As time goes by and this tech improves, restricting guns to a given level will require increasingly invasive regulation. Where once you could accomplish it by regulating manufacturers and dealers and imports, now you have to restrict 3D printers and common items from the hardware store. As 3D printers become common household items, the same level of gun control will require detailed mass surveillance and/or restrictions on common items like pipe and scrap steel.
This may mean that gun control simply fails in non-authoritarian countries, and they either go authoritarian or increasing live without effective controls on guns. As a gun culture the U.S. may be better prepared for this transition.
This may mean that gun control simply fails in non-authoritarian countries, and they either go authoritarian or increasing live without effective controls on guns.
Yes! This isn't limited to gun control either. It's a politico-technological arms race.
People develop technology that subverts the government. New laws are eventually created, allowing the government to adapt to the new technology. With each cycle, the government must become increasingly tyrannical and totalitarian in order to maintain its own power over the governed population. We'll end up with either an uncontrollable population or an absolute state.
As 3D printers become common household items, the same level of gun control will require detailed mass surveillance and/or restrictions on common items like pipe and scrap steel.
Are people worried about un-riffled longarms though?
Unless you have a way to rifle the inside of a pipe, that won't really be an issue. You'll just be making inaccurate muskets.
The important item isn't the 3d printer. Its the CNC Lathe.
Comments
As time goes by and this tech improves, restricting guns to a given level will require increasingly invasive regulation. Where once you could accomplish it by regulating manufacturers and dealers and imports, now you have to restrict 3D printers and common items from the hardware store. As 3D printers become common household items, the same level of gun control will require detailed mass surveillance and/or restrictions on common items like pipe and scrap steel.
This may mean that gun control simply fails in non-authoritarian countries, and they either go authoritarian or increasing live without effective controls on guns. As a gun culture the U.S. may be better prepared for this transition.
Yes! This isn't limited to gun control either. It's a politico-technological arms race.
People develop technology that subverts the government. New laws are eventually created, allowing the government to adapt to the new technology. With each cycle, the government must become increasingly tyrannical and totalitarian in order to maintain its own power over the governed population. We'll end up with either an uncontrollable population or an absolute state.
Are people worried about un-riffled longarms though?
Unless you have a way to rifle the inside of a pipe, that won't really be an issue. You'll just be making inaccurate muskets.
The important item isn't the 3d printer. Its the CNC Lathe.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/08/13/make-a-factor...
I can see how advancements in 3d metal printers would make this a trivial task.