On today’s episode of Uncanny Valley, we discuss how WIRED was able to legally 3D-print the same gun allegedly used by Luigi Mangione, and where US law stands on the technology.
tl;dr printers got cheaper
And better and people got better at making 3d printed guns.
Printers improved too.
And they wirk with more than plastic. I have had that conversation several times. People honestly think all 3d printers can do is cheap plastic.
What else do they work with?
Depends on the type of 3D printer.
Fused Deposition Modeling, the standard “filament” 3D printing everyone thinks about when hearing the word 3D printing prints with plastics - of some sort. All of them,to a certain degree.
There are incredibly sturdy options nowadays, which include carbon fibers, but in the end the adhesions between layers will always be an issue. There are also options to print a cast for a mold and some funny techniques where you print a model with a specialised filament that is half plastic,half metal powder and send it to a company which “burn off” the plastic part, replace it with metal and send you back an (almost as sturdy as a cast) part that is fully metal.
Resin based printing is also a thing but not nearly as sturdy as FDM.
Last but not least there is metal powder based SLS(Selective Laser Sintering), but that does not produce those sturdy parts everyone thinks of, is extremely sensitive/requires a lot of knowledge and lastly money - these printers start around 20k for the better models.
In terms of additive manufacturing people are able to print non load bearing gun parts. Maybe even sturdier than before. And easier. (A 400$ printer nowadays does what a 1300$ printer did a year ago and a 15000$ printer did 15 years ago. But for everything load/pressure/shock bearing, like a barrel, spring assembly,firing pin,etc. will still need to be from pure metal. So people would still need to improvise these,most important, parts.
BUT: There are also self-built CNC machines. MPCNC, etc. are a thing, and more advanced projects for around 2500-3000$ omwards can easily achieve a level of precision on steel that is more than sufficient for an all metal ghost gun and close to what industrial guns makers in WW1, maybe even WW2, achieved.
It’s currently really the golden age of home manufacturing.
I never understood why they never just bundled a bunch of carbon composite front loader barrels with electric ignition along with a laser pointer. No need for any metal nor 3d printing.
I really don’t think these would withstand the pressure,tbh. At least as long as you mean 3D printed ones.
No, just laminated ones. Closed at one end. Easy enough to make or buy. You can even improvise the propellant.
I saw an sls printer make a copy of ironman’s suit. It was crazy thin and highly detail pieces. Add some paint abd it look just like the movie.
Metals, catbon fiber but I heard thise nozzles wear out fast. One printer i saw used lasers to weld metal powder into shapes layer by layer.
Oh yeah, I forget about sintered metal printers. Which is funny because that’s one of the first ones I saw.
Some mad scientist in Scotland claims to have gotten his printing stem cells. He’s trying to figure out how to print replacement organs that have no chance of rejection
Link? That sounds dope as fuck
Since I saw the original article somewhere around 2010-2016, and am unable to find the original article, here are a few articles that seem to indicate that he might not have been as “mad” as I first indicated.
https://www.biospectrumasia.com/news/26/1624/scottish-develop-pioneering-3d-bioprinting.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-21328109
That last article is certainly promising, since if it is possible to print stem cells, then it follows that organ replication, with the right environment providing the correct hormones, should make this technology a viable replacement option for the rich, or the masses once the old prophecies about humanity surviving its stupidity have come to pass in the next couple decades.
Carbon fibre is a big one.
Republicans be Pro-2A until the rich are threatened.
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”
Rich Republicans tbh. For the poor ones it’s when race or “the gays” gets involved,.
It’s funny how everyone has a sacred quote in support of their own beliefs.
Reminds me of those jokingly exaggerated portrayals of Muslims arguing on something, where in one place in Quran the prophet said this, and in another place the prophet said that, and such a renowned theologist interpreted the confusion thus, and another one a different way.
Everything humans make turns into a religion. Asimov got it backwards, that the Foundation could use their advantage in knowledge as a religion for barbarians, but IRL the Foundation itself wouldn’t be able to control it all becoming religion.
I mean, OK, the Foundation evolved there, and their practices backfiring on them were one of the reasons, something had to be changed. I hope real life analogues have some plans for that.
I like to use quotes because they’re less likely to be misinterpreted than my own words saying the same thing.
“Property is theft!”
— Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
“Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.”
— Frederick Douglass
At some point I could allow that Proudhon can be right in that quote, in something accordingly built.
Then I realized that property is unavoidable, even not in our current specific sense, any resource attachment to a consumer is property.
Sides in which should be responsible for their actions, for a society to be self-regulating in any way.
And only a human can be responsible, a real human, not a construct like a group or a company. And responsibility can’t be passed on.
Initially I thought this is right-wing thought, until I also realized that, 1) today’s financial mechanisms can’t exist with these rules, they involve plenty of responsibility sharing and shifting, 2) the right-left arguments remaining after adopting these rules are limited to the status of gifts and inheritance, as in - can you possibly inherit what another person, even your parent, made, and can one gift a property without the tail of responsibility, which would be all of their personal responsibilities.
I guess the typical marxist idea of separation of personal and private property (the former is fine, the latter is not) is in practice good enough to be combined with these for some clear set of rules. The border is arbitrary (just like dividing people into classes and calling some instruments means of production and some not), but so is every border.
Anyway, what I meant was that you referred to authority. You could have quoted an explanation why everyone should be armed, instead you quoted a direction.
Unless you keep the gun I guess.
How do you mean? You 3D print something with no serial and it’s untraceable. Even if they find it they can’t definitively say your firearm shot the bullets. Unless of course you’re on video doing it and admit to it.
In the age of AI deepfakes, I don’t even think that’s conclusive enough.
gotta count how many fingers it took to pull the trigger
Haha it’s better than that now. You have to see them eating.
never forget will smith spaghetti
Haha you’ll know you’re old when people don’t get the reference
that’s one i genuinely wonder about though. it was the embarrassing early years of generative ml. will it care to keep it for us? eww, i just got those terminator chills again
For real
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Unless of course you’re on video doing it and admit to it.
Something tells me not doing that part is going to be harder for a significant portion of today’s population than getting a weapon.
That’s true
Didn’t Luigi get caught with the weapon in his backpack? The title picture on this article is literally him. If it’s untraceable by printing, it seems you’d want to not have it on you if apprehended.
Factually, they illegally searched his bag without a warrant at the mcdonald’s, repacked the bag, put the bag in a police vehicle and drove to the police station without bodycam, and then turned bodycam back on to search the bag again and instantly “find” the ghost gun in his bag, which, without a serial number, is conveniently impossible to prove it was not planted.
The motion goes on the state that once that officer’s body cam footage resumes, it shows her immediately re-opening and closing the backpack compartments she already searched and then opening the front compartment of the backpack “as if she was specifically looking for something. Instantly, she ‘found’ a handgun in the front compartment.”
Common plan for professional hitman is to drop the gun at or near the scene. With a ghost gun what could tgey trace back
Yeah but they have video of him too. Idk the case well enough but I assume the gun itself wasn’t enough to prove he did it.
when you fire a gun scratches are left on the bullet that are enough of a unique fingerprint to trace to the gun.
Forensic “science” like bullet marking analysis is actually pseudo-science and is not supported by peer reviewed scientific evidence or study. https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.302.5651.1625
Yeah but is each 9mm unique from the next?
