this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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3DPrinting

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (4 children)
[–] ImpossibilityBox 34 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Ghost guns are unregulated firearms that anyone — including minors and prohibited purchasers — can buy and build without a background check.

3D printed guns fall solidly into this category.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

The 1968 Firearms Act encased in law the right to make your own firearms and made it illegal to sell them So, Printed or Milled it was always illegal to sell legally made homemade firearms

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Thank you for clarification :)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Why are these an issue though? It is not like people can just print the ammunition too. So they can only buy them with a gun license anyways.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Yep, if you're a criminal making ghost guns to commit crimes because you can't pass a background check to buy a gun (and then scratch the serial number off), then it's already a crime for you to have that ghost gun because you're a prohibited person.

Requiring a serial number changes nothing and only affects nerds, not criminals.

[–] ikidd 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Reloading ammunition is a thing. In fact, it's preferable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

But for that you need all the parts, including the gunpowder. And for the gunpowder you need a special permission for handling explosives, at least in my country. So you just move into areas of even more difficult to procure things. it seems far easier to just buy a gun and ammunition somewhere else and take it over the border into California.

[–] Death_Equity 4 points 11 months ago

In America you MIGHT need to show ID for age verification purposes in most states when purchasing gunpowder.

There is no country wide law requiring a permit to purchase everything you need to make bullets.

The exception might be buying a large amount(like 50lbs) but low pounds(<10lbs) is legal without a permit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

If 50 pounds or less of commercially manufactured black powder is being purchased, and the powder is intended to be used solely for sporting, recreational, or cultural purposes in antique firearms as defined in 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(16) or in antique devices exempt from the term "destructive device" in 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(4), no form is required. However, if the black powder is being purchased for any other purpose (regardless of quantity), the purchaser or other transferee must possess a federal explosives license or permit.

[18 U.S.C. 845(a)(5); 18 U.S.C. 926(c); 27 CFR 555.141(b), 555.26(a)]

[–] uis -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm not a lawyer, but what I heard is 3d guns somehow does not fall under definition of firearm in US.

[–] ImpossibilityBox 7 points 11 months ago

A couple of things regarding this:

Federally there is no law that says you can't print and carry your own gun, no serial number required.

However several states have strict laws and there are weird caveats. It has to be for personal use, cannot be sold or transferred and under the Undetectable Firearms Act any firearm that cannot be detected by a metal detector is illegal to manufacture, so legal designs for firearms such as 3d printed guns require a metal plate to be inserted into the printed body. Also online posting of plans for 3D-printed firearms require a license under the Export Administration Regulations issued by the Bureau of Industry and Security.

So if you design your own gun, or get one from a company that has an export license, print it and then ensure that it has enough metal in it to be detectable... Go for it, should be legal.

[–] i_shot_the_sherry 10 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Guns without a serial number. They are untraceable.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Untraceable for what?

Almost all of them still use metal parts that can be x-rayed and still have barrels that leave ballistic fingerprints on bullets. Serial numbers don't make something GPS-tracked.

Untraceable in terms of ownership? There is no national firearm registry. Guns bought from FFLs require a NICS background check that is stored in an ATF database (of questionable legality), but private sale guns often don't require NICS so the database isn't an accurate registry of gun ownership.

And criminals scratch off serial numbers anyways.

And add on that any laws requiring serialization of privately-made firearms are only affecting nerds, not criminals. Criminals that are making guns because they can't pass a NICS background check will continue not adding serial numbers - because they're criminals.

[–] AnIntenseMoist 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

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