by Alan Brooks
In what could turn out to be a major embarrassment for the Greater Manchester Police, a man arrested yesterday on suspicion of illegally manufacturing gun powder also had what police suspect to be 3D-printed components for a firearm… or not. According to the BBC, Manchester’s finest raided the home as part of a larger operation targeting organized crime and stumbled upon the mystery parts by accident. Manchester Police spokesman Detective Inspector Mossop had this to say . . .
“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: “If what we have seized today can, as we suspect, be used to make a genuine firearm then today will be an important milestone in the fight against this next generation of homemade weapons.”
Or a milestone in the fight against printing replacement parts for your 3D printer. Either way, lives were saved and the good people of Manchester can sleep safe tonight knowing that the only thing they have to fear is midnight raids by the Greater Manchester Police.
“… today will be an important milestone in the fight against this next generation of homemade weapons.”
By broadcasting the fact that you can make homemade weapons to everyone? Isn’t the best way to make something popular to make that thing tabu? And to broadcast the fact that it is now tabu to everyone every chance you get?
I remember some pretty horrible albums that came out in the late 80’s that only made bank because they got the new MA Rating label on them. They were dangerous! They got the MA rating! I must have a copy!
Now I want nothing more than to get a 3d printer and have a couple of ‘scary looking’ parts on the shelf.
“We have no fvucking clue what it is, but it’s probably illegal.”
Probably best to nuke it from orbit. Just to be safe. For the children.
Its the only way to be sure, nuke it from orbit 😀
Why bother, drones with Hellfire missiles will do; field proven technology.
The cops don’t carry guns there, right?
Man, it takes some balls to raid the home of a person suspected of making weapons or ammo while being unarmed.
Not for all the tea in England, pun intended.
That used to be the case, except for their version of SWAT teams. Now more of the police are armed and they seem to have skipped right over handguns and gone to HK MP5s or similar. When they banned the people from owning handguns the rate of crime committed using a handgun jumped 40% within 2 years.
I’m sure what you stated is true, David, but is there a link to a reputable source?
I’ve previously found it before on a British government webpage. Don’t know that he’s dead on accurate, but the main idea is spot on.
UK gun crime up 35% in the first few years after the gun ban:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-154307/Gun-crime-soars-35.html
Overall UK gun crime up 89% in first 10 tears after ban:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html
Now, to be honest, the UK gun crime rate was extremely low before their ban and is still very low, so just a few dozen events make for big percentage changes. In 2010 US gun homicides where 3.6 per 100,000 and the UK rate was .04/100,000. However, it is absolutely clear than the UK gun ban did not decrease the rate of gun violence at all, and if it had any effect, it may have increased it.
Also, ranking countries by overall gun rates is always wrong, because gun violence is an urban issue. So countries with more and larger cities have higher overall gun violence. Gun violence correlates to size of city that you live in, income level, education, if you hang out with criminals, and unfortunately race. However, we can’t talk about those correlations anywhere without being called names. So, for example, the horrific, nightmarish, embarrassing stats of gun deaths among blacks for example can’t be talked about anywhere (but here)and therefore will not be fixed and those deaths will continue.
Mass shootings, also horrific, are a miniscule blip on he stats and correlate very very strongly with use of anti-depressants, race (white) and gender but we (as a society) do not talk about that either for some reason. Instead we use these horrific but rare, unique and isolated incidents to make kneejerk general policy.
Sorry…I think I went off topic……I do feel like I helped somebody somehow and that is nice…
🙂
Once said, it becomes true. No one will bother or listen to a retraction. I don’t know why that is such human nature.
The concept as quoted here before,
“A lie travels around the world in minutes and the truth is never able to catch up”
Actual quote, Mark Twain: “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
“What we have seized are items that need further forensic testing by national ballistics experts to establish whether they can be used in the construction of a genuine, viable firearm.” A little creativity and some mechanical know how and you can make firearms out of household scrap pipe. http://thehomegunsmith.com/ the funny part is the guy that wrote that book was in england.
And was, or still is, a guest of the state as a “dangerous person” who showed “no remorse” for writing the books and website.
According to the website, he passed away 2 years ago. Can Presidential Medals of Freedom be awarded to a non-citizen? Not that the current prez knows anything about freedom, but maybe someday we will have one again who does.
I don’t understand why the British are so afraid of an armed populace. It’s not like their citizens would ever revo….oh….
Haha oops!
Heh. 🙂
You win the internet for the day!
Now that the authorities know guns can be made by a 3D printer, they’ve deduced the only purpose of a 3D printer is to make guns. They HAD to be gun parts. They only need to invent and build a gun around the parts to prove their theory.
Just like a rifle could be used in a spree killing. So if a kid carries something resembling a rifle, he must be on his way to a spree killing. Let’s just shoot him to be safe and look into, or create, the details later.
The solution there will of course be to ban 3D printers except to “licensed authorized persons”. Licenses will likely be as rare as hen’s teeth and hideously expensive to keep all but professional manufacturers from owning one. This will do absolutely NOTHING to solve Britain’s crime problem but that doesn’t matter, as long as they DID SOMETHING.
Exactly.
…and was there any mention if they actually found any supplies for making gunpowder (the actual reason for the raid)?
Manchester’s finest should train and join Manchester United. I think they are intellectually better suited there.
The Bobbies stepped into that mess. Egg on your face!
I’m not aware of any guns that use a 5″-long flanged splined shaft like is shown in the bottom right photo. And the top right photo could be literally anything. Or nothing. I’m going with nothing.
Wonder which one was the “magazine”.
So exactly how much of the crime in England by “criminal gangs who are causing such misery in our communities” is committed using single-shot homemade plastic pistols?
How is it possible that this is the same country that stood alone in Europe against the Nazi war machine? “Keep Calm And Carry On” has been replaced with “Piss Pants At Own Shadow”…
None. Saying that we have about 50 firearm homicides in a bad year. There are practically no illegal firearms in circulation.
Looks like a glue gun accident to me.
For those not familiar with 3D printing: Those are absolutely not gun parts. The small hammer-looking object is a replacement [extruder tension arm](http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53125) for the pictured Makerbot Replicator 2. The “magazine” is a [Filament spool holder](http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34124) to feed from different kinds of spools of stock.
Discussion on Google Plus [Here](https://plus.google.com/u/0/107180534974005900062/posts/afGK35GT2qb). At least the police department in question is admitting [they aren’t sure what they found](http://www.prsnlz.me/maker/3d-printed-gun-parts-and-printer-seized-in-manchester-uk/) after being told what the objects are, but the alarmism has already been projected.
You have to remember the average UK Constable Plod know absolutely stuff-all about firearms, but cannot be seen to be ignorant as they are about such matters.
A good example was a televised firearm seizure where the interviewed officer said they seized two high powered rifles that could kill someone over a mile away. But the rifles were visibly break-barrel air rifles and the barrels were visibly opened. Also, they were perfectly legal to own and were only used by the owners in an improvised range in the basement of the house. The neighbours complained about some unusual noises downstairs.
For those who may not be aware plastic shows up quite well on an x-ray. Since every “printed” gun I’ve seen still fires these little metal bits we call “bullets” which, being metal, trigger metal detectors I think it’s safe to say that the fears of the Manchester Police, the DHS and pretty much all our other nannys are… Unfounded.
I have a 3D printer, and milling machine, a lathe and the skills to build anything any other being can. That doesn’t mean I will.
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