E451C1E2 655C 4F90 A61A BFD798209632 w1023 r1 s The Discussion on 3D Printed Guns Misses the Point

The Discussion on 3D Printed Guns Misses the Point

Lately, the government just caught wind of the fact that 3D printing exists, is getting cheaper, and disruption is on the horizon. What caused this sudden awareness of technology by a government that is so technologically illiterate that it can’t build a website and doesn’t know Facebook makes money by selling ads? It’s because they discovered people have been 3D printing guns, an issue that people have been talking about since 2013.

However, the government and the sites that cover it are still woefully behind on this issue. Five years behind, to be exact, and there’s a lot they ought to look into in order to catch up to the rest of the class. First, about 3D printed guns in specific, and second, about the overall disruption that 3D printing will bring to commerce and the economy.

Regarding 3D printed guns in specific, it’s the problem with our government that this new 3D printed gun conversation highlights: our government is so slow, inept and lacking in agility that it hears about upcoming problems 5 years late, talks about them 50 years too long, and then ultimately does worse than nothing.

As I mentioned, this topic was being talked about in 2013 — everything political reporters are now saying is a dumbed down rehash of what people were saying then.

Meanwhile, let’s digress for just a moment and talk about a related topic. The “assault weapon” debate began, by most accounts, in 1980, with this article from the New York Times. It is now 38 years later and shoulder pads as a trend have been replaced by irrelevant former newspapers explicitly endorsing racism. How’s that assault weapon debate going? Oh, bad?

Doesn’t matter which side of the debate you’re on — either the government hasn’t successfully banned assault weapons, or they’ve attacked and vilified law abiding gun owners for almost 40 years. The point is that this is endemic of our government’s systemic indecision. If the government was deciding where to go to dinner, they’d starve. Go back in time to 1992 and watch the debates between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, then jump ahead and watch the debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It’s a re-run. They’re still talking about the same exact things. Meanwhile, our world is rapidly changing at a pace never thought possible.

This system of government will never, ever be able to tackle, or even understand, the impending society-changing issues on the horizon at the speed or scale with which they’re going to arrive — not 3D printed guns (or homes, or physical goods), not AI, not low Earth orbit spaceflight, not mass migration, not technology assisted education, not self-driving cars, not cyberbullying, not cryptocurrency, not VR abuse, not aquaponics and urban gardening, not contract marriage, not sex robots, none of it. They’re still stuck on things whether pre-K works, which they started talking about in 1960 (spoiler alert: it does not).

The second thing about 3D printed guns the government is missing is… the forest for the trees of this. 3D printed guns are the canary in the coalmine. Let me explain. Guns are a physical, commercial consumer product. The issue that’s really significant here, much more significant than whether you can print a barely functional single-shot pistol out of lego plastic, is the fact that you can make, at home, a mass-market produced consumer goods product at a fraction of the price. Even if the current price of a good 3d printer is a couple thousand bucks, the cost of a mediocre pistol is about $500. Print 5 pistols and you’ve made your investment back.

Remember way back in social studies about how industrialization was a huge era in American history? Well, all that’s gone. Industrialization was about mass-market manufacturing physical goods by using assembly line production. Gone. That straw ban that the government is working so hard to spread across the United States? Guess what, within 5 years, you’ll be 3D printing not only straws, but all your forks, knives, cups, measuring cups, chopsticks, and every other kitchen item that isn’t exposed to direct heat. I don’t care about straws, but what a waste of all of our goddamn time.

Pretty soon, 3D printing will do to all plastic-made consumer products what the internet did to music — make them pirateable, easy to access at home from your laptop at little to no cost, and impossible to police. But it doesn’t stop there, 3D printing doesn’t stop at plastic — it’s already being successfully used to print metal objects as well as food. Combine the food printing with urban farming technology and biosimilar meat products, and we’re looking at a major change in the system of food production. Even housing will eventually be disrupted by 3D printing.

Is the government prepared for the amount of layoffs that will happen in consumer products manufacturing, food production and construction? No. They just found out about 3d printed guns. Now, mind you, I’m not trying to be an alarmist. 3D printing, and the majority of the things I listed above, are ultimately good for society, but what will this government do, which has no understanding of any of these issues, in response? Will it be the right thing? Will it run around like a chicken with its head cut off?

No, most likely they’ll argue about it for 50 years and then, when it doesn’t even matter anymore, decide to do nothing, or do something so stupid and expensive it would be better if they had done nothing at all.

Author

  • Ryan Night

    Ryan Night is an ex-game industry producer with over a decade of experience writing guides for RPGs. Previously an early contributor at gamefaqs.com, Ryan has been serving the RPG community with video game guides since 2001. As the owner of Bright Rock Media, Ryan has written over 600 guides for RPGs of all kinds, from Final Fantasy Tactics to Tales of Arise.

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