3D Printing is Way Scarier Than Plastic Guns

3D Printing is Way Scarier Than Plastic Guns: "Technology is evolving at an accelerating rate and we really have no chance of keeping up with it - not legally, not legislatively, not socially, not strategically, and not at all. The best we can do is position ourselves to quickly adapt to change - it is the only guaranteed part of our reality."

"There are 3D printers that print in wood (a mixture of wood particles and binding agent that dries as wood) ceramic, carbon fiber, bronze, iron, steel, cellulose, human tissue (certain body parts for human transplant are grown using 3D printed frameworks)"

"you can find all kinds of CAD/CAM files for all kinds of gun parts, bomb parts, bazooka parts, rocket launcher parts and other deadly weapons online. These are computer files, like songs or movies or documents or images, they cannot be protected or digitally rights managed (DRM) any better than the entertainment industry has done with its intellectual property. A file is a file, if someone wants to copy it - it will be copied. You can't tell what the file contains unless you open it and, most importantly, there is no way to ban or prohibit the transfer of files. In this case, the genie is out of the bottle, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, the ship has sailed - the files are out there."

"The replacement part was printed on demand. The spare part would have to have been manufactured in advance, stored on a shelf, picked, packed and shipped. Rent would have been paid on the real estate the physical spare part occupied and it would have to be kept in stock during the entire useful life of the particular stroller design.

Go have a look at an average manufacturing facility and see how much real estate and other resources are used storing parts that may break sometime in the future. Now multiply this by everything ever made in a factory and you start to see the kind of economic impact 3D printing may have. How about 3D printers in sterile environments (like Hospitals) creating specialized instruments for surgery (robotic or other)?"

"When high-speed laser printers became economical for people to have at home, they did not start printing counterfeit books - but the nature of printed material changed forever. That is exactly what is going to happen here. Some things will be 3D printed, others will not. Some things will be cheaper or better in 3D printed at home, others will be better 3D printed by companies like Shapeways, and still others will be printed in factories because it is more cost-effective to do so."

James E. Causey - Are you safer owning a gun for home protection?

James E. Causey - Are you safer owning a gun for home protection?: "Statistics bear out that there is a 50% chance that the gun is taken over,"

"you don't know if that burglar is the kid down the street or a street person who is just hungry"

If 50% are really able to take the gun then the "innocent" burglar must be quite rare. :-/

"My research showed that a gun owner was 43 times more likely to shoot and kill a family member than that he'd shoot and kill anybody else"

That confuses the tool with the outcome. The useful statistic would be how much gun ownership affects the number of innocent people killed.