The bare minimum! What decent folk they are.
Do you think that the rest of the developed world is going to be able to keep 3-D machines and weapons patterns outside their borders???
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The matter of culture is indeed very important when it comes to printing weapons. They may have the capability to print weapons from general-purpose printers, but beyond curious adolescent boys and a handful of cranks most people in civilised countries just wouldn’t see a need to do so on the scale they do in the U.S. The level of paranoia regarding those governments is far lower than in the U.S. (although if some of those countries keep screwing the pooch like Spain is with Catalonia, who knows?). As for criminals, they’ll find it more effective to continue smuggling in manufactured weapons from the States and the developing world at a more cost-effective rate.
There is also the practical matter of ammo, which is currently much more difficult to manufacture with a 3D printer. Once the first 3D-printed firearm is used in a mass attack (only a matter of time, I would agree) expect these countries to put tighter controls on ammunition than currently exist. You might also see controls on or tagging of certain types of metal feedstock. The cultures of those countries won’t make enacting such regulation the nightmare it is here, since arms lobbyists and Libertarian fantasists don’t have close to the same power to set the agenda.
In any case, the issue of conveniently printing truly effective firearms (as opposed to the modern plastic equivalent of the FP-45 Liberator, which was touted during the war as a good way to get a real gun) at a reasonable cost that don’t blow up in the user’s face is about a decade down the line.
If I’m going to worry about homemade weapons enabling mass murder (or, y’know, keeping bad ol’ elected governments from leading us down The Road to Serfdom), I’ll worry more about mines and bombs (which can be made with or without 3D printers) and about biological and chemical weapons. Not as exciting and glamorous to the militia types and fetishisers, but just as if not more effective. You’d probably have seen similar casualties in Vegas with a couple of pressure-cooker bombs, but that might have made it easier to call the rich old white male killer a terrorist.
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No, I think the rest of the developed world managed to avoid going in this downward spiral America got in, where everybody has guns so you’d better also have some too otherwise you are the one that is unsafe. The rest of the developed world has much less of a need and desire for these 3D printed guns because of this.
Or do you think the rest of the developed world will suddenly see the same levels of gun violence as the US just because 3D printing will make it available?
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It really depends on what you want to do.
If you have an idea which, starting with the current status quo in the USA, will definitely save lives, then let’s discuss it.
If you aren’t sure that it definitely will save lives, then it’s security theater.
If what you want to do is just piss off all the people in flyover country, and make it clear that you are the boss of them, there are all kinds of things that would work.
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Worst case scenario if we do nothing to restrict access to dangerous weapons: Tens of thousands of Americans continue to die needlessly from gun violence every single year.
Worst case scenario if we take meaningful action to restrict access to dangerous weapons: Gun owners are inconvenienced for no tangible benefit.
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No. Do you really think that’s the reason most of the rest of the world doesn’t have a gun culture like America’s.
Really? The IRA got so many guns from the US (and Libya) at one point they buried them, never to be dug up again, as they didn’t know what to do with them.
True story.
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Define “definitely save lives” and then we’ll talk. Somehow I suspect evidence that gun control has worked in other countries vs prior to gun control, that waving your hands and saying its pointless has not worked ever, and that the correlation in both cases is very strong — does not pass your bar. Therefore this discussion will remain a useless waste of everyones time until long after we stop trying to debate with you, gun control is implemented in the United States, and its real effects are studied.
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