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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

"Anyone with a $200 printer can build a safe and reliable semi-automatic handgun."

I highly doubt that. Maybe if you have most of it out of other parts but a fully printed handgun will fail after just a few shots and it isn't safe in any shape or form. I have 3d prints fall apart on their own if there are issues with the printer or material.

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In the US, many pressure-bearing components such as barrels are not controlled parts. You print the frame or lower receiver, then use normal parts that are compatible. This has been done for MP5s[1], AKs[2], Glocks[3], and even AR-10s in big calibers like .308.[4]

Even if barrels required as much effort to get as a complete gun, there are already designs that use no gun parts. The FCG-9[5] is the most popular one. It's actually pretty easy to ECM your own barrel at home. Hundreds of people have built guns like these using zero gun parts.[6] They're reliable and accurate enough that they're being used by Burmese rebels.[7]

1. https://twitter.com/NaviGoBoom/status/1577447210173751296

2. https://twitter.com/NaviGoBoom/status/1577019965458169856

3. https://twitter.com/NaviGoBoom/status/1574237027125559297

4. https://twitter.com/NaviGoBoom/status/1533508555994800128

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9

6. https://twitter.com/WhichJoeSchmoe/status/156254824438707814...

7. https://twitter.com/jake_hanrahan/status/1468966318317531140

I don't understand why some gun rights advocates point out that the current regulations make no sense for 3D printed guns. I think they think that this demonstrates that the rules shouldn't exist... but I think the response that they're going to elicit is a push for controls on barrels/slides/uppers/ammo.

Anybody with $50 can build themselves a safe and reliable slamfire shotgun made out of metal. The hardware store employees will even cut the pipe for you. These can be sold to police buyback programs for a huge profit, or simply used as shotguns normally are used.

The only way to stop this is to restrict the availability of ammunition, which is feasible in some countries but not America.

Case in point: https://www.thedailybeast.com/crude-homemade-shotgun-used-to...

Which is itself a major wrinkle in the "just restrict ammo" approach to gun control. DIY projectiles are easy (find some ball bearings or marbles or anything else that'll fit in a barrel), and DIY gunpowder is only slightly less easy (https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Gunpowder). DIY primers are much more difficult - but a spark plug and a power source to spark it, not so much.

This is true, but successfully restricting the availability of professionally manufactured ammunition will prevent people from using homemade semi-automatic or automatic weapons like an FGC-9. And even for a single-shot shotgun, real ammunition is a lot more practical. Not necessary, but definitely more practical.

People in the EU have been constructing their own ammunition (including the now deceased developer of the FGC-9) using inert rounds and nailgun blanks or unregulated blank ammo as a source of primer material and powder.

There's also the Plasma Pump project which apparently is going to eventually become semiauto, fires printed+cast caseless rounds using an electric high voltage igniter (think: arc lighter), and the firearm itself is fully printed.

Sure, at least until designs adapt to the new norm. 3D printed cartridges in electric-powered firearms would sever the dependency on professionally manufactured ammunition (and might even become professionally manufactured ammunition).

As for practicality, what's most practical in most circumstances is what's easiest to acquire.

if you really dont care for perfect engineering, a component of a box of matches can replace the powder.

you have to restrict reloading supplies as well; this also is of reduced effectiveness for shotguns, as the ammo is very forgiving of out of spec tolerance, and unrifled barrel can guide a wide variety of objects

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