The Futility of "Gun Control"

The futility of trying to control objects rather than enforcing proper sanctions on unacceptable behavior is about to become much more apparent to the general public.

Most "gunny type people" are familiar with the variety of functional firearms produced by people with very primitive tools and little or no knowledge of modern metallurgy and machine shop techniques. (the best known examples range from the Viet Cong to Pakistani blacksmiths)

Home shop machinist websites are full of examples of the most state of the art modern firearms that can be built by anyone with a few thousand dollars' worth of equipment in their garage. The next step forward is now starting to show up...

With the never ending forward march of technology, rapid prototyping techniques that used to be limited to expensive SLA & SLS machines for industrial users is filtering down to 3-D printers that practically anyone with the desire can have in their basement or spare bedroom.

Quote:
An amateur gunsmith, operating under the handle of "HaveBlue" ... announced recently in online forums that he had successfully printed a serviceable .22 caliber pistol.... Despite predictions of disaster, the pistol worked. It successfully fired 200 rounds in testing.... HaveBlue then decided to push the limits of what was possible ... he fed about $30 of ABS plastic feedstock into his late-model Stratasys printer. The result was a functional AR-15 rifle

Popular Science article

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I’m in favor of tighter gun control and a ban on weapons that are unnecessarily powerful... technology will soon make any legislation that limits the availability of any kinds of guns ineffective...What’s particularly worrisome is that the capability to print metal and ceramic parts will appear in low end printers in the next few years making it feasible to print an entire gun and that will be when gun control becomes a totally different problem.
Forbes magazine article