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Comment by Wingman4l7 | Hacker News Reader

A step in the right direction. I've always felt that home 3D printers will truly become a game changer only when they can make metal items, like DMLS[1] does.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_metal_laser_sintering

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Not all valuable parts are made of metal. You can do plenty with plastic already. Just look around you.

A machine that can make metal parts from a blueprint can also make all kinds of weapon. Do you think such a 3d printer would be legally available to the general public?

Actually, there was a big kerfuffle on Thingiverse when someone published, as proof of concept, a design for a plastic rifle magazine: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11636

People have also done the lower receivers for the same rifle (an AR-15): http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11770

Why the downvote? I was just pointing out something that the gov't is sure to latch on to.

They already are. They're not cheap though.

That's interesting. I would think that a machine capable of making arbitrary metal parts would very quickly be subjected to heavy government regulations?

The parent poster is probably referring to CNC milling machines. AFAIK, gun parts made on them are subject to the same regulation/registration as if they were purchased in a store or made in a machine shop. Also, using CNC machines takes skill -- they're not "set and forget" -- and I would imagine that the kind of people with said skill are smart enough not to tempt fate and make illegal gun parts.

Yeah, that's what I thought. My surprise was at the notion of set and forget machines for arbitrary metal parts.

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