Plastic guns, and the "Invisible" gun law set to expire.

I was really hoping this would expire without any fan fair. No media group has reported on it for several months. In the last few days everyone has reported on it.

From an article in the Washington Post talking about Steve Israel's (D-NY) anti gun efforts:
ATF officials, he said, have consulted on his measure, but it’s stuck in committee and its prospects appear dim. There is a similar effort in the Senate.
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It seems like the big worry from politicians is assassins with plastic guns, not the possibility of this defeating gun control measures in general. Maybe they are just saying that to not undermine their political campaign.

Also from the article:
But Israel, the New York congressman, is concerned.

He said he’s making a “last-ditch effort” to renew and update the law, which currently prohibits manufacturing or possessing a gun that can’t be detected by typical airport security scanners. Asked whether such a law mattered, given that it would not be able to control what someone built in their own garage, Israel said, “You could say that about drugs, about alcohol, about just about any law.”

“It would be unfathomable to me if we are not able to renew this law right now,” he said.
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"Last ditch effort" that sounds promising.

The two bills are HR1474 and S1149

http://forums.defcad.com is where most of the 3D printed action is.
 
The Senate bill has 3 co-sponsors, all of whom are usual suspects.

The House bill has 6. Only on of them (King) has any sort of clout. It's also worth noting that it hasn't picked up any in six months.
 
I might be missing something but other than a general aversion to gun control laws I see the renewal as a non event.

My sticking point is how it is being tied to unrealistic aspects of 3D printing and being sold as a way to keep things illegal that are not presently illegal.

I think 3D printing is pretty cool and useful for quickly and cheaply producing 3D models of new products as a proof of concept. But, at this point, it does nothing in the gun world that can not be done with technology from the late 1800's combined with modern plastic and composite materials.
 
I got the following from a friend by E-mail. Seems like Chuckie is having invisible gun nightmares again. :rolleyes: Sorry, he didn't give a link but it should be easy to check out. First three lines in quotation marks are my friends comments. Chuckie strikes again.
Paul B.


"You can tell how frightened the politicians are by how soon they try to suppress new technology that might threaten them personally. Sort of like the French aristocracy trying to ban guillotines. Sweat, Chucky, sweat!"

Original article is here.
 
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Both NBC and CBS national news shows had a story.

Interesting point - some of the guns blew up on the first shot in ATF tests.

Next - the ATF rep that was interviewed mentioned that the gun had little sporting or hunting use. I agree BUT they still don't get the 2nd Amend. If he had said sports, hunting and SD - I might have more respect for them but it sounds like a political position.

Chucky says that they should be illegal as terrorists might use them. So how does banning possession do it? Oh, I think I will kill folks for my nutso cause. Oh, maybe not because the gun is illegal so I will not take it on the plane. That is the law.

You would have to ban and enforce a law against the printers in common usage.
 
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Glenn noted:
Interesting point - some of the gun blew up on the first shot in ATF tests.
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It wouldn't surprise me if the ATF tweaked the build / design file / materials to make them fail intentionally.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if the ATF tweaked the build / design file / materials to make them fail intentionally.
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I would have thought the opposite. Make it work so we have more reason to make more laws.
 
The debate is concerning plastic lower recievers on AR15 style weaponry. The lower reciever is the only part that is regulated so if you can build your own (which has already been done succesfully), then you can get around the regulation.

A plastic upper reciever would be much more difficult and is not currently possible (to my knowledge) because of heat.
 
TXAZ Quote: It wouldn't surprise me if the ATF tweaked the build / design file / materials to make them fail intentionally.
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Chaz88 noted:
I would have thought the opposite. Make it work so we have more reason to make more laws.
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If they show it's a safety hazard, I expect it's a much easier sell to ban, maybe the CPSC gets involved.
 
The debate is concerning plastic lower recievers on AR15 style weaponry. The lower reciever is the only part that is regulated so if you can build your own (which has already been done succesfully), then you can get around the regulation.
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That is part of what is making the debate confusing and basically pointless, except to stir up people that do not know or care about the reality of it all.

