The reality is that this is here to stay. The FGC-9 is not a joke, it's a powerful weapon that's impossible to effectively regulate. Let that frame the discussion. You can't get rid of this, how do you work with it?
This reminds me a lot of an attitude among anti-DRM people that I’ve been trying to get folks to reconsider: the “DRM is bad _and also_ useless so why bother!” stance.
The RIAA and MPAA have largely gotten their way with stuff like EME and HDCP. It’s become pretty tough to get 4K pirated versions of any but the most popular movies, and even then it’s pretty tough sometimes. While we were chuckling about that 12 digit DVD region lock code meme they were cooking up invasions of privacy that we just didn’t think they’d have the balls or the competencies to pull off.
I’m not too into guns myself, but if you are, take heed from what happened to piracy. These things are not inevitably going to propagate. If you find yourself going “but in order to stop this, they’d have to do X”, stop yourself and consider the possibility that they might try.
I'm very much into guns, co-host a pro-gun and Pro-AAPI gun ownership podcast, and personally know a lot of the people who are behind this movement. Many of them work for FAANG companies. They are aware of the challenges.
So how does a 3D printed gun give maximum freedom, especially when you can buy legal equivalents, and the real “maximums” aren’t possible?
Of the people I know manufacturing firearms, the motivation is gun laws themselves.
California laws are so completely insane [1] that many normal sane gun owners I know have just kinda thrown their hands up in the air and decided if they are going to be criminals anyways, they might as well be criminals with the stuff they want. These are tax paying, law abiding, average joes that have given up on trying to "stay legal" within their hobby.
1. Here is the flow chart to figure out if the rifle you've done target practice with for years and is legal in most of the US will get you thrown in jail: https://www.calguns.net/caawid/flowchart.pdf
This statement sounds like “I’m a responsible pro gun person, but obviously the ones who aren’t are <insert random unliked group>!!”. That’s not much of an argument?
Also yeah, furries seem to be getting into guns, and also seem to be acting with due safety, so I'm a fan of that happening.
Look, people in the 1940s were able to manufacture effective submachine guns while living in countries occupied by Nazi Germany. If it was doable with the tools available then and under the constant threat of armed soldiers legally ransacking your home or business without warning or warrant, it is doable today and in any conceivable future.
There is nothing particularly novel about the threat scenarios caused by ghost guns. The only thing that is novel is the reduced cost of obtaining an illegal gun.
Nobody's sitting around going "hmmm, I used to be a law abiding citizen, but now that I can 3D print an illegal gun instead of buying it, I will use it to go out and do crimes".
That alone puts such business far, far outside the comfort zone of any normal 3D printing hobbyist.
Under that hypothesis, shouldn't 3D printed firearms be a much larger problem in countries where access to firearms is much more restricted than the US?
They're way ahead of you on that one.
I would shoot you if I could afford it
But meanwhile making bullets has long been a trivial affair. And you can totally reuse spent cartridges. It's a brass jacket with a lead tip filled with gunpowder (which can also be homemade). It's 19th century technology.