. It's only a problem is 3D Zip guns are easier/cheaper to make/buy than other Zip guns. And that could be decades or never. Right now the equipment is much more expensive than the parts or to pay for a stolen gun.
- (2) Ballistics arguments are foolish -- you either use plastic barrels, which are single shot, or metal barrels which have ballistics. Printed guns come both ways. (On bought/made part, or disposable).
- (A) Shotguns, which are one of the easiest of the zip guns to make, don't really have projectile ballistics (unless you're using a slug).
- (B) Ballistics are easy to defeat. (I) clean your weapon with harsh tools (II) buy a replacement barrel which are cheap (III) dispose of the weapon.
- (C) The other ballistic evidence, like a piece breaking off, or other unique chemical signatures, are MORE likely with a 3D printed gun. (Because it's 1-off, fragile and not mass manufactured). So would be easier to trace.
- (D) Virtually no murders/crimes have ever been found/solved with ballistics evidence. What happens is after they find the shooter, recover the weapon, and have the victim/bullet, they get balistics evidence to tie them together. But it doesn't help with solving crimes, it might help a little in convicting. Ballistics are not reliable enough to be the sole evidence.
- (E) Thus, having a 3D printer, plans for a gun, materials used (or log of making a gun), missing gun (or pieces of broken one) and other circumstantial evidence, is likely as compelling a case, and as easy to find as in any other case with a gun.
- (F) 99% of printed weapons would print every part except the barrel, and the barrel is the part that gives you ballistics. (Technically, there's also hammer/extraction marks on the casings, but those aren't any different between 3D printed and a normal gun).
- (3) Because 3D guns (with plastic barrels) have less durability and range, the shooter is going to have to get closer to the target, which gives lots more possibilities for evidence/witnesses.
- (4) Plastic guns (with plastic/ceramic/etc barrels) are pretty much single shot (or a few), before they disintegrate. Ballsy criminal trusting that to his murder crime.
- (5) No Serial#'s on the gun -- which doesn't matter because virtually no criminals leave a gun behind, because they are valuable, and they don't want to leave evidence at the scene. And when they do, the guns were stolen so you can't trace them anyways. The FBI doesn't bother to track crimes solved this way, because there are none.
- (6) Modern bought/stolen guns are high quality and accurate. (Far more than printed guns). Which means printed guns decrease the success rate, and increase the getting caught/killed rate. We WANT criminals to try to use these things. Becauase they're more likely to be caught or dead.
Sintering (metal) or molding metal parts with a 3D printer, both are expensive and would leave traceable ballistics (since the metal is harder than the lead bullet, and would be quite unique).
But running a coathanger (and wire brush/sandpaper) down the barrel of a regular gun will defeating ballistics is easier than printing a 3D gun. So the far lefts fears are based on ignorance, or dishonesty.
Conclusion[edit | edit source]
So this article is a campfire tale about the boogeyman to scare legislators into trying to criminalize knowledge and 3D printers, or scare the gullible into believing the world just got scarier. We convicted criminals without crime scene ballistics up until about 1929 or so (more popularized a bit later)... though technically, there were some rare cases of people eyeballing marks on bullets that go back to 1835. The point being, you don't need ballistics in the majority of cases, and if you care about case closure rates on likely guilty suspects, there are a lot easier procedural things to fix than worrying about ballistic forensics.
🔗 More
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🔗 Links
- https://www.sciencenews.org/article/3d-printed-guns-plastic-ballistics-crime
- https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a12935/should-we-be-afraid-of-the-3d-printed-gun-16700086/