News plays clips of an AR type gun with the printed lower. Then talks about how the gun can go right through detectors. Maybe the lower can but it needs the upper to work.

News shows a mostly plastic gun that can shoot once or twice and portrays it as an end of the world bad guy dream weapon. I can accomplish the same thing with some drill bits and a piece of plastic or even better some carbon fiber cloth and resin.

You can already build an unregulated lower as long as it is for your own use and not be breaking the law. Now because of a 3D printer it might all change.

Maybe it is a change nobody cares about. If so then maybe it is the test case for the "compromise" people are always talking about. Give them the invisible gun renewal, I think that is a non issue anyway, and give up manufacture for your own use and get some other regulation repealed. But remember it is not compromise if you do not get anything in return.
 
Anything the 3-D printers can currently make, can currently be done with better materials using a lathe and mill. This may one day change such that the 3-D printers can compete. It doesn't matter. This only changes the method for something which can already be done. Any panic mongering connection to firearms production is just that and part of a wider attempt to create fear.
This is also probably more a pre-cursor to general control of 3-D printers and scanning. The printers are getting all the press, but 3-D scanning is getting cheaper too. It'll be a joke to reverse engineer some things with a 3-D scanner and then print them out. Some products will no longer make sense to market because folks will be able to make it themselves.
 
Things like this aren't going to silence the debate at all:

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Could-a-plastic-gun-kill-the-prime-minister-318733

Uri Even, a reporter on Tzinor Layla, the channel’s nightly Internet culture program, revealed on Wednesday night that he created a plastic gun using a 3D printer, was able to get it past Knesset security twice, and brought it within 10 meters of Netanyahu.
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Video shows him holding the gun in his lap with a clear view of Netanyahu. You only have to get lucky once, and even a .380 at 10 yards can be plenty lethal.
 
I guess that makes the invisible gun law more relevant but I still do not think it makes the 3D printer an issue.

From what I read it was not loaded. Could he have gotten ammunition through security? If not then it was a fancy piece of plastic.

I think the bottom line is if bad guys want to do bad things and are willing to die doing it they can find a way.
 
I think it's a fallacy that a plastic gun won't show up on a x-ray scanner. I've seen the scanned images on the airport security scanners and am pretty sure it will show. People are concerned about body bits showing up on the scanner so the plastic gun is going to show.

Now, if it had a profile that was significantly different from a common handgun, it may slip through unrecognized.
 
Airport scanners are pretty sophisticated. But, most other scanners (federal building, courts, etc.) are simply metal detectors.
 
Reliable authorities consider it questionable whether a metal detector can detect metallic ammo in a plastic polymer made gun. I've heard --- from the inventor --- that the plastic pistol experiences many misfires; so it's "not reliable." I believe he BATFE complained and shut down the inventor's web site about the makings of the plastic pistol, after about 100,000 downloads.
 
I would think getting .380 ammo in would be pretty simple, hidden inside a pen, or an electronic device, or even a belt buckle. You only need one or two to accomplish what you're there to do.

2ndsojourn - I've never seen one other than airports, but you're right it would pick up the shape no problem. Last time a flew I had to pull a small wad of bills out of my pocket cause the agent could see them on the monitor.

But if the solution is to install the new gen scanners at court houses, federal buildings, etc. then I need to invest in the companies with those contracts. Who's going to pay for all those, I wonder?
 
All this talk about concealable weapons for an assasin brings to mind the 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal where an assasin hid a custom built sniper rifle inside a crutch. It's the sort of thing that could still be done today since most crutches are metal which would presumably mask a rifle barrel, etc.
 
I might need to reconsider my stance on the subject. The last several posters have made a good case for more laws and restrictions.

That darn reasonable inch leads to trouble every time.
 
The last several posters have made a good case for more laws and restrictions.
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Not really. There are always ways to get around security measures. Always have been.

Banning a new technology because of how it might be used? That leads to a rather lubricious incline.
 
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