The Gun From - In The Line Of Fire

[lame54]

[AtheistCrusader]

1. In real life this would explode in your hand.

That resin can't take the pressure of a 9mm cartridge. The brass casing of the round can't do it by itself, needs a steel chamber to do it.

Someday in the future, this will be possible, but not for a while. Probably require some ridiculously exotic carbon nanotubes or something.

Possible with much smaller calibers though. Some printed gun maker came up with a .22 or .25 caliber single-shot that didn't melt or blow up on first use.

[marble falls]

2. Check this out: ‘World’s first 3-D printable handgun’ under fire

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014475885

[AtheistCrusader]

3. A .25 with a two inch barrel is orders of magnitude less in pressure than a 9mm.

Potentially lethal at very close range. What you see in that video has long been described as a zip gun. It even uses a nail for a firing pin. 10 bux at your local hardware store.

[marble falls]

6. So zip guns aren't firearms and can't kill anybody. Thanks for the tip.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Perhaps you misread what I typed.

"POTENTIALLY LETHAL AT VERY CLOSE RANGE"

Perhaps the all-caps will help.
Zip guns bear very little resemblance to modern firearms. The barrel and chamber will remain a 'weak link' for a long time to come, until either VERY exotic polymers arise in private hands, OR sintering metal printers become ubiquitous. Until then there are hard physical limitations on the power and range of any such weapon (to say nothing of reloadability, reliability, etc).


Edit: and as I originally said, the movie prop in the OP video would explode in the user's hand. Period. When Malkovitch loads the weapon in the movie, you can clearly see the cartridge he inserts into it, so identifying the chambering is quite easy. Even with the recent 3d printer developments, the weapon used in that movie remains the realm of science fiction, without a steel barrel and chamber insert to handle the pressure of that cartridge. The weapon is depicted as easily penetrating Eastwood's chest at 10+ feet. The movie prop is shown to behave like a real firearm, and it is not. It is a movie prop to carry out the story creator's narrative. That is all.

[lame54]

9. real science often comes from science fiction...

these problems you mentioned will be worked on and eventually solved

[AtheistCrusader]

10. Eventually, yes, I agree

[Kablooie]

4. 3D printers can build things out of metal now.

I don't know what the quality is, it might be more like pot metal, but I'm sure sturdy metal items will be possible in the future.

[TrollBuster9090]

5. As I mentioned in another post, punk gang kids have been building zip guns since the 40s.

Except that they were making them out of metal. Usually brass plumbing pipes. They were like this one in that they fired only one or two shots (usually side by side), only fired .22 cartridges, and were ridiculously inaccurate because the barrel isn't bored. However, UNLIKE this one, the barrel wouldn't MELT after firing two shots in a row.

I only mention this because people seem to think the fact that you can now make your own plastic guns somehow makes government regulations on guns redundant. It doesn't. People have had the ability to make half-assed zip guns for nearly a century, and it hasn't yet convinced legislators that there is no point in regulating gun sales. Survivalist crackpots, on the other hand, HAVE managed to convince them. I still can't believe it.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. It will be a long time coming.

When the 3d printers can do exotic nanotube materials, I will revise my position on this issue. Until then, at best you have the same old crap-ass 'assassination' type zip guns that have been around for more than the lifespans of most people likely to even read this thread.

Regulating firearm sales, and the materials they can be lawfully made from, traceability with serial numbers, all of these laws remain critically important. This technology changes none of that.