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Comment by monochromatic | Hacker News Reader

There will certainly be people to make that argument. But people already make guns, and it's not illegal (at least under federal law; some states probably do criminalize it). Selling a gun you've made is a problem, but making one for personal use? NBD.

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Depends on your jurisdiction.

Here in the UK, just being in possession of a home-made handgun is going to get you a hefty (mandatory minimum: 5 years) prison sentence.

Being in possession of part of a rifle or shotgun might be legal, depending on whether you have a firearms license for that particular device. But I'm pretty sure AR-15s are blanket banned (semi-auto rifles have been illegal since the aftermath of the Hungerford massacre).

Now.

Is it legal (or not) to merely download the 3D model over the internet in the UK? What if you, for example, printed it out ... but after applying a distortion that renders it unfit for use as the receiver of an AR-15? What if you've scaled it up by a factor of two, so it could in principle be the receiver of a 1:2 scale (large) copy of an AR-15?

(What if, in the USA, you download the file coding for the magazine and expand it to hold 30 rounds?)

Edge conditions: chewy!

>(What if, in the USA, you download the file coding for the magazine and expand it to hold 30 rounds?)

The assault weapon ban--the federal law banning (among other things) magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds--sunset in 2004. Thirty-round magazines are perfectly legal once again, except in a few states, like California, with their own assault weapon bans.

FYI, they were perfectly legal during the ban, too, provided you owned them before it went into effect.

> Depends on your jurisdiction

Oh definitely, when I said federal law I was just referring to the U.S. I don't know enough about UK law to speak to your questions, but they are interesting ones that will have to be answered in the coming years.

Don't mind him, Americans routinely forget that there's places that aren't America where people live. I used to do it too, at least until I expatriated.

PS: Diggin' my copy of Rule 34 that arrived yesterday.

IANAL, but mere possession of an automatic weapon is prohibited, is it not?

I thought the idea behind the receiver for the AR15 is that with a slightly different receiver that the AR15 becomes an automatic weapon (aka. an M16)? Or are we talking about the semi-auto (AR15) receiver?

The receiver doesn't make any difference at all whether it's full auto. Or rather, the legally designated lower receiver contains the firing mechanism (which can be full or semi auto), but the receiver itself is just a piece of steel and you can change out the actual mechanism.

Usually aluminum. But you are otherwise correct.

Not entirely accurate. The ATF actually specifically requires that semi-auto weapons are not readily convertible to fully automatic by way of a simple parts swap.

A standard, semi-automatic AR-15 will not accept a full-auto M16 trigger group; the M16 trigger group requires an extra hole to be milled in the receiver which isn't present on semi-auto receivers.

The lower receiver doesn't determine if it is automatic or semi-automatic. That's the upper receiver.

And automatic weapons are regulated in the U.S., they are not prohibited (everywhere, anyway). If you go through the appropriate paperwork (and a few months wait), and live in the appropriate places (Louisiana, etc.), you too can own a (pre-May 1986) fully automatic weapon.

This is incorrect. Phil Welch gives the most precise answer.

> IANAL, but mere possession of an automatic weapon is prohibited, is it not?

They are legal to own. They require a class III license and no automatic fire guns made after 1986 are permitted to be sold to private citizens.

You actually don't need a license. You just pay a $200 tax, submit to a background check, and wait a few months

You're right. You have to purchase from someone with a class III license and have to get a tax stamp.

Don't know about the legality, but you're correct about the reality. There are number sliding and rotating parts in the lower receiver that determine whether it fires single shot, burst or fully automatic. Modern M-16s have single shot and 3 round burst. The original 70s model had single shot and full auto.

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