Preserving The Second Amendment: Printing The Plastic Gun
Dec 10th, 2012 | By Travis P | Category: Guns & Ammo, Self Defense, Top Headline | Print This Article
We live firmly in the world of the information age. These days people can be connected 24/7 to the neighbor next door, to a friend in Greece, or to soldiers in Afghanistan. The Internet is an infinite abyss of information, and it is said that once something is on the Internet, it can never be deleted. The Internet is the ultimate expression of free speech and the First Amendment, but what can the Internet do for the Second Amendment?
Defense Distributed, a nonprofit, collaborative project with the aim to produce firearms plans for free to anyone, wants to make firearms available to any person with an Internet connection and a 3-D printer. If you are not familiar with a 3-D printer, it is most simply explained as a printer that can take a 3-D digital model and replicate it in the real world as a plastic model. While 3-D printers are somewhat rare, they are slowly becoming more and more popular, and hobby models are now on the market.
Defense Distributed is designing firearms that can be printed from any 3-D printer. They are producing two firearms, an A and B model. The A model has no moving pieces, but the B model does. They have also produced an AR-15 lower receiver made entirely of plastic. Since the government only classifies the lower receiver as the serialized firearm, this allows someone to print the lower receiver and then assemble it from aftermarket, unrestricted parts.
I am not an engineer by any means, so if in your head you’re asking me how does it work, will it work, and what the tolerances are, I’d have to say I honestly can’t answer. Defense Distributed claims the final project will be safe to fire and chambered in different rounds. As of now, the weapons will be chambered in .22 long rifle, but Defense Distributed hasn’t released a great many additional details about the guns yet.
I took a long time thinking about this—whether any person (an average citizen or crazy loon) should be able to print a gun. It became clear to me that this is the beginning of the guarantee of our Second Amendment rights thanks to the clear protection of our First Amendment rights.
The argument exists that nut jobs will print an arsenal at home and commit chaos. A quick Google search can reveal plenty of plans to make “zip” guns, yet I cannot recall many, if any, crimes being committed with zip guns.
As American citizens we must realize that terrible things can happen, and oftentimes someone will claim our freedom is at fault. Many people find it easier to blame inanimate objects than admit some people are truly disturbed and evil. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
A minor argument that can come forward from this development is how it will affect the gun industry. I honestly don’t think it will affect the gun industry at all; these weapons are not complicated autoloaders or powerful reliable weapons. If cheap one- or two-shot .22 long rifle pistols can hurt the gun industry, then Cobray derringers would be top sellers.
The potential for this system is hardly limited, however. Once the files and plans for these weapons are released, people will begin to modify and adapt them. The power of the Internet is a wonderful thing. The minds that become connected can make truly fascinating things happen.
These plans have the ability to create an entire new generation of shooters, which can be both a curse and a blessing. Gun culture only exists as long as we have a new generation of shooters and voters. If these plastic guns are available to people who would have never spent the money on a real gun, and we can show them the merits of owning a firearm, we have won over new shooters. The curse of these weapons is the people that are uneducated and ignorant of firearms and firearms safety. I would hate to see people become victims of negligent discharge due to ignorance. I certainly do not want any one hurt or killed.
The most positive aspect of this project is that it can be the death strike at gun control and the government’s ability to disarm free people. A government can create laws, can register guns, and then takes those guns, and because some misguided citizens believe guns are evil, they have the potential to get away with it. Banning information and free speech is an entirely different situation. Those same people who can accept the banning of firearms will not accept limiting their First Amendment rights.
If Defense Distributed is successful, then they may have very well guaranteed the right to bear arms forever. It is not too far out there to assume that Defense Distributed can even introduce or re-introduce the ability to bear arms in countries that have restricted the right to firearms ownership.
I do see a potential rain cloud for this project, and it has to do with the AR-15 lower receiver I mentioned earlier. The government gun grabbers are already wary of the scary black rifle, no matter if it’s only semi-automatic. I can already see the legislative squirming when they hear that anyone can print a lower receiver and build an AR-15 without any government interference. So what can they do about it? One easy solution is that they can change the pieces of the gun that are regulated, making it much more difficult for people to build any kind of AR-15.
Defense Distributed is set to change the world when they finish development of their product. I’m sure between now and then they will meet stiff resistance. However, freedom is not only a right of the people, but a responsibility. In the same way ignorance can be bliss, freedom can be a burden. Defense Distributed faces an uphill climb, and as free Americans and responsible adults, we should stand behind them. The government hasn’t the right to treat us as children and limit our rights, and this could very well be our guarantee that we will never be disarmed.
