3D printed gun discovered by police

[David Guyatt]

There have been non-detectable resin, polymer and ceramic handguns around for ages - originally said to have been brought into existence by Soviet era KGB "wet affairs" types back in 1970s.

So, while interesting, I can't get excited about the below article that seems to be designedly alarmist to me and probably done for PR spin purposes, I imagine.

Suspected '3D printed gun' found in Manchester gang raid, say police

Greater Manchester police analyse 3D printer and suspected components in what's thought to be first ever seizure of next generation weapon

• Press Association
  
• theguardian.com, Friday 25 October 2013 09.13 BST
  
• Jump to comments (101)
  

The 3D printer found by Greater Manchester police during a series of warrants in the Bagley area of Manchester. Photograph: Greater Manchester Police/PA

Component parts for what could be the UK's first ever 3D printed gun have been seized by police in which they called a "really significant discovery".
Police believe the parts represent the "next generation" of firearms, which can be created by gangsters in the privacy of their own homes and smuggled with ease because they can avoid X-ray detection.
The gun parts were discovered, along with a 3D printer, when officers from Greater Manchester policeexecuted warrants in the Bagley area on Thursday.
Police found what is thought to be a 3D plastic magazine and trigger which could be fitted together to make a viable 3D gun.
If they are found to be viable components for a 3D gun, it would be the first ever seizure of this kind in the UK, police said. The parts are now being forensically examined by firearms specialists to establish if they could construct a genuine device.
Suspected 3D gun component parts found in Manchester police raid. Photograph: Greater Manchester Police/PAThe raid was part of Challenger, the largest ever multi-agency operation to target organised crime in Manchester.
Detective Inspector Chris Mossop, of Challenger's Organised Crime Co-ordination Unit, said: "This is a really significant discovery for Greater Manchester police.
"If what we have seized is proven to be viable components capable of constructing a genuine firearm, then it demonstrates that organised crime groups are acquiring technology that can be bought on the high street to produce the next generation of weapons.
"In theory, the technology essentially allows offenders to produce their own guns in the privacy of their own home, which they can then supply to the criminal gangs who are causing such misery in our communities. Because they are also plastic and can avoid X-ray detection, it makes them easy to conceal and smuggle."
He added that more work was needed to understand the scale of the problem.
"I would strongly urge anyone who has information about the whereabouts of a gun in their community to call us."
Suspected 3D gun component parts found in Manchester police raid. Photograph: Greater Manchester Police/PAA man has been arrested on suspicion of making gunpowder and remains in custody for questioning.
The technology works by allowing anyone who has a 3D printer which can be bought on the high street for about £1,200 to download designs for guns or components.
The printers themselves squirt molten plastic to produce 3D shapes of whatever design has been downloaded.
The model parts can then be converted to become a genuine firearm capable of firing bullets.

[Peter Lemkin]

As you said, there are all but entirely plastic/carbon-fiber/composite guns which one can buy, so why would one go to the trouble to make their own 3D gun, which couldn't possibly work as well or as reliably?! More 'rationale' for raids on homes/flats is my guess....

...is it just me, or do we seem to be headed quickly to a Global Police State...?!::

[David Guyatt]

As you said, there are all but entirely plastic/carbon-fiber/composite guns which one can buy, so why would one go to the trouble to make their own 3D gun, which couldn't possibly work as well or as reliably?! More 'rationale' for raids on homes/flats is my guess....

...is it just me, or do we seem to be headed quickly to a Global Police State...?!::

Governments fear their own citizens more than anyone else. After all, they've been stitching them up for decades and centuries, and one day they know there is going to be a kick-back about it.

[Malcolm Pryce]

I think the Old Bill are going to end up with an awful big pile of egg on their faces on this one. It emerged pretty early on on Twitter this morning that the parts found by the police were actually replacement parts for the printer. If you look at them you can see straight away that they are not gun parts. Without stopping to ask the right questions the cops fed the scare story to the BBC who milked it for all the fear they could muster. More sober experts when asked said the 3D printer was just a cheap old hobbyist one and in order to print a working gun you would need a printer costing £50,000. For that sort of money why wouldn't you just buy some guns? The parts are now being analysed by experts and I expect this one will quietly slip off the radar when the absurd mistake is discovered. I guess it will have served its fear-generating purpose by then.

[Peter Lemkin]

I didn't even give the story enough credence to examine the photo of the 3D Printer [something I have kept up on the development of]. Now, looking at it, it is a second generation model, at LEAST two generations beyond the current available commercially and the types NECESSARY to build a 'gun' or some such with any WORKING/OPERATIONAL ability. Look up on the internet what state-of-the-art 3D printers look like now and what they cost....!::

[Peter Lemkin]

World's first 3D printed metal gun unveiled (VIDEO)

Published time: November 08, 2013 18:57
Edited time: November 11, 2013 05:11Get short URL



Screenshot from youtube.com @solidconcepts




Share on tumblr






Tags
Arms, Internet, Manufacturing,USA

Engineers at the Texas team of a custom manufacturing company want to make 3D printing more than a novelty, and may have accomplished just that with their latest endeavor: a high-powered, fully functioning metal handgun.
The team at Solid Concepts announced this week that that they've successfully designed, printed, assembled and (accurately) fired a 1911 pistol created using digital blueprints that were fed through an industrial 3D printer loaded with powdered metals.
"We're proving this is possible," Kent Firestone, Sound Concepts' VP of additive manufacturing, said in a statement this week. "[T]he technology is at a place now where we can manufacture a gun with 3D Printing."
The world's first open source 3D printed gun, the Liberator, made headlines earlier this year when developers at Texas-based Distributed Defense released their blueprints, in turn allowing anyone with access to the Internet and a mere hobbyist model machine to assemble a plastic firearm without even having to leave their home. With Solid Concepts' latest effort, however, more advanced 3D printing fans are awarded the opportunity to make something much more in line with traditional firearms akin to what's sold in stores.
"It functions beautifully," Solid Concepts claims, adding that the company's resident gun expert was able to hit a bull's eye at nearly 100 feet away with the weapon, a feat hard to contest once someone watches a video of the weapon in action that has been uploaded to the web.



Every component of the weapon but its springs were made using a process called "direct metal laser sintering," or DMLS, a 3D printing technology that can create metal prototypes in only a few hours by blasting those powders with an ultra-precise fiber optic laser beam. The handgun they've made with DMLS technology consists of more than 30 separate 3D-printed components that were then hand-assembled to form a firearm that has successfully fired dozens of rounds already, according to the company.
A blog post on the Sound Concepts website suggests the tools, such as the top-of-the-line industrial machine that fires the lasers, make it unlikely that any amateur 3D-printing enthusiasts will be able to replicate the pistol unveiled this week. The printer itself, the company acknowledged, costs tens of thousands of dollars just to acquire on its own. As 3D printing technology continues to climb in popularity and accessibility, however, soon homemade metal handguns could be created at a fraction of the current price.
"When we decided to go ahead and make this gun, we weren't trying to figure out a cheaper, easier, better way to make a gun. That wasn't the point at all," Solid Concepts' Phillip Conner explained in a video. "What we were trying to do was dispel the commonly-held notion that DMLS parts are not strong enough or accurate enough for real world applications."
"So long sad disfigured Yoda heads, no more pretending like that's going to cut it for this industry," the company jokes on their site.