That’s the whole story. It’s why people join ISIS and why people vote for Trump. They do not perceive an opportunity to be respected in their lives, to feel significant.
If you weren’t already so smart, and you were constantly confronted by the irrelevance of your own existence while lacking even the ability to articulate it, what crazy straws might you grasp at to stop hurting?
I think we might be better off politically if we acknowledge their humanity as equal to ours and find a way to make a value proposition to them instead of writing them off as deplorables.
Is this true? I’ve never had anyone check what I was printing or copying at a library or copyplace since junior high.
Counterfeiting was probably a bad example. Software can easily check for specific designs or features. More interesting would be non specific cases. Could they have the printer detect obscenity, libel, or sedition?
The original story doesn’t seem to specify percentage complete. But I think 90% complete is the usual cut off for being legally a gun. Though receivers in various states of completion are sold. And I have no clue how exact percentage is determined. It might just be loose vernacular. If this much is done we call it 90 and its just this side of the cut off. If more work is needed we call it 80. Or both what’s sold as 80 and 90 are at the same stage of completion.
But that’s sort of my point. He was selling the incomplete receiver blank. Taking that blank and costumer over to his machine. Which completed that blank. Turning it into a legal firearm. Under the idea that by pushing one button the customers was technically doing whatever finish work made it a gun.
That’s absurd. You’re basically selling completed receivers at that point. Its functionally no different that having an employee do the finish work, but having the customer turn the tools on. Then claiming that the customer did the work. Which is why I don’t really think it will bear much on laws related to CNC machines and 3d printers.
I think they check in the sense that there is somebody in the area who might notice if you had big stacks of bills counterfeit piling up around them, was giggling maniacally, was twirling a mustache with an evil laugh, etc.
Well some laws require the judge to apply a “test” to see if you broke them, so the “if you don’t run a risk of doing it wrong/breaking things you aren’t the one that made it” might work.
Applied to a 3D printer the person that presses “start” isn’t it, but whoever made the 3D model can screw that up. Whoever leveled the bed can screw that up. Whoever heats the room can screw it up. Lots of possible screwups (not so many that can break the printer though, but you listed that as optional).
It does however leave you with “whoever pressed COPY” in the UI didn’t copy the CD/DVD/BluRay. It was whoever made the code…pressing COPY in a UI can’t be meaningfully screwed up, writing insufficient copy de-protection code and/or bad transcoders can be.
So I’m still not thrilled… I prefer the person that hit “START” because they had intent, and a firm grasp of all the variables involved…
It used to be (in the old powder toner days) that if you ran copies that used more than a tiny amount of the same green as currency, a bit of that powder would be diverted into a special catch container. Copy store owners were required to notify the Feds if they found more than trace amounts of that toner in the catch.
In the case of copying something, in most cases the software isn’t made to copy a specific CD/DVD/whatever. The user needs to take affirmative action to install the software in the first place, chose what to copy, physically set things up, and then press the button in the UI.
But, there are also very different set of laws governing copyright than for the manufacturing of weapons, so trying to compare the two is really going to get into the weeds.
All of those things are just finishing. The object is “done” when it can be used in a working gun. Though that is a grey area, as say you did everything but one last pin hole, the ATF could consider that complete enough that you couldn’t sell it. Vs the common “blanks” are known as 80% done.
Painting, laser engraving, etching, etc is all just cosmetics and isn’t used to determine if the item is a “finished” part.
Also, lots of these laws are open to what the ATF determines to be acceptable. In the past some manufactures will get the ATF’s permission to market a new item that may fall on either side of a law. Or in some cases the ATF makes a determination after the fact.
In short this is such a non issue that you just shouldn’t fuck with it. Personally I’ll just buy a god damn lower. If I felt the need to make one, I’d make one per the rules, and not go through some shady BS. There is no point to it. You get zero extra reward for increased risk of running afoul of the law.
I’m looking at this not from a gun control standpoint and more ‘theyr’e going to use this to murder 3d printing before it ever really hits its stride.’
There are pretty clear rules regarding completion. They refer to function and not cosmetics.
Work on existing firearms must be done in the presence of the owner, or else the person doing the work must be a an FFL (Federal Firearms License) holder.
I am pretty sure most people selling 80% AR lowers are leaving the same parts to be finished based on models that have been sent to the ATF and approved as "not yet a greater than 90% firearm.
Early versions of “80%” lowers had different areas completed compared to what is commonly sold today.
Another recent variant of the 80% lower was a piece of injection molded plastic, there was a hard frame that was a real finished lower and then a softer different color filler. ATF nixed that as the hard frame was premanufactured, you can just stick a firearm in a block of hot glue and then say it “isn’t completed” because you need to cut the glue away.