©2013 Off The Grid News
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The internet is one of the top priorities of tyrants. China and other
tyrannous countries have restricted internets. The ability of governments
to destroy the lives of individual citizens is immense. At this time our
best defense is to use the Republican Party. JOIN as a Precinct Committee
Person. Get all your right-minded friends to join. Become delegates
to the various committees that make decisions for the party. We are
fighting for control of who gets to ride the bike and which direction the
bike will be ridden. Lefties in control of the Republican Party can be
booted if enough citizens JOIN and show up for monthly meetings.
Votes get taken every month that affect everything. I originally was signed
up by someone who made it her goal to get 200 homeschoolers to join.
The Republican party? The same guys that gave us Bob Dole, John McCain and Obama reelected? After this election I am convinced it’s all a setup. How could any party be so incompetent at communicating the truth? It’s all planned to make us think we have a choice, the lesser of two evils. No more.
The biggest problem with being able to print guns will be the potential lawsuits that will come. The lawsuits will be the result of ignorance and negligence. That in itself could lead to censorship of the internet.
I personally though feel that the potential for everyone to arm themselves is great. It can potentially act as a deterrent to criminals knowing that anyone they encounter could have a gun no matter who they are. It is a good step in the right direction, I just feel they really need to look at the bigger picture and try to protect themselves from big brother. They also need to find protection from the possible criminal charges and lawsuits that they most certainly face. Especially considering those who occupy the white house right now.
I am puzzled by the argument that wider gun ownership will somehow protect people from government oppression, given the types of weapons governments tend to have at their disposal. .. does anyone think we’d be safer if more citizens had their own tanks, or predator drones?
For what it’s worth I am not anti-gun; I live in the country and I see the value of hunting. But as a Christian I have a moral objection to shooting people, whatever justifications are invoked, and as a person who believes that other people like me, are prone to lapses in judgment I am not in favor of making those lapses more potentially deadly.
I would not think of a drone as “arms” in the traditional sense. Just like I would not consider a nuclear devise “arms” so I don’t think either would be covered under the second but the government has them. The second amendment does not guarantee our right to hunt, it guarantees our right to be armed. It was originally intended for us to be armed as well as any possible threat to our freedoms. So that would be any foriegn or domestic power such as a run away government. People say citizens should not have full automatic weapons, why not? If you can afford one and can afford to fire it have at it. That was the first step in limiting our civil defense. Now they want to ban anything that holds over 10 rounds of ammo. If they get that done what next? all semi-auto’s gone? Do we as law abiding citizens get to keep our single shot muzzleloaders?
As for your religious views I am glad your are a christian, I also consider myself to be a christian and as a christian have read several versus in the bible that reference the taking of life. I respect your beliefs but please respect mine, “Thou shalt not murder” I do not believe taking a life in the defense of another is a sin.
I have a moral objection to tyranny. Remember, the Devil’s greatest success has been making people believe he doesn’t exist. So, you would just allow what is coming to this nation to destroy you and your family. Don’t think it can’t happen in the US.
@Joanna
Do you have children? How would you feel if some sick madman broke into your house, and you had a choice between
A) shooting this sick SOB
or
B) Being bound and gagged and watching helplessly while this same pile of filth rapes and sodomizes your children, then slits their throats, meanwhile knowing that you’re next
This is not an abstract scenario: it has happened all across America, and it will continue to happen. Why? Simple: evil thrives because good people DO NOTHING. Do you think that you’re somehow more “moral” because you’re essentially letting someone else do the defending? Because if you’re throwing your own defense into the laps of law enforcement, that is what you are doing
For the record, the 2nd Amendment is not about “hunting” anymore than Christianity is about surrendering to evil
Since all rights come from God, our 2nd amendment is only our preexisting, God given right to own the firearms of our choice, put into words that are enshrined in the 2nd amendment. Any right we aren’t born with, doesn’t exist. The reason government wants to call everything a privilege, privileges are bestowed on us by a benevolent government, and can be taken away just as easily as they are given. Trust not in government, put your trust in the Lord.
My son works for a company that installs and services 3D plastic printers. What he tells me is that it is a felony to print up any receiver for a firearm that avoids the Federal firearms check required before buying any firearm. Will this stop people from doing this? Probably not, but the safety of these items is also in question because of the difference in density and strength of the plastic used. If you are going to try this, PLEASE be very cautious! The life you save may well be your own!
