Daily Archives: May 16, 2014

How 3-D Printed Guns Evolved Into Serious Weapons in Just One Year

Posted: May 16, 2014 at 1:41 am

Its been a full year since I watched the radical libertarian group Defense Distributed test fire the Liberator, the first fully printable gun, for the first time. Imura is one of a growing number of digital gunsmiths who saw the potential of that controversial breakthrough and have strived to improve upon the Liberators clunky, single-shot design. Motivated by a mix of libertarianism, gun rights advocacy and open-source experimentation, their innovations include rifles, derringers, multi-round handguns and the components needed to assemble semi-automatic weapons. Dozens of other designs are waiting to be tested.

The result of all this tinkering may be the first advancements that significantly move 3-D printed firearms from the realm of science fiction to practical weapons.

With the Liberator we were trying to communicate a kind of singularity, to create a moment, says Cody Wilson, who founded Defense Distributed and hand-fired the first 3-D printed gun in May, 2013. The broad recognition of this idea seemed to flip a switch in peoples mindsWe knew that people would make this their own.

Even as the DIY community has refined and remixed 3-D printed guns, its left legislators and regulators in the dust. Congressional efforts last year to place restrictions on printed, plastic weapons within the renewed Undetectable Firearms Act fell flat. That said, the legality of 3-D printing a gun in the United States remains unclear, which explains why most of the gun designers contacted by WIRED declined to comment or wished to do so anonymously.

Despite that legal ambiguity, it took only weeks for digital gunsmiths to improve upon the first fully 3-D printed gun. Defense Distributed printed the first Liberator in May, 2013, using a second-hand refrigerator-sized Stratasys 3-D printer it bought for $8,000. Later that month, a gun enthusiast in Wisconsin riffed on the Liberator to produce a working firearm for far less, using a $1,725 Lulzbot printer with less than $25 in plastic. It fired eight .38-caliber bullets without damage.

Two months later came the first fully 3-D printed rifle, built by a Canadian gunsmith identified only as Matthew. The gun, which he calls the Grizzly, fires .22-caliber bullets. In the video below, it fires three shots. Another clip, since pulled from YouTube, shows him hand-firing it 14 times. Wilson calls the Grizzly the best, first improvement on the Liberator.

The Grizzly, like the Liberator, requires removing the barrel to load a new round after each shot. But less than a month after Matthew unveiled the Grizzly, another gunsmith who calls himself Free-D or Franco test-fired a five-shot derringer revolver he calls the Reprringer. It shoots low-power .22-caliber rounds. Though the tiny revolver isnt entirely 3-D printedit uses 8mm metal tube inserts in each barrel and several screwsits metal components seem to allow for a far more compact design, making the the Reprringer the smallest working 3-D printed gun publicly tested.

The blueprint for that miniature six-shooter, along with dozens of other firearms, gun parts and even explosives like grenades and mortar rounds, are hosted online by FOSSCAD, the Free Open Source Software & Computer Aided Design. The group spun out of Cody Wilsons online gun printing community known as Defcad.

Most of FOSSCADs designs havent been publicly tested, and its loose-knit members are reluctant to reveal their identities. But one anonymous member summed up the groups motivations: First, I like guns, he wrote via instant message. And second, I think you should be able to 3-D print virtually anything you want.

Aside from the Reprringer, the anonymous FOSSCAD member noted another new, proven design that may be far more practicaland have far more serious implicationsthan fully-printed guns: a key part of a semi-automatic weapon called the lower receiver. That part, which comprises most of the body of a gun, is the most regulated element of a firearm. Print a lower receiver, and you can buy the rest of a guns components off the shelf without an ID or waiting period.

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Riot of Violence – Transhuman Dystopia (Guitar Playthrough) – Video

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Riot of Violence - Transhuman Dystopia (Guitar Playthrough)
Guitar Playthrough of the song "Transhuman Dystopia" performed by Riot of Violence #39;s guitar players Charlie Perez and Oriol Conesa. The song "Transhuman Dystopia" is from Riot of Violence #39;s...

