Disruptions: With a 3-D Printer, Building a Gun With the Push of a Button:
But monitoring whether people make their own guns on a 3-D printer is going to be impossible, barring sticking an A.T.F. agent in every home. It’s also hopeless to try to build a technology into these printers that prevents people from printing a gun. One project mentioned in Mr. Wilson’s video, called the RepRap printer, will be capable of replicating itself by printing other 3-D printers.
After committing a crime with a printed weapon, a person could simply melt down the plastic and reprint it as something as mundane as a statue of Buddha. And guns made of plastic might not be spotted by metal detectors in airports, courthouses or other government facilities.
“This becomes scary when you consider the fact that it could be yet another opportunity for people to evade background checks and get a gun,” said Daniel Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
[First of all, this is nothing new (people building their own firearms at home.) Certainly the “IED” commonly discussed in the last couple of wars shows that guns could well be overrated by Hollywood and the Press as the best means of causing harm. But anyway, while the above scenario is bound to happen, there’s a lot more good to come of 3D printing than bad. In the meantime this only proves how poor “banning” anything works as a system. The more try and do it, the worse we get at it.]
turnings :: daniel berlinger 