An update from the BBC:

Downloads for 3D-printed Liberator gun reach 100,000



Great!

The vast majority of downloads will be by curious folks with no intention of printing it.

How many people do you know with a 3D printer? I don't know anyone, and I rather doubt if there's a criminal mastermind in Manchester printing them to order. You can buy a real gun from such people for not too much anyway, if you're so inclined, and they're probably no more expensive and a lot more useful. You'll need amo for it anyway.

I know one. He lives in Stockport so.... IIRC his printer cost him a few hundred quid (plus some extra expense because he kept burning out the stepper motors). I'm pretty sure if you knew the right people you could get a 'traditional' gun for that, although I'm given to understand there's a lot more 'rental' than 'sale' of illegal firearms in the UK.

Yes guns get passed around which must complicate linking crimes.


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Gun's are generally rented unless they're fired during that rental in which case they're bought as they don't want a gun back which could link them to a crime.

Wow, you guys have far more detailed knowledge of the scene than I do. It makes sense though.

I suspect that saspro has had to rent one recently?

3 years working in the East End brings about a world on knowledge

Yes very true. I learnt so much about drugs when I was homeless. You really got to meet so many addicts when housed by the council, also experienced more death than I had prior to that time as well.

i was born and bred there ...

I kind of think a plastic gun could be good for criminals. You can burn or melt them - so you could destroy them, a,ing it harder to match the gun to the bullet. I would expect that you could traces the plastics (there will be traces on a bullet), so you may be able to link it that way, but it would be hard to show that an alleged weapon was the one fired if it were a molten pile of goo.

Lewis Page's take

There are many things I don't agree with Lewis about but I'm fairly certain having been an actual soldier he knows more about guns than most of the people writing opinion pieces. His take seems to be you're more likely to harm someone by throwing it at them than shooting them with it.

US government orders removal of Defcad 3D-gun designs
News CLICKY

Yeah, good luck with that. Once things are one the internet it's almost impossible to get them off again.

The actual gun might have a short range but would still be lethal. Even if the bullet started to tumble as it came out of the barrel it would do more damage that way. Many bullets are designed to tumble through flesh to maximise the impact on the target.


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The linked article suggests that it would not be lethal even at close quarters.

Because most of the explosive force is lost as the expanding gas leaks out everywhere, the bullet is likely to only travel a few yards at low speed. If that's true, it would hurt less than being hit by a marble someone threw at you.

He also points out that the leakage is the reason the gun doesn't (always) blow up in your face. Because the explosion is not contained, it never builds up any pressure. It's a bit like when you set fire to a pile of black powder - on an open surface, is just burns brightly. It needs to be contained in order to explode.