3D Gun printing highlights failed thinking of the Left

Since 1988 we've had a law that says you can't make a gun that contains so little metal it can get through metal detectors at security checkpoints. That law will expire this December if not renewed, but Schumer and other notorious anti-gunners have introduced laws to ban 3D gun printing altogether.

Beyond the gun debate, which I'd like to set aside for a moment, this so clearly highlights the failed thinking of the Left.

The risk is that 3D printers, which make parts from plastics directly from computer software, can print a gun as easily as it can print anything else. The obvious problem is that guns require managing tremendous pressures, and only one gun has ever been printed 100% from plastic that could actually fire, and it failed after a few rounds b/c the stress was too great. So you cannot currently print one in plastics that can really work for long as a gun, but it is possible to make something that could fire a few rounds.

Of course this has been possible to do in your garage or basement for decades. If you saw "In The Line of Fire" with John Malkovitch and Clint eastwood you saw him make a gun out of ceramics to fire 2 rounds. Prisoners have made guns out of parts under even more primitive conditions. With ceramics or plastics you could make something to fire once without a 3D printer, or could now make something that may fire 3 times with one.

The fear of course is some terrorist or lunatic making a gun that can't be detected and then getting into an airplane or court house with that weapon and killing someone.

With that background in mind, here is the statement by Senator Schumer that shows the true stupidity of the Left:

"The expiration of this law, combined with advances in 3-D printing, make what was once a hypothetical threat into a terrifying reality," said Schumer. "We are actively exploring all options to pass legislation that will eliminate the problem." http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/15...ress-to-renew/

Really? Senator Schumer thinks that passing a law making them illegal somehow by magic will guarantee that no terrorist or lunatic will VIOLATE that law and make a plastic gun. Really?

Of course it will keep law abiding folks from having one, but law abiding folks aren't going to kill people on airplanes. Lunatics and terrorists are, and what legislation would prevent them from making a ceramic or plastic derringer like Malkovich did? Ban all 3D printers? Ban CAD software? Ban ceramic sales? Ban the sale of gunpowder? What LEGISLATIVE action could possibly be taken to "eliminate the problem"???

Of course, there is no action that can "eliminate the problem". There is action that can be taken to keep the casual person from having a plastic gun, keep them from buying one at the local Walmart, but there is NOTHING that can prevent a determined lunatic or terrorist from making something that can fire a bullet that can get past a metal detector. In fact it's been possible for decades, ever since the first high strength two part epoxies and ceramics hit the market.

I'm not saying we should legalize 100% plastic guns, I'm saying the Leftist notion that we can pass a law and it will somehow magically take effect and work on those who would MURDER people in cold blood is a sign of sheer stupidity.

The article continues and further highlights this ignorance:

Additionally, officials do not believe there’s a risk that street criminals will be able to mass produce guns using 3-D printing technology, as the printer required to produce a gun can cost more than $100,000 and quality varies.

"This is more for someone who wants to get into an area and perhaps be an assassin," Richard Marianos, an official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told the Wall Street Journal. "Or they want to go to a courthouse and shoot a witness."

So they themselves say the risk is someone with a strong specific need, not just Joe average criminal. That small desktop printers can't do it well (they can't) and it would take a big investment in time and money to do it. GUESS WHAT? That just proves that the law would be meaningless, b/c anyone who really needed it that bad is exactly the kind of guy who would have the time and intelligence and money to do it in his basement.

So we pass a law to keep Joe average from having one, in order to prevent Joe average criminal from having one, b/c in the end neither of those are even considered a risk to have one, while the law leaves untouched the mafia hit man or determined lunatic or terrorist who cares nothing for any law.

It's importnat b/c that's the underpinning logic of almost all gun control legislation, passing a law to prevent ownership of something when effectiveness is entirely determined by the voluntary observance of the law and the person having low desire to overcome the law. The problem is that gangs and terrorists and lunatics all have high desire to overcome the law and don't care if they are breaking the law.

But it's not just gun laws, it's everything in the leftist mantra. If we just pass a law then everyone will obey it, there will be no fraud or corruption, we never need even discuss if the law will be effective and solvent. Oh no, we just need to pass it b/c in principle it sounds like it may help, and if the problem persists then we need to just pass more laws on top of that law with the same fundamental flaw in effectiveness until we have 20,000 of them, and then pass 20,000 more.


