It’s disposable in the sense that it costs basically nothing to make and can easily be disposed of if you need to. A bit of heat and it’s no longer a gun, and nobody would know that it ever was.
It’s disposable in the sense that it costs basically nothing to make
Also no. If I, for instance, want to print a Glock, the only part that I’m printing is the polymer frame (which, legally, is the gun). I still need to buy a slide, slide stop, guide rod, recoil spring (IDK off the top of my head if Glock uses a captured spring or not), barrel, trigger & associated parts, magazine catch and release, etc. Oh, and I’ll need to buy magazines, or at least a magazine spring if I’m able to print the magazine, baseplate, and follower. While I don’t particularly want to price them all out right now, more often than not buying parts is more expensive than buying a completed firearm. Right now I can pick up a Glock G17 gen 5 MOS for about $475 (after shipping and transfer fee); if I save anything with printing, the savings are going to be small
The biggest advantage to a printed gun is that all of the other parts can be purchased with cash, and without a background check, so there’s no record that you ever purchased the firearm.
A bit of heat and it’s no longer a gun,
You’re still going to be left with the metal parts. OTOH, they have no serial numbers, so they’re functionally impossible to trace. Also, any polymer gun can either be melted or incinerated.
Keep in mind that you can also print silencers now. The big advantage to that is that, if you don’t mind violating the National Firearms Act of 1934, you don’t have to send your fingerprints to the BATF or pay $200 for a tax stamp. They don’t last as long as inconel or titanium silencers though.
Look, I’m 100% in favor of people printing guns. Or buying 80% receivers/frames, and fabricating their own. Or, hell, buying a Haas desktop minimill and learning CNC programming to make gun parts out of metal. But most of the time you’re going to end up spending more to make one than to buy one.
It’s disposable in the sense that it costs basically nothing to make and can easily be disposed of if you need to. A bit of heat and it’s no longer a gun, and nobody would know that it ever was.
Also no. If I, for instance, want to print a Glock, the only part that I’m printing is the polymer frame (which, legally, is the gun). I still need to buy a slide, slide stop, guide rod, recoil spring (IDK off the top of my head if Glock uses a captured spring or not), barrel, trigger & associated parts, magazine catch and release, etc. Oh, and I’ll need to buy magazines, or at least a magazine spring if I’m able to print the magazine, baseplate, and follower. While I don’t particularly want to price them all out right now, more often than not buying parts is more expensive than buying a completed firearm. Right now I can pick up a Glock G17 gen 5 MOS for about $475 (after shipping and transfer fee); if I save anything with printing, the savings are going to be small
The biggest advantage to a printed gun is that all of the other parts can be purchased with cash, and without a background check, so there’s no record that you ever purchased the firearm.
You’re still going to be left with the metal parts. OTOH, they have no serial numbers, so they’re functionally impossible to trace. Also, any polymer gun can either be melted or incinerated.
Keep in mind that you can also print silencers now. The big advantage to that is that, if you don’t mind violating the National Firearms Act of 1934, you don’t have to send your fingerprints to the BATF or pay $200 for a tax stamp. They don’t last as long as inconel or titanium silencers though.
Look, I’m 100% in favor of people printing guns. Or buying 80% receivers/frames, and fabricating their own. Or, hell, buying a Haas desktop minimill and learning CNC programming to make gun parts out of metal. But most of the time you’re going to end up spending more to make one than to buy one.