$1,200 Machine for Making Untraceable Guns

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,400
Cody Wilson is back at it again rattling lawmakers with his home-brewed weapons manufacturing. After bringing the 3-D printed gun to the masses, his company Defense Distributed, has moved onward and upward to selling the means to the CNC milling of metal gun parts right on a tabletop in your home. No serial number required. :cool:

While the Ghost Gunner is a general-purpose CNC mill, capable of automatically carving polymer, wood, and metal in three dimensions, Defense Distributed has marketed its machine specifically as a tool for milling the so-called lower receiver of an AR-15, which is the regulated body of that semi-automatic rifle.
 
There are far cheaper ways to finish 80% lowers.

buy the machine you can make all the lowers you have metal for so the cost of a lower is actually the cost of the metal you mill the parts out of.
 
oh no, a milling machine exists... and of course they worry about making gun parts.
 
Wait .. A $1200 CNC machine and they're marketing towards gun people? WTH .. Market that crap towards everyone who wants to mill something.
 
Wait .. A $1200 CNC machine and they're marketing towards gun people? WTH .. Market that crap towards everyone who wants to mill something.


If I had that machine, I would be milling R/C car parts with it, not making an AR lower. I can buy an AR anywhere. No problem finding a used one for a private sale off the books either. Meh, except for cost, I much prefer the SCAR to the AR platform anyway.
 
Wait .. A $1200 CNC machine and they're marketing towards gun people? WTH .. Market that crap towards everyone who wants to mill something.

Wheres the controversy in that? He wouldn't be getting any attention or coverage if just sold it for general milling purposes.
 
There are far cheaper ways to finish 80% lowers.

This. Much ado over nothing, you can make/finish lowers for personal use. They make 80% that can be finished with a drill press. If you start selling them and you aren't a licensed manufacturer...you are now committing a felony and get a trip to club fed.
 
If I had that machine, I would be milling R/C car parts with it, not making an AR lower. I can buy an AR anywhere. No problem finding a used one for a private sale off the books either. Meh, except for cost, I much prefer the SCAR to the AR platform anyway.

There are so many fricking hobbies out there where something like this would be gold for milling parts that cost a fricking fortune for said hobby. But gotta be guns... *sigh*
 
Who the hell wants an AR anyway? JAM, JAM, JAM, JAM..

Maybe mine is defective. It hasn't jammed at all... Odd...

80%'s can be done on a cheap drill press with enough patience. My Dad has made a dozen of them. The first ones weren't pretty, but they work fine. After he got the process down, they look excellent. After some polishing and anodizing, they are hard to tell a difference between them and a 100%. Sure, time is money so if you value you time, it might not be a good investment. But, it's fun and a great hobby. Like most other things with guns, you don't mind using your time. It's not wasted and it's fun. :)

I want to make a Ghost Gun. Put the Ghostbuster symbol on it or something. :)
 
What's with the obsession of creating implements of death?

Like fast food, cars, drugs, bats, knives, politicians, etc... You can't blame the actions of a few, and generalize them as actions of all. I, like the majority of gun owners, do not own guns to use on other people.
 
This can be used to mill anything that can fit within the physical limitations of the platform. The defense distributed people are not going to limit what they allow to be published to their programming platform. What I find most interesting is using the electronic portions of this and expand them into a larger physical platform to make larger parts. 1200 even 1500 for a fully encased cnc machine that requires less maintenance than a traditional cnc milling machine is actually quite cheap.
 
I don't understand this either, however I come from a country which does not have a rather disconcerting "gun culture".

i think you will find that those who do not participate in "gun culture" (whatever that means) are the ones who make a big deal out of it. i don't understand why the US is the only country that gets accused of having these "cultures" with negative connotations.

i suppose it could be worse. we could have a collective napolean complex and feel the need to constantly take jabs at other countries' populaces on the internet.
 
If it jams that much on you, you're doing something wrong.

Depends what wrong is. I know shiny AR's will shoot shiny ammo just fine, but an AK that's been buried in the desert for a decade will fire rusty 30 year old ammo from a bunker in Siberia without complaint.

Personally I love my SCAR, best of both.
 
Who the hell wants an AR anyway? JAM, JAM, JAM, JAM..

I've built over 50 AR-15's and AR-10's and not once have I ever gotten a jam in testing or had any of the people I built them for ever gotten a jam. Not sure what you are basing this on. Can you clarify?
 
I don't understand this either, however I come from a country which does not have a rather disconcerting "gun culture".

What people do not understand, they fear, and what they fear, they seek to destroy. Most people that are bothered by firearms and firearm ownership tend to be so due to a lack of education on the issue, or by having been misled by those with political agendas that seek to paint lawful firearms owners as some kind of murder-crazed freaks. It's the opposite. It's the unlawful gun owners that are the problem, and the lawful variety do not like them. Ask anyone in the NRA or any other gun rights organization about their views on the criminal misuse of firearms and they'll be the first ones to say the courts should throw the book at anyone using a gun to commit a violent crime. As for myself, I know individuals that own firearms, including one that owns those evil military-looking semi-auto rifles, along with swords, knives, and other martial tools, has a concealed permit, etc. Said individual has a completely clean criminal record, not even having a single speeding ticket, and he picks up spiders in glass jars to put them outside because he doesn't like hurting things. The only "violence" he's caused with his firearms has been on target ranges against paper and clay. Yet... if someone tried to hurt his family or his friends he'd not hesitate to use whatever means necessary to protect them, and if his country was invaded he'd fight to the death to protect it despite being physically disqualified from military service. That's only one anecdotal example, true, but simply put it's like this.

