Hacker News Reader

Comment by core-utility | Hacker News Reader

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com