If anyone is unfamiliar with what an 80% lower is, it's a little complicated. We'll use the AR15 for an example. Basically a lower is the section that houses the trigger and the magazine in a...
If anyone is unfamiliar with what an 80% lower is, it's a little complicated.
We'll use the AR15 for an example. Basically a lower is the section that houses the trigger and the magazine in a rifle. The main metal piece that the handle juts out from. This is essential to the operation of the weapon and thus has been deemed the place to put the serial number when manufacturing a gun (it can vary from gun to gun but most are here). What that means is you can buy a gun barrel online with no background check. You can buy a gun handle. Or a stock. Or a trigger. None require a serial or background check since these are components to guns and not actual guns in themselves.
Now many companies have seen the market for unregistered and un-serialized guns and essentially avoided the harsher regulations by legally producing a lower that is unfinished. 80% finished is the actual law, thus we get the term 80% lower. You receive the piece of conveniently shaped metal and drill a few holes and combine with the multiple parts kits you purchased separately and you have a fully functioning AR15 without a background check.
Now there are a few things to point out here. You can build a gun out of almost anything. Literally in your house you probably have enough materials for someone with some knowledge to launch a projectile at deadly velocities. You can buy a 3D printer and create one of these plastic guns without a background check. You CANNOT create one of these unregistered guns with the intent to sell it. However if you create it with the intent to keep it and then decide you don't like it, you can sell it technically according to the way the law is written. However there is no precedent case on this issue so you're definitely in a grey area.
Personally I don't see the gun community (myself included) ever truthfully accepting a gun registry list. And short of a full gun registry I don't see how the government can perfectly legislate the line between a random hunk of metal and a 2 steps away from functioning lower. This is a VERY DIFFICULT thing to stop with a law. I do believe it is a loophole exploited to subvert (fair or unfair) laws in various areas. Personally I think background checks should be done, but with the way technology is evolving and the lack of flexibility of law I don't see a way you can really regulate this at a clear cut point without drastically tacking away liberties from non-criminals, and in my personal opinion I don't see a solution to this exact issue.
Not very related but how would you feel about ammunition regulations? Would it be more feasible? Like for example not being able to buy more ammo until you've brought empty magazines or something...
Not very related but how would you feel about ammunition regulations? Would it be more feasible? Like for example not being able to buy more ammo until you've brought empty magazines or something like that. Would you be against it too? Like I know one bullet is enough to kill somebody but the fact that someone buys 600 bullets all of a sudden would be very suspicious to me (and I'm personally not against gun ownership, but I wouldn't own anything above revolver and basic rifle). I speak from complete ignorance about how guns work so feel free to correct me.
See I could agree with being 18 to buy ammo (which actually already is a law) but I think your example of bringing empty magazines is really flawed. You don't buy ammo in magazines, you have to...
See I could agree with being 18 to buy ammo (which actually already is a law) but I think your example of bringing empty magazines is really flawed. You don't buy ammo in magazines, you have to load the magazine with the separately purchased ammo. There would be nothing stopping someone from just leaving the ammo they previously bought at home. Personally I have several hundred rounds at home of various ammo types but each gun only has 1 or 2 magazines.
I think the fact that you find 600 arbitrarily suspicious is kind of telling of your experience with firearms. I'm not trying to be rude about it and call you a noob, I just mean that buying many rounds at a time is the norm. Even just buying in bulk to save you can easily get hundreds. For .22 caliber ammo 500 rounds is actually a very normal buying size just because of how small and cheap they are (40$ in this case). I took a few friends out to the range a month ago and we stopped by the store and picked up probably 500 rounds on the way simply to have enough to shoot that day. With 1 person shooting you can easily go through a few hundred in an hour or two depending what type of shooting you're doing. Consider a 20 or 30 round magazine can be fired in no more than 20 or 30 seconds and that wouldn't even be considered that much of a hurry. Most people aren't dumping their whole magazines like that but lets say every 10 minutes you could EASILY go through a 30 round magazine including time to load and let the rifle cool between. A few people doing that for an hour would be something like 4 people x 30 rounds x 6 cycles of 10 minute segments that's 720 rounds in a single hour between a few people.
Yeah I'd say almost all gun ranges are going to be safe. Your best bet is actually to look at their schedule and sign up specifically for a beginner class where they walk you and everyone else...
Yeah I'd say almost all gun ranges are going to be safe. Your best bet is actually to look at their schedule and sign up specifically for a beginner class where they walk you and everyone else through a new-joiner type explanation.
Personally I'd prefer to learn from a friend 1 on 1 but obviously you have to know someone at that point and your results on safety may very wildly.
I would check out google reviews for the gun ranges near you and pick the one that seems decent with a class that's convenient for you. The main thing I worry about in that situation is the other people. Large classes the instructor can't pay constant attention to the idiots enough. Maybe even taking a day off and going during the week would get you a smaller class size.
