The Reign of Trump

[bilateralrope]

Oh look. It's Halligan again.

Speaking of Comey: He wants a speedy trial

After Mr Comey's lawyer requested a speedy trial, the judge set a date of 5 January.

Both the prosecution and defence expected the trial to last just two or three days.

Which means Halligan's ability to delay Comey's case is very limited. Even if that means she doesn't have enough time to meet deadlines for Letitia James' case.

[Raw Shark]

That doesn't mean it's not possible, as really high end 3d printers can use metal (including Titanium). However, the cost of the printers and raw material needed to 3d print a multi-use firearm? It's probably easier to buy a functioning firearm (even if you can't legally own one).

So, this is by no means meant to be comprehensive, but I happen to know a couple of guys who are a) Total firearms enthusiasts, with a collection that includes some fascinating WWII stuff that is hella fun to squeeze off in the desert, b) Very practiced at 3d printing, c) Include one amateur gunsmith, and d) Professional career types who can afford the materials. So, totally anecdotal, but I know two guys who could do this on a lazy Saturday afternoon and I'm Joe Blow Nobody from Scantily-armed Soviet Massholistan. It's just a good thing neither of them are very active, politically.

[Ralin]

Building a functioning gun from scratch with normal machine shop tools isn't that hard if you know what you're doing, isn't it? I once read an article about how they still had some gun control issues here in China because of how many people learned how to make them back during the war and passed the skills on to their kids.

[bilateralrope]

Parts that move in something close to the right way might be close enough for the NZ authorities to not like the model pistol.

How much testing would you expect them to do ?

[Raw Shark]

Building a functioning gun from scratch with normal machine shop tools isn't that hard if you know what you're doing, isn't it?

Facts. These are a couple of peaceful, unassuming, but well-funded and enthusiastic amateurs I'm mentioning here. Not master terrorists, just a couple of okay guys who happen to own a collection of bang-bang that could start WWIII. But they let me play with a lot of it in the desert and we all love GURPS, so I'm giving them a pass.

Reading back what I wrote there, I find myself having an, "America- Fuck Yeah!" moment. Things might be seriously messed right now, but I am a tree-hugging, weed-puffing hippy who has friends on the conservative side who would LOVE to fight fascism.

[Raw Shark]

Reading back what I wrote there, I find myself having an, "America- Fuck Yeah!" moment. Things might be seriously messed right now, but I am a tree-hugging, weed-puffing hippy who has friends on the conservative side who would LOVE to fight fascism.

What are hippies for, anyway? I make friends everywhere I go. I made a friend my first day in jail, just by giving him my bottle of water to wash the (there was a lot) pepper spray out of his eyes. A simple act of talking monkey kindness can go a long way in this bad ol' world.

HIM: Eyes left.

ME: What? What's going on over there?

HIM: That's PC. You don't know those guys.

ME: What's PC?

HIM: Snitches and pedos.

ME: OH SHIT yeah I don't know those guys not at all.

[Solauren]

That doesn't mean it's not possible, as really high end 3d printers can use metal (including Titanium). However, the cost of the printers and raw material needed to 3d print a multi-use firearm? It's probably easier to buy a functioning firearm (even if you can't legally own one).

So, this is by no means meant to be comprehensive, but I happen to know a couple of guys who are a) Total firearms enthusiasts, with a collection that includes some fascinating WWII stuff that is hella fun to squeeze off in the desert, b) Very practiced at 3d printing, c) Include one amateur gunsmith, and d) Professional career types who can afford the materials. So, totally anecdotal, but I know two guys who could do this on a lazy Saturday afternoon and I'm Joe Blow Nobody from Scantily-armed Soviet Massholistan. It's just a good thing neither of them are very active, politically.

It's not about the skills. In theory, I could get pictures of all the parts of a disassembled firearm, 2d to 3d convert them, and design the 3d files for a full working firearm in TInkercad.

It's the cost of home manufacture of a working multi use firearm using a 3d printer that's prohibitive.

A Prusa I3 MKS3+ (with enclosure), costs $1500 USD, and can print with Stainless Steel.

The next cheapest one is 4500, followed by $9100 and $12000 USD for a unit. These are using FDM technology, so the material is laid out in what is basically melted together strings roughly .2mm in diameter. What what little reading I've done online, even steel printed firearms that have been tested printing using FDM technology fail because of that. The prints lack structural strength to handle the explosion within the firing chamber that causes rapid-gas heating and expansion to launch the bullet. Simply put: FDM printed models explode.

I have no idea if Resin printing would produce a workable firearm, but I seriously doubt it. I've seen resin printed stuff get snapped by angry 6 year olds.

So, we need a different method. One that produces structurally strong parts.

The other method I know of for metal based 3d Printing is called 'Laser Powder Bed Fusion'. After looking at how much the cheapest 3d printer that uses that costs, and the power requirements, I didn't look any further into it. (I was looking out of curosity, as the 2 printing types I'm familiar with are FDM and Resin.).

The cheapest laser-powder bed fusion printer I could find a listing for? $99,000 USD.
The cheapest one that I know of that can do Titanium, Cobalt, or Chrome is $180,000 USD.

This is all without taxes, and people going 'and what do you need this for?' I don't think any of them are made by a US based manufacturer.

So, assuming that FDM prints will always fuck up, you'd looking at $99,000 USD for a printer that does Laser-powder Bed Fusion, and all sorts of questions from US Customs and the like.

