Watch this kid's YouTube channel - you don't need anything as fancy as a 3D printer or even a lathe. Basic welding or even just sawing off pipes gets you a lot. Here's a handgun he made at home:
They used to be called "zip guns" or "Saturday night specials": Cheap, sometimes home-made firearms with mostly coincidental accuracy (You hit what you were aiming at? Pure coincidence!) and a penchant for exploding in the user's hand.
They're to mass-produced firearms what cheap bathtub hooch is to Jim Beam.
Wikipedia mentions them along with much more sophisticated designs:
I once watched a Vice documentary about Afghanistan, name escapes me at the moment, and they showed this blind guy making a replica of a Russian Makarov handgun by hand, with very basic tools. We used to manufacture revolvers before 3D printers, the industrial age, modern welding techniques, or pretty much most of the technology we enjoy today. The truth is, you can make a perfectly untraceable, very reliable, simple gun with out 3D printers.
It's not without comparison in today's society. Because, well, guns exist. Equipment that gun manufacturers use (which is probably a combination of lathe machines, milling machines, etc.) are not illegal for someone to have. There is probably regulation that those big machines have to be installed in your facility to some codes, but nothing that a normal person couldn't have have if they had the will and the money.
Anyway, that said, I think you're wrong factually too -- 5-axis milling machines have existed for a long time and they can create practically anything a 3d printer can (with much, much higher resolution if you've got the money).
The difference is the learning curve and cost. It was the same thing in 1993, connected computers existed for a long time before that, but they were pricy and there was a steeper learning curve in the 80s to getting online. Even if the learning curve itself didn't drop, it's easier to surmount the learning curve when there is a critical mass.
With computers, prices dropped and the learning curve wasn't much of an issue anymore. CNC Mills and lathes still require a much greater skill and up-front cost than a 3D printer needs. With CNC machines, there's usually still an additional necessary step required to turn a model into a tool path, based on your machines. So you still have a learning curve no matter which way you cut it (pun intended).
I don't think 3D printing will be a viable way to distributively mass-produce weapons, it's the fact that somebody already has been able to produce functional weapons with 3D printing, and it's comparatively much easier buying a $10K mill and generating tool paths.
> CNC Mills and lathes still require a much greater skill and up-front cost than a 3D printer needs.
I think you're not up to date with recent developments in this space. What you say is no longer true with things like Carbide3d and Carvey. With this new line of "Desktop CNC milling" machines, it's as easy as 3dprinting (if not easier). And the price is comparable (if not cheaper). E.g., compare the Carvey with a Makerbot... or an Ultimaker. It's cheaper than both. If you're willing to be brave and buy a kit, it's even cheaper. Heck, even before this wave you could get a CNC router for very cheap. You could be under the 4 figure range -- with 3d printing it's hard to go below 4 figures and get a decent and reliable machine (though admittedly it very much is possible).
That's interesting, I had always thought the same as the poster you're replying to. It really shows the psychological/brand difference. I'm far more likely to go out and buy a 3D printer. Perhaps it's the word "printer" or it's some imagined preconceptions about the learning curve -- there is a lot of effort going into making 3D printing super accessible right now, and that's the problem pointed out a few comments up this thread.
When it's accessible to everybody it's accessible to the people we forgot were also included in "everybody", those with bad intentions -- or simply different ones, such as maximising their personal profit from an apartment rather than living there and being part of the neighbourhood. If we start seeing mainstream magazines talk about desktop CNC milling machines and classes pop up to teach kids how to use them -- and you know, with the Maker movement that's certainly possible and is probably already happening somewhere -- then these technologies become just as "dangerous" as 3D printers.
You can trace back every regulation to its inception a corresponding precedent where someone was being a dick. Of course now comes along the sharing economy skirting many regulations, and of course there are dicks here who abuse the system (which would have been caught by the original regulations which were in effect before this 'sharing economy' disruption).
Systems can be abused through many mediums. If hobby CNC machining had gotten big like 3d printing earlier, certainly we would have seen exactly the same kind of rebuke as some in the 3d printing circles are receiving now. I think now it's particularly hard to come up with good answers. Regulating 3d printers seems difficult. After all, building one yourself from scratch isn't that hard (indeed, many do do this). So you don't know if and when the bad actors with intent to harm are making weapons. I'm an anti-gun person, so I think the answer is having no regulations of 3d printers, but coming down hard on people who misuse 3d printers in making very dangerous things.
This is going down a needlessly technical route. The overarching point is that it's possible to create something that is normally sold in a regulated, tightly controlled setting.
Now, either everyone should be allowed a gun without background checks etc., or lathes/3D printers/whatever that can manufacture a gun are a problem.
More likely, the 3d printed gun fanatics will be evolving themselves out of the gene pool as their printed receivers fail to contain the charge and they all wind up with stumps for hands or worse.
To add to other comments - it's not that we invented guns after developing CNC technology. We've been using firearms for hundreds of years, and this alone should tell you it's entirely doable to manufacture a gun at home, especially with ammunition being already available. And even using old manufacturing methods, you can still apply all the scientific and technological development we've made, because the knowledge is available on the Internet.
Because lots of people don't understand what 3D printing is and figure it's a device where you do....something...and the thing you're printing pops out, ready to use. Most people who have seen what ~current hobby-grade 3D printers are capable of with ABS or PLA realize how ridiculous it is, but people who see "you can now 3D print a gun!" on TV news might not.
I'm not sure "purchase one" and "be gifted one" count as "personal use". Purchasing, in particular is (I am guessing, I am not a lawyer) commercial activity.
We've been building decent guns for hundreds of years. You don't need computer controlled anything to make a working firearm for murder or self-defense.
Look, I get the point - excessive regulation is silly. But the idea of a 3D printed gun is without comparison in today's society.