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Transhuman- A Short Film – Video

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Transhuman- A Short Film
A short film I made for my project in my second year at uni to accompany my images about Transhumanism. It derives from the concept that animal and human DNA could be mixed to give humans adaptatio...

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Crysis 3 Walkthrough PC – Post Human Part 2 1080p – Video

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Crysis 3 Walkthrough PC - Post Human Part 2 1080p
Crysis 3 PC Walkthrough. Gameplay of Post Human level on Crysis 3 #39;s Campaign mode part 2. I am playing on 1920x1080 resolution. 1080p HD System Specs: AMD R9 270X OC AMD FX 6300 OC to 4.3ghz...

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US fumes as wife of 'biased' UN official named to post

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March 21, 2014: Then-United Nations investigator Richard Falk addresses a news conference in Geneva.Reuters

It didn't take long for the United Nations to fill the anti-Israel role that controversial human rights investigator Richard Falk played -- as he left his post earlier this month, his wife and co-author on numerous pro-Palestinian papers was named to a separate position by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The perfectly timed switcheroo has the Obama administration and others fuming. Falk was notorious in his role as the point person for the Palestinian territories, known for his anti-Israel remarks and association with the 9/11 truther crowd -- his wife, Hilal Elver, carries a similar reputation.

A statement from the U.S. Mission in Geneva warned that the appointment, to be the new Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, could "reflect negatively" on the council. The statement noted "several of Ms. Elver's previous publications include biased and inflammatory views regarding the United States and the state of Israel."

Further, the Obama administration said her "lack of relevant experience" in the area of food "raises questions about her readiness" for a post dedicated to studying access to food.

But it is her public statements and writings that have caused the most concern. UN Watch, a United Nations watchdog group, repeatedly objected to the appointment, including in a recent letter to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power.

"Decisions like this threaten to turn the UN into a joke," UN Watch director Hillel Neuer said in a statement. "Falk was an open admirer of 9/11 conspiracy theorists and an apologist for terror groups whose term was finally up, so now the UN installed his closest professional collaborator -- his wife."

A 2007 article by Elver and Falk compared the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories to genocide. She also has repeatedly warned about the "Jewish lobby," claiming it has been "manipulating American politics" to ensure support for Israel.

Further, in December she presented a paper on what she called "water apartheid," focusing on Israel's alleged control over water to deprive Palestinians.

Like her husband, Elver has associated herself with 9/11 conspiracy theorists. She was listed in David Ray Griffin's "The New Pearl Harbor," which suggests the George W. Bush administration was complicit in the 2001 terror attacks, as having helped on the project.

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Nepal human development report released

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Home > News > world-news

Kathmandu, May 15 : Nepal Thursday released its 2014 Human Development Report, titled 'Beyond Geography, Unlocking Human Potential', in Kathmandu.

The report came after Nepal had committed to developing from a least developed to a middle-income country by 2022.

For the first time in Nepal, the report attempts to assess productive capability at the levels of regions, households and individuals as determined by development efforts of the last two decades, Xinhua reported.

"Human development is all about expanding capabilities and unlocking human potential uniformly across all regions and social groups," Pitamber Sharma, team leader of the Nepal Human Development Report 2014, said.

The report calls for enhancing skills of the population while bridging the regional and group divide.

Sharma noted that even though human development index (HDI) values have improved over the years, inequalities based on geography, social groups, gender and household well-being persist in the Himalayan nation.

In an interview with Xinhua, Sharma particularly stressed on the need for creating a bridge linking prospective employers with skilled population.

"Nowadays, a large proportion of the working age population is employed in occupations which are not matching their true abilities," he said.

He added that Nepal must make sure that labour migrants were safe and fairly remunerated. Similarly, UN Assistant Secretary General and UN Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Director Haoliang Xu, in a visit to Nepal, underlined the importance of converting the country's human resources potential into a reality.

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Gihan Perera – Futurist, Author, Conference Speaker – Video

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Gihan Perera - Futurist, Author, Conference Speaker
Like it or not, the Internet has changed the world. Your world. There #39;s never been a better time to reach more people, add value, build high-performing teams...

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