And that's without the cost of material. There is a lot of waste material (supports), as well as 'trial and error' in 3d Printing.

Now, a roll of stainless steel (1 kg), costs about $88USD. Titanium costs 363 for a kilogram.

You might be able to get a single firearm out a roll of raw material, depending on a number of factors which I have no interest in exploring. I'm assuming it would get more efficient as you learned, but failures still occur.


So, RawShark, let me ask you this - are your friends willing to put out over $100,000 USD for a single 3d printer, put out the needed work to have it properly powered and vented (as in air tight room to keep the fumes from the printing out of the house, and then put through a filter system before venting it outside), and then probably have to spend a few hundred (or even a few thousand) more on raw materials, to get their first 3d printed firearm, that they could have picked one up at a Gun-show or a retailer?

[Raw Shark]

So, RawShark, let me ask you this - are your friends willing to put out over $100,000 USD for a single 3d printer, put out the needed work to have it properly powered and vented (as in air tight room to keep the fumes from the printing out of the house, and then put through a filter system before venting it outside), and then probably have to spend a few hundred (or even a few thousand) more on raw materials, to get their first 3d printed firearm, that they could have picked one up at a Gun-show or a retailer?

I honestly have no idea because I make a habit out of avoiding money topics with my friends, but I wouldn't put it past them. They're a DINK household with two incomes significantly larger than mine who have a strongly demonstrated interest in guns and 3d printing and I know they've been doing stuff with expensive metals because they can't stop talking about it (usually in the context of, 'Well, that didn't go perfectly,' but not always). I'm not trying to scare anybody or suggest that that combination is really common (especially among the apolitical, or at least realistically political - They call themselves Libertarians), but these are two guys who I personally know and who would pass the "mostly harmless" glance test.

[bilateralrope]

So, RawShark, let me ask you this - are your friends willing to put out over $100,000 USD for a single 3d printer, put out the needed work to have it properly powered and vented (as in air tight room to keep the fumes from the printing out of the house, and then put through a filter system before venting it outside), and then probably have to spend a few hundred (or even a few thousand) more on raw materials, to get their first 3d printed firearm, that they could have picked one up at a Gun-show or a retailer?

Or would they have the skills to make guns via older methods ?

Methods that are more reliable and cheaper than 3d printing.

[Solauren]

So, RawShark, let me ask you this - are your friends willing to put out over $100,000 USD for a single 3d printer, put out the needed work to have it properly powered and vented (as in air tight room to keep the fumes from the printing out of the house, and then put through a filter system before venting it outside), and then probably have to spend a few hundred (or even a few thousand) more on raw materials, to get their first 3d printed firearm, that they could have picked one up at a Gun-show or a retailer?

I honestly have no idea because I make a habit out of avoiding money topics with my friends, but I wouldn't put it past them. They're a DINK household with two incomes significantly larger than mine who have a strongly demonstrated interest in guns and 3d printing and I know they've been doing stuff with expensive metals because they can't stop talking about it (usually in the context of, 'Well, that didn't go perfectly,' but not always). I'm not trying to scare anybody or suggest that that combination is really common (especially among the apolitical, or at least realistically political - They call themselves Libertarians), but these are two guys who I personally know and who would pass the "mostly harmless" glance test.

If they were using the $100K+ models to do 3d printing, you'd know. They would never shut up about it, have shown it to you, bragged about it, and you'd be seeing it on their cell phones like newborn parents with baby pictures.

Really, it's fun to do that to your friends

[EnterpriseSovereign]

So, RawShark, let me ask you this - are your friends willing to put out over $100,000 USD for a single 3d printer, put out the needed work to have it properly powered and vented (as in air tight room to keep the fumes from the printing out of the house, and then put through a filter system before venting it outside), and then probably have to spend a few hundred (or even a few thousand) more on raw materials, to get their first 3d printed firearm, that they could have picked one up at a Gun-show or a retailer?

Or would they have the skills to make guns via older methods ?

Methods that are more reliable and cheaper than 3d printing.

He did say one was a gunsmith

[Raw Shark]

So, RawShark, let me ask you this - are your friends willing to put out over $100,000 USD for a single 3d printer, put out the needed work to have it properly powered and vented (as in air tight room to keep the fumes from the printing out of the house, and then put through a filter system before venting it outside), and then probably have to spend a few hundred (or even a few thousand) more on raw materials, to get their first 3d printed firearm, that they could have picked one up at a Gun-show or a retailer?

I honestly have no idea because I make a habit out of avoiding money topics with my friends, but I wouldn't put it past them. They're a DINK household with two incomes significantly larger than mine who have a strongly demonstrated interest in guns and 3d printing and I know they've been doing stuff with expensive metals because they can't stop talking about it (usually in the context of, 'Well, that didn't go perfectly,' but not always). I'm not trying to scare anybody or suggest that that combination is really common (especially among the apolitical, or at least realistically political - They call themselves Libertarians), but these are two guys who I personally know and who would pass the "mostly harmless" glance test.

If they were using the $100K+ models to do 3d printing, you'd know. They would never shut up about it, have shown it to you, bragged about it, and you'd be seeing it on their cell phones like newborn parents with baby pictures.

Really, it's fun to do that to your friends

My guy. You quoted me saying, "Can't stop talking about it."

[Raw Shark]

He did say one was a gunsmith

Facts. I'm pretty sure this is an, "I really like my hobby," thing for him, more than an, "I want guns," thing. They already have more guns than a small army, including some stuff that scares me a little.