The only gun part that it is possible to “print” is a part that is not under stress. This would absolutely NOT include a barrel or bolt. I believe that plastic firing mechanisms would also be impossible.
However, the lower receiver in an AR type rifle is not a highly stressed part, so it’s possible print such a part and make it function – at least for a short period of time.
BTW – it is only illegal to SELL an AR lower without proper licensing from the gov’t. You are free to manufacture your own – but only for your own use. Fact is, you can buy an 80% completed (machined) AR lower through the mail with no background check because it is not classified as a “gun”. When you finish it, you are free to use it with no background check – providing you are not a felon. You are not permitted to sell it under any circumstances however – unless you are a licensed manufacturer.
Has anyone ever noticed that the 2nd amendment is the only amendment in the entire constitution that says
“This Right Shall Not Be Infringed Upon”
cool huh?
What part of “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” do they not understand?
I think the safety issue would be fixed if public high schools, colleges, and universities made a semester long gun safety course a graduation requirement. Grandpa Jack in elementary schools wouldn’t be a bad idea either, the gun control people always say “what about the kids…” but they do nothing to advocate safety. I think before a person wants to print a gun they should undergo a free firearms safety course(With required background check, ex., psychos, felons, rapists) and on completion they would be given a code that is cross referenced on the said site, for firearms printing, to the safety courses list of passing codes. No personal info involved, just codes. Nothing is 100% safe, but this would be a very good start.
I am a huge supporter of personal arms (two loaded pistols and a Springfield M1A in my bedroom right this moment… a pair of Cold Steel knives in my pockets as I type… skills in barehand, knife, and stick fighting in my head), but I don’t see “printed” plastic guns as any special solution to the forced disarmament problem. Consider:
1. they know who you are — every record of every outfit you do business with is accessible to them, including all your internet posts, your ammo purchases, your 4473 forms, all those parts you bought from Midway or Brownell… you think they can’t guess who’s going to be making his own gun parts, be they “printed” or filed out of a block of steel the old-school way?
2. they can kill you or arrest you any time they please. You might take a few with you (bravo!), but there are more of them than there are of you, and they’ll be picking the time and place and method. And the news media will be dead silent about it, unless they decided to declare you a “domestic terrorist”, “white supremacist”, or whatever.
3. it’s hard to avoid witnesses and cameras, whether official or mounted in the cellphones of nosy citizens. You shoot somebody with your plastic gun, you could very well end up in Gitmo, you nasty domestic terrorist. Shoot certain kinds of people, the news media will get you killed by announcing your name and address and letting nature take its course.
There are three avenues for the preservation of personal firearm ownership. One is secession, which will lead immediately and inevitably to massive civil war — the messy kind with no defined front. The second avenue is the collapse of government power when the money they use to pay their enforcers becomes worthless. This will lead immediately and inevitably to massive civil war, because the US contains far too many mutually-hostile races, interest groups, and subcultures, held together only by the constant flow of imaginary money from Uncle Sam. The third avenue is to abandon your current lifestyle and become an outlaw, which means you’ll be competing against other outlaws and will almost certainly end up in gang warfare of one sort or another.. One way or another, you’ll either be disarmed or you’ll be living in something like downtown Kabul.
We lost this fight when we industrialized, back in the late 1800′s. This is why I didn’t have children.
We can win this fight, We just have to remember that we cannot be “civil” which was “our” mistake last time. We are once again governed by a failed attorney from Illinois, who has never held a job, and hasnt any idea what he is doing. His military capability is as ludricrous and inept as his governing. What we failed at last time was acting like gentlemen. What we didnt know was that honest Abe, WT Sherman, and US Grant had a behind closed door meeting, where they determined that if they didnt start kiling civilians they were going to lose. Our current genius will go their very quickly. However, (I just came back from the streets of Kabul) and one of the realities is: That odumma cannot even collect all the weapons from Kabul. IF AMERICANS refuse to give them up the govt CANNOT take them, but you MUST be ready to fight, and support each other, or make no mistake, this govt WILL KILL YOU. (HAHA) That is what he second amendment is truly about,,, not hunting, not protection from crime, not sports, nothing like that. It is to protect you from YOUR governement which passed the line of tyranny long ago,,, wake up!!!
It can be done,,,,,
The Col