Fore example, the problem here isn't plastic guns. They've been a viable option for the dedicated lunatic for a long time, and the Malkovich character shows you how to even make one right there on the big screen. The problem is that ceramics and plastics are evolving to such a degree that knives are sold with 0% metal over the counter in restaurant shops and single shot simple guns can be made in your garage.

So what law do we pass? Well if you want real security the law isn't to ban plastic guns necessarily, the ATF has said none has ever been used in a crime EVER in the US, the law you pass is to put in scanners that aren't dependent on metal scanning. Which is what we're doing in airports and what will need to trickle down to courthouses and the like.

9/11 was caused by terrorists with razor blades, literally. Not guns, not big swords, freakin' box cutters. You could tape a ceramic knife just as strong and dangerous as any box cutter to your body and walk through any metal detector in the world. Yet we ban guns that can't be made and have never been used when the problem is really one of scanning technology needing to upgrade to respond to new materials.

Schumer is an idiot, but he's so far from alone, and it's not just b/c of his political stance. It's b/c he thinks if Washington passes a law then it just magically sweeps over the nation and is so b/c Pharaoh declared it. GEt over yourself Schumer, it doesn't work that way.

Ban plastic guns, they've been banned since 1988 anyway. Now how does that ban stop a lunatic from making one? Stop a terrorist cell from making them? Stop them from using ceramic knives instead?

How does it prevent the next Navy Yard shooting where he walked in with a shotgun where there was no metal detection at all? How does it stop what they do now which is first shoot the guy at the metal detector then walk on in? How does it stop them from just picking a target with no metal detector, you know, like a school?

If we care about security let's do something to improve security, not pass another meaningless law that does NOTHING to stop the next lunatic or terrorist from achieving their goals. NOTHING.

All the while Senator Schumer is one of the key Senators blocking a mental health reform law that would require states to send mental health records to NICS to improve the quality of firearms background checks. That law sits stuck in the senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Diane Feinstein, the biggest anti-gunner in the Senate, along with Senators Schumer, Durbin, Lehey and Frankin. That law, that could maybe help save lives, is stuck by them, yet he wants to get all over banning a type of gun that has NEVER been used in a crime ever and even ATF says is no risk to become a street weapon, and oh by the way is impossible to ban since by definition it's a gun you make in your basement.

It's all like this, not just gun laws, but this was such a shining example I had to talk about it. Going to ban something from being made that you make in a garage and that will just magically "eliminate the problem".

I just have to wonder how many of these guys/gals in Congress used to get stoned and listened to the Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" back in the day? Because that is exactly what their reasoning sounds like......... :533:

Citizen,

Well said. Like everyone hear I was horrified about what happened at Sandy Hook. No gun control law would have kept that assault from happening.

And I personally resent how this administration (all governments take advantage of issues to push their agendas) used that horror to try and take away liberty by creating laws to curtail the 2nd amendment.

Luckily they are pretty incompetent.

Thanks History.

It was a huge tragedy, everyone agrees. Where we then very quickly fail is by allowing politicians and narrow interest groups to then pass legislation that lacks a key policy element: solvency.

The "if it only saves one life" mantra is intellectually dishonest and dangerous. It is used to deflect completely from having to provide any support that a given law will actuallY DO anything, so we end up with vast numbers of useless laws that are easily avoided, and many others that actually make the problem WORSE. Welfare laws are rife with situations where the law has made it harder for people to get out of poverty, but bc it sounds like a good idea it gets passed and funded over and over.

Any law we pass must have a reasonable chance of making a statistically significant impact on the problem we're trying to address, or we shouldn't pass it. It's really that simple. The problem with the "there should be a law" crowd, and I used "Leftist" without being clear that many on the Right are quick to run to government too when it suits their purpose, is they just want to pass the law and hope for the best.

Obamacare is another great example. Now colleges are having to cut health care to students b/c of the very high minimums the law set for policies. This was easy to see coming, but was lied about by many and believed without question under the thinking of "we have to try something", which excuses doing a proper analysis of what a law may actually do or not do.

We must demand that any law provide support of how it will do what it is intended to do, but voters go along with "it's MEANT to do X, so I support it." This makes it so easy to con people into passing laws that never even intended to help, like Obamacare, which was designed not to provide more access to health care but to get the uninsured and uninsurable off of the Medicaid dole and on the back of the middle class who will pay higher premiums to subsidize those people. A massive wealth transfer social welfare scheme that is "off the books" of the federal government, so it doesn't raise the deficit or require easily identified taxes. Brilliant, other than not being what Americans wanted or thought they were supporting.