(Mint Press) – Some gun control advocates are discomforted by the prospect of downloadable and constructible firearm plans being freely available from the Internet. Background checks apply only to commercially-manufactured and sold firearms; a gun produced privately will not be subject to such checks.
One group, Defense Distributed, intends on being the first organization to create an affordable, downloadable gun plan that anyone could use. According to their website, “This project might change the way we think about gun control and consumption. How do governments behave if they must one day operate on the assumption that any and every citizen has near instant access to a firearm through the Internet? Let’s find out.”
Their plan has three parts. First, the group will produce and publish a computer-aided design (CAD) for the three-dimensional (3-D) printing of a firearm. Three-dimensional printing involves a thermal printer that cuts and softens thin sheets of plastic. These softened sheets of plastics stack and meld to previously cut sheets of plastic until a three-dimensional model forms.
The group has claimed that they have produced a gun that lasts six shots before disintegrating.
There is no proof of this, and due to the nature of 3D-printing, the claim is dubious. Firearms work on explosive expansion; the fired bullet discharges and burns its gunpowder charge, creating intense pressures to propel the slug. Heat-laminated plastic will leaf and separate under such pressure, as it is only bonded at the surface of each sheet; the model must be welded into a single piece in order to work in such a way, and even then, the plastic will warp with each shot.
Known as quick prototyping printers, these printers are typically used by product designers to create quick mockups of complicated 3D designs without the need of creating molds or intricate hand-carving.
However, a 3D-printed gun can still serve as a disposable single, or limited-shot firearm. However, the cost to make such a gun defeats the disposable nature of such a proposition — 3D printers range from about $3,000 to tens of thousands of dollars.
The group plans to adapt their gun plan so that it is usable on the more commonly available 3D printers. Once they have a workable plan, they plan on creating a “wiki” so their 3D gun research that is readily available.
In practical terms, the cost factor is enough to make this plan unworkable. Considering that the cost of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), a principal construction material for 3D printing, cost approximately $80 per kilogram, that the cost to purchase and operate a 3D printer exceeds $10,000 on average and that — even with a prepared plan — making a 3D model of a gun takes a great deal of effort and time, it may not be economic to invest so much for an one-shot disposable gun, when a real gun is available for less money and for less effort.
Yet, it is still theoretically possible.
Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) plans to introduce a bill that would renew and expand the Undetectable Firearms Act, which outlaws forearms that cannot be detected by x-ray or metallic scanners. The law is scheduled to sunset at the end of 2013.
“What’s chilling is that last month a group of kids used a 3-D printer to actually manufacture (key parts) of the AR-15 and fire six bullets,” Israel said. “When the (act) was last renewed in 2003, a gun made by a 3-D printer was like a Star Trek episode, but now we know it’s real.”