600 rounds is basically nothing, as crazy as that sounds. The last time I went to the range I shot 200 rounds of .303 British, a few hundred rounds of 9mm, and maybe 500 rounds of 5.56mm. That's...
600 rounds is basically nothing, as crazy as that sounds.
The last time I went to the range I shot 200 rounds of .303 British, a few hundred rounds of 9mm, and maybe 500 rounds of 5.56mm. That's not very excessive for what I was doing. Folks who compete can eat through thousands in a day spent training. I buy my rounds in bulk, never less than a thousand rounds at once. Target shooting is an expensive-ass hobby, and I couldn't afford to do it if I bought rounds a box at a time.
I think the fewer rounds one buys, the more suspicious that is. It implies the buyer doesn't intend to use very many, and a box of rounds will last you 5-minutes at the range.
Lead is a real problem. Back in the 80's the indoor range my dad went to had to be shut down and condemned from all the lead contamination. It's also pretty important for use against soft targets....
Lead is a real problem. Back in the 80's the indoor range my dad went to had to be shut down and condemned from all the lead contamination.
It's also pretty important for use against soft targets. A bullet is generally meant to deform on impact, so it doesn't go through a target and hit something unintended — like a bystander or a building. Solid copper bullets are more expensive, and don't deform as well; they tend to shatter if they don't over-penetrate. I'm not super knowledgeable on the Nylon-Tungsten bullets that are being researched, but I imagine they're not as toxic as lead even if their cost is very high.
Lead-based bullets fragment inside game animals, potentially contaminating much of the carcass (Hunt et al. 2009). This explains high concentrations of lead found in retailed packages of venison. The mean lead concentration in packages of ground meat from Norwegian moose killed with lead-based bullets was 56 times the European Commission maximum level (ECML) for lead in other meat (Lindboe et al. 2012). Similar reports exist for game meat sold in the UK, with mean levels in game birds prepared for the table, following the removal of shot and visible large fragments, being 12 times the ECML (Pain et al. 2010; Green and Pain 2015). A recent report from Canada (Fachehoun et al. 2015) recommended that vulnerable groups and individuals who consume venison on a weekly basis should avoid meat from animals killed with lead ammunition. The lead in particles of ingested ammunition fragments can be transformed to soluble lead ions and absorbed (Barltrop and Meek 1979), and cooking in acidic media may increase its bioavailability in humans (Mateo et al. 2011). A number of European food safety agencies now advise children and women of pregnancy age to avoid eating game shot with lead (Knutsen et al. 2015).
The above makes bow hunting seem much more appealing.
The United States is home to more than than seven thousand shooting ranges, according to The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s largest trade group. Every year, these facilities attract an estimated 20 million visitors, who produce staggering amounts of debris. According to the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey, an individual range can go through between 1.5 to 20 tons of lead shot and bullets annually. Outdoor ranges as a whole may use more than 80,000 tons in that same period.
The people and creatures who exist around lead are at the greatest risk for health issues. Increased exposure to the toxic metal can cause paralysis, neurological damage, and death. “In some circumstances, a waterfowl species could ingest one lead shot and die, or perhaps even less,” Dr. Barnett Rattner, a scientist for the US Geological Survey, tells The Trace. Indoor ranges in particular pose threats to humans: A blood test for one former Kentucky gun range manager, as reported by the Seattle Times, detected lead levels 56 times higher than the average adult’s, putting him in danger of organ failure.
That's a really interesting thing I had not really even considered. If I worked at a gun range the last thing I would have worried would kill me would be poisoning. It obviously makes sense, and...
That's a really interesting thing I had not really even considered. If I worked at a gun range the last thing I would have worried would kill me would be poisoning. It obviously makes sense, and definitely should be a question for hunters, but very interesting.
There's a huge difference between a 3D printed single-shot pistol, or a homemade gun made out of metal tubing or whatever, vs. an AR-15 made with an 80% lower receiver plus standard AR-15...
You can build a gun out of almost anything. Literally in your house you probably have enough materials for someone with some knowledge to launch a projectile at deadly velocities.
There's a huge difference between a 3D printed single-shot pistol, or a homemade gun made out of metal tubing or whatever, vs. an AR-15 made with an 80% lower receiver plus standard AR-15 components. That's what the article is trying to get at.
Compare them quantitatively - take the energy of a single round, multiplied by the number of rounds an average shooter could send downrange in say 60 seconds.
.223 has around 1200 ft-lbs of muzzle energy, and an AR-15 with 30 round mags you could easily fire 50-100 rounds in a minute. Significantly more with a larger magazine or a bump stock. So anywhere from 60,000 to 120,000 ft-lbs per minute of possible destructive power.
