Gun you can download - updated

Via Daily Mail UK

Coming soon, the gun you can download: U.S. start-up plans to share 3D printable firearms for FREE over the Internet

• Defense Distributed hopes to begin testing prototypes this year
• Printable plastic guns that fire real bullets will be good for one use
• Designs intended for entry level 3D printers that are currently available

Anyone in the world could soon have access to a 3D printable gun through the internet thanks to  a U.S. start-up which plans to distribute schematics for the weapons free of charge.

Defense Distributed, a company which wants to extend the U.S. Second Amendment rights to the entire world, hopes to test prototypes of the printable weapons by the end of the year.

'This project could very well change the way we think about gun control and consumption,' the organisation says on their website.

'How do governments behave if they must one day operate on the assumption that any and every citizen has near instant access to a firearm through the Internet? Let’s find out.'

Cody Wilson, a spokesman for the so-called 'Wiki Weapon' project, told guardian.co.uk that the organisation is only waiting on a license to allow them to legally manufacture firearms in the U.S.  (continue at Daily Mail, hat tip Marcus Wilder)

UPDATE:

The one-shot with this gun bothered me.  Marcus Wilder informs that:

The value of a single shot firearm is like the value of the tiny .25... it may not be as big a threat as a 1911, but nobody wants to be shot with one.  We dropped crude single shot pistols to resistance movements in WWII.

From Wikipedia:

The FP-45 Liberator was a pistol manufactured by the United States military during World War II for use by resistance forces in occupied territories.

The pistol had its origins in the US Army Joint Psychological Committee and was designed for the United States Army in 1942 by the Inland Guide Lamp Manufacturing Division of the General Motors Corporation in Dayton, Ohio.^[1] The army designated the weapon the Flare Projector Caliber .45 hence the designation FP-45. This was done to disguise the fact that a pistol was being mass produced.^[2] The original engineering drawings label the barrel as "tube", the trigger as "yoke", the firing pin as "control rod", and the trigger guard as "spanner". The Guide Lamp Division plant in Anderson, Indiana assembled a million^[2] of these weapons. The Liberator project took about 6 months from conception to end of production with about 11 weeks of actual manufacturing time, done by 300 workers.

 Design

The FP-45 was a crude, single-shot pistol designed to be cheaply and quickly mass produced. The Liberator had just 23 largely stamped and turned steel parts that were cheap and easy to manufacture. It fired a .45 caliber pistol cartridge from an unrifled barrel. Due to the unrifled barrel, it was intended for very close ambush (1-4 yds). Its maximum effective range was only about 25 feet (less than 8 m). At longer range, the bullet would begin to tumble and stray off course. Because of the low quality, it was nicknamed the "Woolworth gun."

 

 

Comments

[Nate]

I'm not a we-need-stricter-gun-control-laws kinda guy (I think we've got enough of them already), but the idea of a home-made, single-use plastic gun makes me nervous.

[R.J. Godlewski]

@Nate,

With the proliferation of zip guns, homemade shotguns, etc., what is the problem?

Personally, I would rather spend money on a real gun than those 3D printers, plastic, etc.

[LibertyAtStake]

With the Ozombie Apocalypse on the horizon - this is magnificent proof the market is always responsive to consumer need!