Home Manufacturing Raises Questions About Gun Control's Enforceability
3D printers and CNC machines may make banning or restricting things impossible
With controversy swirling over gun control and public safety, that fact that it's possible for regular people to design and 3D print gun parts at home has become a matter of great public concern. Recent years have seen a proliferation of personal-scale manufacturing systems, such as homemade 3D printers, desktop CNC mills and laser cutters. While such technologies are likely to have a profound positive impact on technological innovation, they may carry some hidden perils.
Making your own gun has always been technically possible, even before the advent of low-cost design and manufacturing tools. What has changed is that, as these technologies continue to improve and drop in price, making gun parts has become easier and can be done more discreetly.
Today, with just a design blueprint, a general purpose 3D printer, and some durable printing plastic, people with relatively low engineering skills can fabricate a working gun in the privacy of their own home.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?