when mankind is prepared to defend itself, villains have a much harder time carrying out their goals.
Which is more likely motivated people who can not legally buy firearms uses your 3d-prints or your stated senario?
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I really don’t understand the need to glorify weapons of mass destruction.
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I’ll admit to finding firearms interesting as machines and technology, but they’re not what anyone should be grounding their ideology in.
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That’s kind of the way with tech though. The reality of it arrives gradually and piecemeal.
I don’t think it’s that simple. Some metrics are improving, but some are decaying rapidly and even some which are improving are more precarious that at any time in recorded history. The whole globally good or bad thing seems almost uselessly reductive.
I think you’re pretty wrong on several fronts. Cory’s fiction deals a lot with this quandary. If you’re interested I’d recommend reading his novel Walkaway which touches on a lot of this in great detail.
It’s clear we have radically different political weltanschauung. Nonetheless, I appreciate the honest answer.
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I mean, they’re a lot of fun to shoot and having grown up around them I’m not afraid of them. But yeah, a weapon is a pretty poor foundation for any kind for the betterment of humankind. Pinning one’s hope on them seems frankly foolishly desperate and bound to, well, backfire.
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I continue to not understand the glorification of guns. Probably a deficiency on my part…
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You’ve clearly devoted a lot more thought to this than I have.
I think that someone who walks into a school to shoot people doesn’t really care if their gun has a serial number or not. Also, it isn’t usually how the police catch mass shooters in the USA. Especially since the USA doesn’t have a list of who owns which gun.
I also like that IvantheTroll is posting here - it provides a glimpse into the ideology of someone who would 3D print a gun, and so far is an interesting read.
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Honestly, we’re already there with milling guides for receivers. If you’ve got a real mill, machining a receiver is just following some instructions. If all you’ve got is a drill press, there’s even 80% kits that you can relatively easily finish.
But as noted above, in most of the US, it’s easier just to go out and buy one than it is to make a “ghost gun” yourself.
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Am I the only person who thought of Tediore after reading this post?
Sure. But so are model trains. And they have an equally interesting historical value.
Guys who choose to be fascinated by their model guns instead of model trains always seem have fantasies about how they’re going to be some sort of hero and beat back the evil empire when all they do is facilitate more murders and mass shootings.
They seem to feel extremely vulnerable in the world when they’re actually the least vulnerable in society. White men who have income, status and live in safe areas.
It speaks to some deep seated issues that might be better addressed by someone giving them a puppy.
And it probably wouldn’t hurt if they looked at the Whiskey Rebellion or Shays Rebellion. Way before the government had overwhelming power to bring to bear.
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The stresses involved are large, but obviously nowhere as big as those of the barrel and chamber. Think of it as trying to 3d print a door handle or steering wheel… it might work if you’re really careful, a few times… .but every use is going to stress the points at which it connects to harder material, gaps will widen with each and every use.
If you had one of those MIG welders disguising itself as a “3d printer”, this wouldn’t be an issue.
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IIRC from a Forgotten Weapons video, the US is an anomaly with the whole thing about focusing on regulating the receiver. Whereas many other countries instead regulate and track the barrel and the chamber, on the basis of those being much more difficult to manufacture.
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Afghanistan is a pretty good illustration of the limitations of ‘guns vs tyranny’ arguments.
Over the course of the Afghan conflict, there have been around 3500 coalition casualties.
Meanwhile, there have been over 150k civilian casualties.
The first and foremost victims of these small arms in the hands of irregular forces are other civilians. Guns in these long term irregular conflicts do very little in terms of making the oppressor force suffer, and far more in allowing both sides to impose regimes of terror on doctors, school teachers, activists, organisers, minorities and so on in a bid to compel the populace to take the ‘correct’ side.
With guns available, a tyrannical force can simply ensure that they side with the subset of the population with more guns and more training and inclination to use them, and then far from some liberating rebel army, those civilian guns will turn speedily into a paramilitary death squad ready to eliminate opponents of the regime. In the world of the gun, people trying to create civil societies with substantial freedoms through non-violent means will always be more vulnerable than their opponents surrounded by soldiers trying to rule by force. It’s easily to defend a military base than a hospital. It’s easier to defend the generalissimo than an author. The children in cages right now are not going to get these 3d printed guns.
If you were really serious about making weapons to oppose tyrants, print ATGMs.
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In addition to the raw power imbalance of an actual trained (AKA regulated) militia vs a bunch of anti-tax randos with muskets, it’s worth noting that, during these incidents, none of the Framers were stroking their chins saying “Hmm, these people are exercising their Second Amendment rights, so maybe we’re the tyrants here in our exercise of Article I, Section 8, Clause 1”.
The despised whiskey excise taxes eventually went away, but through the mechanisms of the core document and the rights enumerated in the First Amendment.
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How hard would it be to 3D print something like a Sten gun, which is basically just stamped metal?
I wouldn’t be upset with smuggling a few thousand AK’s to the resisters in Hong Kong. Not because I think they will win, but because it will result in a much bigger price being paid by Beijing.
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This is more so true when all you want is a hammer.
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Seeing as Afghanistan has had a devastating civil war that’s lasted over 40 years, I’m not sure it’s the best advertisement for the wonders of mass availabiity of guns.
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The only consistent winners in the “graveyard of empires” have been a bunch of thuggish and sexist and xenophobic tribal warlords. Which, granted, might seem like a good outcome for the sort of fantasist who thinks the answer to all societal ills is “moar gunz”.
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