Sipsey Street Irregulars: Kurt Hofmann -- Printed gun fails after 6 shots: 'Ma Deuce' wasn't built (or printed) in a day*

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Kurt Hofmann -- Printed gun fails after 6 shots: 'Ma Deuce' wasn't built (or printed) in a day*

Kurt Hofmann takes me mildly to task for pointing out that cheap zip guns a la the Liberator require nothing like the up-front costs of the new "printed pistol."

Mike Vanderboegh, perennial thorn in the sides of liberty-haters, observes that 3-D printing has yet to become anything approaching the most practical, effective means of arming oneself against the government's wishes. That is indisputably true, for the moment. 3-D printers' capabilities, though, will inevitably grow, while costs will inevitably fall. Meanwhile, creative innovators like those involved in the Wiki Weapons project will continue to find better ways to harness the technology that is available now.

Certainly. My point, if not perfectly expressed, was that anyone can make a firearm out of almost anything and that folks should not be limited to this new project. Certainly, as Kurt points out, the "printed gun" project has caused consternation in the enemy camp and thus is worth-while even if it ultimately fails (which I don't think it will).

I am reading a history of Prohibition at the moment called Last Call, and will have an essay based on that when I finish. The upshot is that gun prohibition will be even more difficult than alcohol prohibition -- which is to say impossible -- and far more deadly to the people who attempt to enforce it and, especially, their political masters.

4 comments:

j said...: A fellow I know, who shall remain nameless, once crafted a pretty nifty little .22 - back in the 50s - out of a car antenna wrapped in electrical tape, a piece of surgical tuning and a finishing nail head. Necessity is a real mother.; December 5, 2012 at 9:19 PM
Anonymous said...: An AR receiver is not a simple piece of machinery, and while the .223 isn't considered a high powered rifle round, it IS a rifle round. Six shots is impressive, given the technology. It would be much easier to build a derringer or even a pepperbox or something like the COP 357 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cop_357_Derringer.jpg )with many fewer moving parts, looser tolerances, and pistol cartridges.

Antibubba; December 5, 2012 at 11:43 PM
Happy D said...: They had the courage to try. Sometimes that is enough.

I am sure they can take a little criticism from a friendly source like you Mr.V.; December 6, 2012 at 2:51 AM
Patriot Al said...: In the SHTF times, you'll only need it to fire once in order to obtain better weaponary anyway.....

PA III; December 6, 2012 at 10:20 AM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Kurt Hofmann -- Printed gun fails after 6 shots: 'Ma Deuce' wasn't built (or printed) in a day*

4 comments:

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