FunCouple5280
Posts: 559
Joined: 10/30/2012
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To the OP
This is what I love about technology. It is, in many ways, the ultimate expression of freedom. It permits people to have new and innovative ways to express that freedom.
Prior to the invention of the gun and the industrial revolution, the same arguments, today, about guns could be applied to swords. Historically, there was a lot of guffaw about carrying blades, banning blades, and carrying concealed blades. Some places banned them, people illegally possessed them, yada yada yada. While today there are still regulations regarding carrying blades around with regard to size, type, etc, there is little concern about them, with the exception of school properties. That lack of concern is due, in part, to the greater concern over the more dangerous gun, but also in part that you cannot regulate the availability of blades.
Anyone, even someone with a substandard brain, can create a blade now. Many years ago you may have needed to be trained blacksmith, or had access to, at the time, expensive and rare smithing tools and raw materials. Now, one can go the home depot and buy some grinding and cutting tools and length of steel and one can make a sword blade in a matter of minutes. A torch and bucket of water and you can temper the blade. A little ducttape and wood, you got a crude handle. Time for some hack and slash!!
The 3D printer and other home-manufacturing techniques will render the gun control debate as futile. Once the average schlub can start manufacturing guns, all the laws in the world are useless. However, while a 11th century person could have never imagined something as terrifying as a gun, we cannot necessarily imagine what kind of new personal destructive weapon is next. We can try, but after the many years of gun being the go to weapon for armed conflagration, something else will inevitably replace it and we can only guess at what that will be. And when it does, the focus will change, the gun will be seen as quaint toy of the days of yore, and we will be wishing we lived in the days when you only had to worry about school shootings.
While you can't ban the 3D printer any better than you can ban guns or cocaine, the real enemy you rail against is technology. If this scares you, you really have an issue with technology and its inevitable march. You can try and crush the creative spirit of mankind, but you will only be successful in stalling it. We can't even keep nukes out of the hands of loony jack-offs like North Korea, and soon Iran.
I for one, embrace technology, while it creates terrifying new threats, it also creates new and awesome solutions to our problems. While technology gave us the gun, it also gave us the bullet-proof vest. Maybe one day we can create everyday clothes that will protect us from small fires, stabbings and small arms fire. Who knows. With internet came a flow of information that led to a loss of innocence for everyone, but it liberated millions, and accelerated nearly every aspect of human life and creation.
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RE: FEDS PANIC OVER 3D PLASTIC GUN - 
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