These days, gun control has a big problem on its hands: enforcement. In past decades, governments could control the flow of gun parts over borders to some extent, and then crack down on production internally. The cost of production and the skills necessary to produce weapons usually meant people needed to use the economy to share resources, which in turn meant gun production was easy to control.

The results were never perfect, as smuggling and illicit production continued, but almost nobody was making whole guns at home without giving cops an opportunity to bust them.

Now, things have changed. Additive manufacturing technology, encrypted internet communications and online design teams came up with weapons that just about anybody could build at home using unregulated materials and components. It started with flaky and dangerous designs like the all-plastic Liberator pistol, and then progressed until the FGC-9, a durable semi-automatic 9mm AR-like pistol came out.

As we’ve repeatedly covered here, the design has been popping up all over the world. Burmese rebels, the latest versions of the Irish Republican Army, concerned citizens in TaiwanΒ and even an 18-year-old girl in Belgium have all been found with the guns. For every person caught with one, there have to be hundreds if not thousands of others who were a little smarter and didn’t get caught.

Another Barrier Falls

While the FGC-9 lowered the barrier to entry, it still requires some skill to build. Personally, I tried to build one and planned to write a series of articles on the topic, but with all of my family demands and other things competing for my time, I didn’t have time to get it all figured out (a bad nozzle was the biggest issue). Other skills that hold people back include the need for basic welding, tools to use electrochemical machining for a rifled barrel and more.

So, anything that can be done to cut back on skills will mean more proliferation and quicker death for global gun control.

The good news is that people have been working on that, and a new variant of the FGC-9 called the “Nutty 9” removes the need for welding. How? By using nuts from the hardware store and making the bolt ride in a hexagonal buffer tube instead of a cylindrical one.

You can find more information and photos here, but basically it’s just a regular FGC-9 that’s easier for anybody to build. Unless a country is going to try to regulate regular nuts and bolts from hardware stores as gun parts, it’s not going to be possible to stop an increasingly large number of people from building them.

If governments are smart at all, they’d take the opportunity to get ahead of this through legalization. If strict gun control laws are kept, they’re basically pushing all production into secret where they’ll have about no practical control or ability to influence the outcomes. If they legalize guns, they’ll at least have the ability to encourage people to get training and be responsible.

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18 COMMENTS

  1. I hope anyone who builds using 3D parts is not stopped. By the smartest people in the Room. Who say the files are not covered by the 1st amendment.

    • CA already prohibits 3D printers and/or CNCs (GhostRunner, etc) designed and marketed for use in any stage of gun assembly. An assembler would have to be creative in the acquisition of such equipment.

  2. I have had an interested in the ‘FOSSCAD’ gun community for a while. It is kind of crazy to see just how fast this tech has taken off. I fully expect that trying to ban making your own weapons is going to be the next primary tactic by the antis, especially as they keep loosing ground.

    • “I fully expect that trying to ban making your own weapons is going to be the next primary tactic by the antis, especially as they keep loosing ground.”

      Constitutionally, that’s a non-starter, full stop, according to the ‘Bruen’ decision.

      Historically, it has *always* been legal to home-build a gun, with never a requirement to serialize or register it, unless it was an NFA device.

      So, they can fvck right off and die… πŸ˜‰

      • No restrictions on 3D printers as far as I know. But with the “fuss” about 3D printed guns it is just too risky for me.

        • Sucks that picking up anonymously is not a practicable option in your case but yeah attention would not be good when your government is a heartbeat away from Show me the man……..

    • Simple, give a kid down the street the cash to buy it for you.

      *Poof*, off the radar… πŸ™‚

      • Geoff PR,

        Cash–along with people who have it and businesses who accept it–are becoming ever more scarce.

        Of course that is by design: fedzilla wants all of us to use electronic methods which they can record and track.

    • Was wondering when that would be reintroduced, well VT and NH shops may want to prestock the smaller models.

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