I would say there's not really any such thing as a "gun culture". Guns are simply a part of American culture as a whole. Some people like them, some people don't. It's like cars. Most people just use cars for daily commuting, but some people are enthusiasts. They want more power, speed, a certain look, tight cornering, or what have you. Don't like the car analogy? How about computers, then? Sure, nobody NEEDS that Intel Core i7-5960X, but to an enthusiast it's droolworthy. Why? It's powerful, same with a Challenger Hellcat, Shelby GT, or Barrett M82A1. Misused, the Hellcat or Shelby is just as capable of killing someone as the .50cal Barrett.

I could go on with comparisons and paraphrase what others have said before and probably a lot more eloquently, but my point is, it's a question of use vs misuse, as well as the question of a right that was guaranteed at the nation's founding to its citizenry vs those who disagree with that right and wish to see it abolished. You may end up disagreeing and seeing no point to allowing the ownership of firearms, and that's your decision. It's your country's laws, wherever you are. The laws are simply different here, and like anything, not everyone is going to agree on it. If you genuinely want to educate yourself on the issue to understand it better, I recommend doing some research. Read what the American gun rights organizations say and think, and read what their opponents say and think. That way you'll have a better grasp of the issue and how it plays into American culture.
 
The problem with walking around with a hammer ... is that everything looks like a nail.

If I ever lived somewhere where I only felt safe by having a firearm ... I think I would move.
 
The problem with walking around with a hammer ... is that everything looks like a nail.

If I ever lived somewhere where I only felt safe by having a firearm ... I think I would move.

You do realize that the overwhelming majority of people who walk around with hammers do not just hit anything they see right? That is a logical fallacy commonly used by people who fear something and have taken zero time to educate themselves about reality.
 
Who cares? It's perfectly legal to make your own guns as long as you don't transfer them to someone else and they are destroyed upon your death (at least in my state). I don't see what the big deal is. If someone is breaking the law by selling them, arrest them. For personal use...perfectly legal.
 
The problem with walking around with a hammer ... is that everything looks like a nail.

If I ever lived somewhere where I only felt safe by having a firearm ... I think I would move.

I own several hammers. I only use them on nails. I'd rather use a hammer on that nail than the palm of my hand, though.

I use guns to shoot animals, cans, paper targets. I hope I never have to use it on a person.

The "only felt safe by having a firearm" thing? No way. I feel safe without one for the most part. If I'm visiting someplace and am in a bad neighborhood - I want my hammer. :)

My guns are not machines of death or whatever. They are tools. The last thing I want them to do it cause death of a person. But, I won't hesitate to use them to protect my family if I need them.

I don't like the gun and knife culture of the middle east. or Africa. or ... or... Let's ban these so that people over there can't have them. Terrorists and warlords and gangs will turn them in, right? So, everyone is safe. No more beheadings, no more shootings, no more wars. Nope - won't work. There will always be bad people in this world. And, I want to be prepared and hope I never have to us use it. Rather than need it and not have it.
 
Who cares? It's perfectly legal to make your own guns as long as you don't transfer them to someone else and they are destroyed upon your death (at least in my state). I don't see what the big deal is. If someone is breaking the law by selling them, arrest them. For personal use...perfectly legal.

It's is legal. Still, some people don't want others to make guns that they can't control.

And, I do know that there will be some that aren't done legally. Minority of people, yes. But, those minority will be used against the whole group.
 
If I had that machine, I would be milling R/C car parts with it, not making an AR lower. I can buy an AR anywhere. No problem finding a used one for a private sale off the books either. Meh, except for cost, I much prefer the SCAR to the AR platform anyway.

Which is fine for states that allow private firearm sales without background checks. For states that require them for private sales it's all about legally owning a firearm that is completely off the books. With federal and local legislators pushing for more and stricter firearm registration ala Connecticut, it is very concerning for those paying attention. Firearm registration will eventually be abused for confiscation, it isn't a matter of if, but when. It has already happened in New York where BATFE illegally seized registration records from a gun store that had done nothing wrong.
 
You do realize that the overwhelming majority of people who walk around with hammers do not just hit anything they see right? That is a logical fallacy commonly used by people who fear something and have taken zero time to educate themselves about reality.

Baruch's observation / the law of the instrument / Maslows's hammer is most definitely not a logical fallacy. I find it interesting that you suggest that people that are aware of these concepts are somehow fearful. Interesting because typically a firearm is kept out of an irrational and overwhelming sense of fear.
 
Oh man. I'll totally want one of these milling machines. They could be super useful for milling all sorts of shit.
 
Baruch's observation / the law of the instrument / Maslows's hammer is most definitely not a logical fallacy. I find it interesting that you suggest that people that are aware of these concepts are somehow fearful. Interesting because typically a firearm is kept out of an irrational and overwhelming sense of fear.

From the Wiki:

"The first recorded statement of the concept was Abraham Kaplan's, in 1964: "I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding."

"Other forms of narrow-minded instrumentalism include: déformation professionnelle, a French term for "looking at things from the point of view of one's profession", and regulatory capture, the tendency for regulators to look at things from the point of view of the profession they are regulating."

So your non logical fallacy is that if you give a small child a hammer they will pound it on everything? If you give a small child anything solid they will hit it against something. It is called learning. The way you used it is a logical fallacy. You attributed the fact that small children will hit a hammer against anything to an adult with a fire arm using it to shoot any and everything. If this were true, we would all be dead, and firearms would be nothing more than artifacts of a society that lived and died with a logical fallacy.

On the other hand, it is a totally accurate assessment of the crowd that understands little about firearms and wants to change what they fear through the narrow minded approach of legislation.
 
Back
Top