On May 1st, Wilson assembled the 3D-printed pieces of his Liberator for the first time, and agreed to let a Forbes photographer take pictures of the unproven device. A day later, that gun was tested on a remote private shooting range an hour’s drive from Austin, Texas, whose exact location Wilson asked me not to reveal.
The verdict: it worked. The Liberator fired a standard .380 handgun round without visible damage, though it also misfired on another occasion when the firing pin failed to hit the primer cap in the loaded cartridge due a misalignment in the hammer body, resulting in an anti-climactic thunk.[...]
The group’s initial success in testing the Liberator may now silence some of its technical naysayers, too. Many skeptics (include commenters on this blog) have claimed that no plastic gun could ever handle the pressure and heat of detonating an ammunition cartridge without deforming or exploding. But Defense Distributed’s design has done just that.
The gun is composed of 16 parts. Only the firing pin was not made with the 3-D printer, a nail was used. The gun was made using a 9000 dollar 3-D printer. Defense Distributed is currently working to improve the gun so that it can be made with a less expensive 3-D printer. The current design is still fairly crude. The accuracy, reliability, and safety of the gun is questionable but this will be improved upon in time.
Almost immediately after the successful firing of the world's first 3-D gun the government is already working to regulate the technology. The gun's creator has faced many challenges and roadblocks along the way, and there is no doubt that this technology has many more to come. This technology in its early development, but it will continue to be improved upon. Eventually this technology has the ability to prevent the government from being able to completely ban guns. This is a "game changer".
This is a big issue and it isn't. It will only be a matter of time before the software to print these guns will be just as difficult to acquire as regular manufactured guns.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone ever doubted that the technology is there. 3D printing is the future. Guns are a small fraction of the implications and possibilities. I want to know when they will be able to print new internal organs. That will be the game changer.
I thought that it would take a lot longer to make a fully functional 3-D printed gun. I never thought a fully plastic gun could work. The government will try very hard to ban this technology and the software, but it will be impossible to completely ban it. It will be like illegal music downloads in the sense that the government can't completely stop it. The government also works very hard to ban drugs but it is unable to do it. 3-D printed guns will make it impossible for governments to prevent people from owning guns.
ReplyDelete3-D printing or additive manufacturing will change the global economy. Some people have called it the end of made in China. Other advances in technology in the next few decades will transform our world in a simliar way that the industrial revolution did. Cars will be driving themselves most likely within the decade. Some cars being advertised on t.v. today can already do this to a small extent. Maybe if this technology revolution happens soon enough it could have a chance of preventing the coming economic collapse.
3-D printed organs are not that far off. http://www.cnbc.com/id/49348354