3D Printed Guns: Everybody Calm Down

I don’t want to get involved publicly in political issues, but this is one issue where the content of this blog crosses a currently trendy political issue, so while I don’t court the political, neither am I afraid of it. Especially when I feel there’s a record to be set straight.

I’m a gun owner, and a believer to some extent in gun ownership rights. I don’t own a bunch of wacky tactical equipment, I don’t give money to political gun organizations, and I don’t dress in camouflage when I go to Walmart. With that out of the way, I’ve never bought a gun, all of the ones I own have been handed down through the family, or I’m holding onto for family members that live in a situation where they aren’t appropriate to keep around. I have them in a big heavy iron safe. I grew up in a rural setting, and used to hunt quite a bit. I don’t own a handgun, everything I have are shotguns or rifles. I don’t believe this needs to be said, but let me say it anyway, I have never shot any person, nor have I wanted to or threatened to do so. I know a lot of people think guns = death. I know a lot of gun owners who have never shot anyone or been shot themselves. To me, guns are for hunting and for target practice. In the outside extremity, for self defense, but no more than a baseball bat or a kitchen knife are for self defense.

One of the first things I learned about guns as a kid was safety, and how to handle them properly. First lesson is to not touch the trigger unless you are ready to fire. (Actually, someone reminded me that the first lesson was to always point the gun at the ground, never at a person, even if it isn’t loaded). Second lesson is where is the safety button and how does it work. It is with an almost religious dedication that you are taught to go through and unload a loaded gun. Even in the military, where the point is to kill people with guns, we were taught respect for their danger, and how to handle them in such a way to ensure the safety of ourselves and those around us.

As a young adolescent I remember taking a hunter safety class in the same way that everybody took driver safety, boater safety and snowmobile safety. All of these activities can be dangerous if you are careless or stupid. I don’t blame cars or boats or snowmobiles for all of the people killed in accidents every year. Nor do I blame guns. I blame stupid people and people who have lost control due to mental health issues or drug abuse.

I’ve done some firearm design work. I designed an air pistol frame for Crosman, a parametric rifle stock for a custom rifle company, and some civil war reproductions for a private enthusiast. I’ve got no problem with that kind of work. Guns are fascinating mechanical devices, and just like a big brake press, they can kill or maim you if you misuse them.

Here’s one of the things that has to be said yet is never said in the general news about guns: Most people don’t understand guns, don’t understand the laws of physics, or how engineering or materials work, all they understand is fear. The news is generally trying to frighten you, because that’s how they make their money. Sensationalism draws attention, and attention draws advertising. So intentional ignorance about firearms is spread by people with a financial motivation to spread fear and ignorance.

3D printing is a great tool for a lot of things. I’ve used it for lots of stuff over the course of the last 25 years. So have many of you. The only thing really new about it is the materials they have developed in the last decade, and the lower cost of the machines.

I’ve written about 3D printing guns the last time the media tried to whip people into a frenzy on the topic. Nothing has changed, except that maybe there is a fresh crop of chumps who believe this crap.

If you’re one of the ones thinking about setting off an explosion inside a piece of plastic, let me remind you of a few things. The explosive reaction inside the ammunition is going to require metal to contain, and indeed to induce. Gun manufacturers do not save cost and weight by using plastic firing pins and springs and chambers and barrels, because those materials don’t work that way. These parts are made of metal.

Gun parts aren’t just made out of any old metal, the functional parts are made of specially processed steel that has very high hardness and spring properties, depending on what it’s being used for. Even if you can print in metal (which you can, but it’s very expensive), that metal would need to be treated to get the hardness and durability properties gun parts require. The ammunition casing is made out of metal (brass – a copper/tin alloy) for a reason. Plastic shell casings are used in shotgun ammunition, but the functional end of the shell is brass to contain the ignition of the powder. So from a materials point of view, the idea of 3D printed guns is pretty much a bust. A purely plastic gun won’t be detectable in a scanner. But then without metal parts, even with ammunition, it’s just a movie prop. The people on YouTube who make them shoot have put metal parts in them (in addition to being idiots).

Oh, but it’s not traceable! chicken little screams in horror. So what? Traceability only matters after the fact. Making something traceable will not prevent a crime. Prison time doesn’t seem to deter criminals, and registered handguns sure don’t. Even if you registered a 3D printed gun with “the authorities”, it would not increase or decrease its lethality.

Oh, no, next someone will print an AR-15! Panic! Same deal. A  larger caliber, multiple shot 3D printed gun is going to require even more metal parts than a single shot gun. Plus, I challenge any anti-gun people to tell me the difference between what the media calls an “AR-15” or an “assault rifle”, and a legitimate .308 hunting rifle. What’s the difference?

In some places, the only thing between a legal, inconspicuous hunting gun and what the media has lead us to fear as an “assault weapon” is a pistol grip (just how you hold it, and really, it’s just a cosmetic difference, not functional) and the number of shells it can hold. That’s it. That’s a thin line. There is no functional difference, because you could have a bag full of small clips to make an illegal gun legal again.

Oh, and some people fear the word “semi-automatic”. Did you know that any  revolver design, which has been around for over a century is semi-automatic? Semi-automatic just means that the recoil ejects the spent casing, and that for each shot, you have to pull the trigger once.

To keep things in perspective, even assuming the 3D printed gun being floated around the news is even capable of firing, it is a single shot device, probably only accurate within 10 feet, and is certainly not semi-automatic. Even by the meaningless standards set by gun activists, there isn’t anything particularly “lethal” about it.

Let’s look at it from another direction. CNC (computer numerical control) machining which can cut metal, can be had in desktop CNC form factor. Even a manual Bridgeport mill which is far less expensive and you will find in more private basements and garages than 3D printers is much more likely to produce a real useful gun made of metal, and no one is afraid of that idea. I don’t hear media people running around that bitter old men are in their garages fashioning home made guns out of steel on their lathes and old Bridgeports. A guy could easily make a Saturday night special in his basement that really works. Saturday night specials are considered cheap (and dangerously unreliable) guns. Where is the fear? As cheap and dangerous and unregistered as the Saturday night special is, it is far more likely to actually kill someone than 3D printed guns.

Remember Captain Kirk and the Gorn? Kirk tried to fashion a weapon from a length of bamboo tube and improvised gunpowder.  Mythbusters took on that myth, and busted it, the bamboo exploded and the rocks went anywhere but towards the Gorn. So get real. Don’t do this at home. A 3D printed gun that’s dangerous to Gorns is the same kind of fiction.

I think being afraid of 3D printed guns is silly for a lot of reasons:

1. the only people afraid of them are the media and activists
2. it’s easier/less expensive to buy a real gun than to 3D print one that works
3. You really can’t stop people from designing and printing bad ideas, I mean, how are you going to do that?
4. These 3D printed designs are single shot. Unless you carry a bag full of them.
5. There are so many other ways of killing people, if that’s what you really want to do, that going to the trouble and danger of firing a 3D printed gun is just stupid. We’ll have to outlaw cars, trains, buses, carbon monoxide, gasoline, knives, pressure cookers, ball bearings, nuts and bolts, nails, hammers, water, electricity, gravity, rocks, and cheese burgers before we can eliminate all the possible ways you can kill someone. Doesn’t it make sense to start talking about mental health (and drugs), which is the root cause of violence generally instead of all of these other secondary issues which are good and useful inventions simply being misused by a twisted mind?