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It's been a big gun week. How about one more gun and we can do something not-gun next week?
The NYT did the thing again. Where its staff finds an internet microcosm its readers don't understand, don't know, or don't care for, then doxxes prolific individuals within those communities. Most commonly this process is referred to as journalism. Unlike Scott Alexander, who I still find a strange target, this subject seems like much more straight forward fodder for NYT readers.
One "Ivan the Troll" has his name revealed. Now, the 3D printing (3DP) community is not my own. Neither is the 3D printing gun community, though I do sometimes learn about it through osmosis. Any mistakes or misunderstandings I make are to be expected.
Ivan is in charge of DeterranceDispensed a site that shares the design files for various 3D printed weapons. Ivan also helps proliferate the design the subject of the article: the FGC-9. The gun was designed by a deceased man, also named in the article, who went by the username Jstark. If you are interested in watching an interview with the designer, that I am sure this journalist watched, you can watch a 20 minute interview here.
If you don't want to watch the interview, a helpful Jstark quote can probably tell you a lot about him: "You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” No step on snek.
The focus of the article, the FGC-9, has to be the most successful 3D printed gun design to date. The NYT puts this design's popularity in perspective:
Bad people use it.
Less bad people use it.
Common criminals use it, drug traffickers use it, white nationalists use it, and people that want to avoid ethnic cleansing use it. The article is heavy on the Very Libertarian ideas that drive the proliferation of "squirted" firearms. The article ends with a quote:
My understanding is that we're well past the point where you can 3D print a janky disposable gun with a trip to the hardware store. A couple jigs, research, some Science! (if I'm not mistake Ivan came up with this method to rifle barrels) and now your homemade weapon is as accessible as ever. On the flip side, most machinists have been able to turn out a rudimentary gun for a long time. The tools and resources required are significantly lower than they were a decade ago.
Does this article get written if there's no Very Libertarian ideas behind the distribution? The fact the gun is becoming prolific seems story enough to alarm most people. Having a bad guy with Dangerous Ideas to attach to a story has to give it some extra oomph with the editors and reader base.
I appreciate this article was written. It gave me some reason to catch up to some of the progress of 3DP guns. The cat is out of the bag. No more 2015 toys that primarily risk harm for the shooter. They're still relatively janky things. Anyone relying on one would rather have a conventionally manufactured firearm or, at least, some professionally machined parts. It's good enough for self-defense though. Now the main limiting factor for an individual in a restricted jurisdiction (see: most of the world) is ammo.
I wouldn't be surprised if the 3DP gun community solves caseless ammo in a decade or some other novel solution. Nail guns get made accurate somehow? Shaped rock bullets?
As I understand it, in the US the surveillance state is monitoring enough of this stuff that you can get easily busted for making a gun in a gun-free jurisdiction, such as New York City. So state capacity will "solve" this "problem".
Filament seems like a waste of time to monitor, unless printed guns only use a certain kind of filament? Printers can be purchased second hand. So, that leaves barrels, barrel blanks, and bolts as key components you can't get from Home Depot/Lowe's.
Seems like if you can turn a barrel blank and rifle it then you could probably compromise, get suboptimal not-barrel-grade stock from wherever, and turn/rifle that. Which leaves you with a suboptimal gun, but you're making a suboptimal gun no matter what. Again though, I don't know what I'm talking about.
Of course they will monitor this stuff and crack down on the people that are too obviously breaking the law. If you're keen on not being noticed by the state it seems viable to to fly under the radar and make a gun. At least until AI is profiling everyone with great accuracy.
Glock frame rails are probable cause in a way that every other key component is not.
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