The Defense Distributed 3D printed gun that's causing all this fuss is chambered in .380 ACP, with a muzzle energy of ~200 ft-lbs. It goes up to ~300 ft-lbs with a +P load, but I wouldn't want to be next to you at the range while you test a +P load in a plastic gun.
Given that it's a single-shot pistol, how many reloads do you think you can manage in a minute? Let's be generous, say you've practiced and can manage 10, one every 6 seconds. That gives us ~2000 ft-lbs per minute of destructive power. This is setting aside the chance, because we don't have enough data to quantify it, that your 3D printed gun will misfire or otherwise malfunction while you're shooting. Whatever that probability is, it's going to be significantly higher than with an AR-15.
So by a rough estimate, the "homemade" AR-15 has at least 50 times the destructive power of the 3D printed peashooter. Treating them as equivalent is simply not accurate.
I completely agree that they are tiers different. What are we worrying about specifically though? Illegal firearms or mass shootings specifically? It sounds like you are just concerned about the...
I completely agree that they are tiers different. What are we worrying about specifically though? Illegal firearms or mass shootings specifically?
It sounds like you are just concerned about the latter, which is of course a valid concern. The article makes a huge deal out of the "unregistered" nature of it over the potential for overall damage, hence why I was replying more about the legality of it than the potential damage of it.
Personally I think the mass shooting incidents are a small enough percentage wise that I'm not particularly concerned with them, but I certainly agree with your damage assessment. The real issue with 3d printing is not a single shot gun, it's that you can 3d print an AR15 lower that supposedly can withstand 400+ rounds using higher end printing plastics. No idea on the price for that sort of setup, but it's been done before.
If anyone is unfamiliar with what an 80% lower is, it's a little complicated.
We'll use the AR15 for an example. Basically a lower is the section that houses the trigger and the magazine in a rifle. The main metal piece that the handle juts out from. This is essential to the operation of the weapon and thus has been deemed the place to put the serial number when manufacturing a gun (it can vary from gun to gun but most are here). What that means is you can buy a gun barrel online with no background check. You can buy a gun handle. Or a stock. Or a trigger. None require a serial or background check since these are components to guns and not actual guns in themselves.
Now many companies have seen the market for unregistered and un-serialized guns and essentially avoided the harsher regulations by legally producing a lower that is unfinished. 80% finished is the actual law, thus we get the term 80% lower. You receive the piece of conveniently shaped metal and drill a few holes and combine with the multiple parts kits you purchased separately and you have a fully functioning AR15 without a background check.
Now there are a few things to point out here. You can build a gun out of almost anything. Literally in your house you probably have enough materials for someone with some knowledge to launch a projectile at deadly velocities. You can buy a 3D printer and create one of these plastic guns without a background check. You CANNOT create one of these unregistered guns with the intent to sell it. However if you create it with the intent to keep it and then decide you don't like it, you can sell it technically according to the way the law is written. However there is no precedent case on this issue so you're definitely in a grey area.
Personally I don't see the gun community (myself included) ever truthfully accepting a gun registry list. And short of a full gun registry I don't see how the government can perfectly legislate the line between a random hunk of metal and a 2 steps away from functioning lower. This is a VERY DIFFICULT thing to stop with a law. I do believe it is a loophole exploited to subvert (fair or unfair) laws in various areas. Personally I think background checks should be done, but with the way technology is evolving and the lack of flexibility of law I don't see a way you can really regulate this at a clear cut point without drastically tacking away liberties from non-criminals, and in my personal opinion I don't see a solution to this exact issue.
Not very related but how would you feel about ammunition regulations? Would it be more feasible? Like for example not being able to buy more ammo until you've brought empty magazines or something like that. Would you be against it too? Like I know one bullet is enough to kill somebody but the fact that someone buys 600 bullets all of a sudden would be very suspicious to me (and I'm personally not against gun ownership, but I wouldn't own anything above revolver and basic rifle). I speak from complete ignorance about how guns work so feel free to correct me.
See I could agree with being 18 to buy ammo (which actually already is a law) but I think your example of bringing empty magazines is really flawed. You don't buy ammo in magazines, you have to load the magazine with the separately purchased ammo. There would be nothing stopping someone from just leaving the ammo they previously bought at home. Personally I have several hundred rounds at home of various ammo types but each gun only has 1 or 2 magazines.
I think the fact that you find 600 arbitrarily suspicious is kind of telling of your experience with firearms. I'm not trying to be rude about it and call you a noob, I just mean that buying many rounds at a time is the norm. Even just buying in bulk to save you can easily get hundreds. For .22 caliber ammo 500 rounds is actually a very normal buying size just because of how small and cheap they are (40$ in this case). I took a few friends out to the range a month ago and we stopped by the store and picked up probably 500 rounds on the way simply to have enough to shoot that day. With 1 person shooting you can easily go through a few hundred in an hour or two depending what type of shooting you're doing. Consider a 20 or 30 round magazine can be fired in no more than 20 or 30 seconds and that wouldn't even be considered that much of a hurry. Most people aren't dumping their whole magazines like that but lets say every 10 minutes you could EASILY go through a 30 round magazine including time to load and let the rifle cool between. A few people doing that for an hour would be something like 4 people x 30 rounds x 6 cycles of 10 minute segments that's 720 rounds in a single hour between a few people.
