Some government or other will definitely try this. In fact think the UK is a lock for something like this for sure. It won't make a difference in how this all plays, though, and I have an article coming out in TechCrunch tomorrow that'll make clear why.
Also, man, printer manufacturers deliberately causing dangerous firearms to malfunction? Yeah that'll go over real well. The lawyers will love that idea.
Basically these are the kind of ideas you produce when you know less than nothing about how guns are actually made and sold (on white, black, & gray markets), or how they work. Anyway, more tomorrow.
Also, I don't go into this in the TC piece, which is kind of short (I cranked it out in like 3 hours), but I can already write the Vox headlines for the next few years about increasing numbers of 3D printed guns showing up at crime scenes, along with my corrective tweetstorms.
So I'll put that here. In a nutshell, the story goes like this: gangsters decide they want customized grip frames for their guns, and those grip frames -- an empty plastic shell really -- are serialized & are "firearms" from the perspective of federal law...
So when what are essentially production guns with some small, customized, 3D printed component (especially a serialized component that counts as the 'firearm' legally) start turning up in homicides, we'll get a wave of 3D-printed gun hysteria.
There will be some terrifying bar graph about the rising number of "3D-printed guns" showing up, say, on the streets of Chicago. But if you unpack it it'll be production guns with some 3D printed bits and parts. And on it goes.
NB: In this thread I'm playing fast and loose with "3D printed guns," when I really mean whatever combination of 3D printing and CNC milling. So basically home fabricated guns, whether they're milled or made through some additive process.
I didn't do this in the article... but I did just no b/c it's late and I'm tired and it's just twitter 🤷♂️ 😄
