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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30435 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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Almost all of those policy proscriptions is less likely to work for the simple fact that 3D printers go BRRRRRR

The median mass shooter is not an experienced gunsmith, or an accomplished 3d printer nerd, nor indeed experienced in any kind of small scale manufacturing at all. He’s a troubled but managed to keep his nose clean 19 year old NEET. Making it harder for him to buy guns is making it very difficult for him to acquire them.

Most other Western countries seem to be dealing with that problem adequately.

Define "adequately."

There's already been at least one attack using such a weapon.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/3d-gun-print-germany-synagogue-shooting-stephan-balliet-neo-nazi-a9152746.html

And they're popping up with increasing regularity across Europe too.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/europol-keeps-wary-eye-on-threat-from-3d-printed-guns/

Only in September, Icelandic police said they had arrested four people suspected of planning a “terrorist attack”, confiscating several 3D-printed semi-automatic weapons.

The same month, Spanish authorities discovered an illegal gun-making workshop of a man in his forties in the Basque Country.

That find followed two other such cases in the country in 2021.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63495123

Police are seizing 3D printed weapons in greater numbers. From the start of last year there have been 21 recoveries of weapons, a "significant increase" on previous years, though still small compared to conventional weapons, Mr Perfect says.

Do you think this becomes more or less common in the coming years?

And let us be specific: how many shootings using these sorts of weapons would have to occur in other countries before it wasn't adequately dealt with?

Insofar as in toto most Western governments control the supply of guns pretty well despite the apparent threat of 3-D printed guns. Some individual instances of them being used hardly disproves that picture.

Yeah, so you're either skilled enough to do it, or reckless enough to willingly sell such guns to unstable, weird people you don't know.

The whole thing with 3D printers is the skill required is minimal, so long as you can operate a computer.

And more to the point, the cost is usually much lower.

or reckless enough to willingly sell such guns to unstable, weird people you don't know.

That's... generally how black markets work, yeah.

The whole thing with 3D printers is the skill required is minimal, so long as you can operate a computer.

You're out here saying anyone who can operate a tablet or a gaming console can also make a FGC9 without major issues or help ?

I'll also note here that Breivik tried to buy a gun at a 'black market' in Czech Republic and failed miserably.

Not that there isn't one, but you have to be a criminal to access it, which the average spree shooter isn't,

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