Oh no please feel free to call me a noob lmao I've never touched a gun and I don't know anything about how they work.
Yeah I'd say almost all gun ranges are going to be safe. Your best bet is actually to look at their schedule and sign up specifically for a beginner class where they walk you and everyone else through a new-joiner type explanation.
Personally I'd prefer to learn from a friend 1 on 1 but obviously you have to know someone at that point and your results on safety may very wildly.
I would check out google reviews for the gun ranges near you and pick the one that seems decent with a class that's convenient for you. The main thing I worry about in that situation is the other people. Large classes the instructor can't pay constant attention to the idiots enough. Maybe even taking a day off and going during the week would get you a smaller class size.
600 rounds is basically nothing, as crazy as that sounds.
The last time I went to the range I shot 200 rounds of .303 British, a few hundred rounds of 9mm, and maybe 500 rounds of 5.56mm. That's not very excessive for what I was doing. Folks who compete can eat through thousands in a day spent training. I buy my rounds in bulk, never less than a thousand rounds at once. Target shooting is an expensive-ass hobby, and I couldn't afford to do it if I bought rounds a box at a time.
I think the fewer rounds one buys, the more suspicious that is. It implies the buyer doesn't intend to use very many, and a box of rounds will last you 5-minutes at the range.
I am starting to understand why the army wants to make ecofriendly bullets...
Lead is a real problem. Back in the 80's the indoor range my dad went to had to be shut down and condemned from all the lead contamination.
It's also pretty important for use against soft targets. A bullet is generally meant to deform on impact, so it doesn't go through a target and hit something unintended — like a bystander or a building. Solid copper bullets are more expensive, and don't deform as well; they tend to shatter if they don't over-penetrate. I'm not super knowledgeable on the Nylon-Tungsten bullets that are being researched, but I imagine they're not as toxic as lead even if their cost is very high.
yeah, lead bullets are not ideal.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5161761/
The above makes bow hunting seem much more appealing.
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/04/gun-range-toxic-lead-pollution/
Above emphasis is mine.
That's a really interesting thing I had not really even considered. If I worked at a gun range the last thing I would have worried would kill me would be poisoning. It obviously makes sense, and definitely should be a question for hunters, but very interesting.
There's a huge difference between a 3D printed single-shot pistol, or a homemade gun made out of metal tubing or whatever, vs. an AR-15 made with an 80% lower receiver plus standard AR-15 components. That's what the article is trying to get at.
Compare them quantitatively - take the energy of a single round, multiplied by the number of rounds an average shooter could send downrange in say 60 seconds.
.223 has around 1200 ft-lbs of muzzle energy, and an AR-15 with 30 round mags you could easily fire 50-100 rounds in a minute. Significantly more with a larger magazine or a bump stock. So anywhere from 60,000 to 120,000 ft-lbs per minute of possible destructive power.
The Defense Distributed 3D printed gun that's causing all this fuss is chambered in .380 ACP, with a muzzle energy of ~200 ft-lbs. It goes up to ~300 ft-lbs with a +P load, but I wouldn't want to be next to you at the range while you test a +P load in a plastic gun.
Given that it's a single-shot pistol, how many reloads do you think you can manage in a minute? Let's be generous, say you've practiced and can manage 10, one every 6 seconds. That gives us ~2000 ft-lbs per minute of destructive power. This is setting aside the chance, because we don't have enough data to quantify it, that your 3D printed gun will misfire or otherwise malfunction while you're shooting. Whatever that probability is, it's going to be significantly higher than with an AR-15.
So by a rough estimate, the "homemade" AR-15 has at least 50 times the destructive power of the 3D printed peashooter. Treating them as equivalent is simply not accurate.
I completely agree that they are tiers different. What are we worrying about specifically though? Illegal firearms or mass shootings specifically?
It sounds like you are just concerned about the latter, which is of course a valid concern. The article makes a huge deal out of the "unregistered" nature of it over the potential for overall damage, hence why I was replying more about the legality of it than the potential damage of it.
Personally I think the mass shooting incidents are a small enough percentage wise that I'm not particularly concerned with them, but I certainly agree with your damage assessment. The real issue with 3d printing is not a single shot gun, it's that you can 3d print an AR15 lower that supposedly can withstand 400+ rounds using higher end printing plastics. No idea on the price for that sort of setup, but it's been done before.