Banning milling machines. and so it begins....

[Wombat of Doom]

Flame suit on. Here is the not so popular opinion so far in this thread:

I am very pro 2A and fully support the right that we can all legally make our own firearms for our own personal use. However, a desktop CNC milling machine specifically marketed, programed, fixtured, and tooled just to allow someone with limited to zero machining ability to kick out an AR lower is WAY different than a 3 axis Haas VF-2 or even a Haas Mini-Mill made for and used in general manufacturing. You can not just buy a VF-2, toss in in your house and start kicking out lowers with no experience, not going to happen unless you have training on how to use, set up, and program that equipment. I used to be a CNC machinist, and still claim it somewhat, I still have my Kennady (machinists will know what that is), it's not as simple as "set it and forget it" to run a real CNC milling machine from scratch.

Heck the posts with the Youtube guy melting down cans or old brass is very proof of what I am talking about. In the Youtube videos, he uses manual milling equipment and most importantly skills learned that is not JUST making a lowers, is way different. That same guy can use his equipment and skills to manufacture about anything, it's not dedicated allowing anyone with the $ to spend to make as many nontraceable lowers as they wish. As for 80% lowers and router jigs, I personally think the jigs sold that specifically allows a router to "mill out" and finish 80% lower almost crosses the same line as dedicated CNC desktop mills. It's made to do one and one thing only with little to no skill to operate.

Again 100% for the right for someone to make their own firearm. (Like the guy on Youtube, rock on) There will always be someone looking to cash in on making it easy. 80% lowers seam to already be that. Pushing it further just makes 2A more of an uphill battle and takes focus on the true rights we are in the fight of our lives.

The code is different. the ghost gunner 2 is also sold as a beginner's cnc by another name. I can do a lower multiple ways. Heck I could make a bolt together lower from bolts and sheet metal. In fact I keep being tempted to do just that. Just because I can. The devices that can be used are numerous. Heck, I have considered making a from scratch break barrel 38 special of novel design. Guns are simple machines.

 

[revjen45]

"Ruhro, better get on that button rifler quick! "

ECM is also a good way to create rifling.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

When milling machines are outlawed, I'll be an outlaw.

 

[Aero Denezol]

The last thing I want in our machine shop is more oversight, more audits, and more nosey bureaucrats walking around asking questions. And taxing us for the privilege of kneeling to our Moral Betters (men and women of superior intellect).

The neo-Marxist elites do not want an independent middle class.

 

[11Charlie]

They are just trying to boost sales of 80% jigs. HURRY and buy them while you can!!!!

 

[Aero Denezol]

The congressional staff idiots that write these bills don't have a clue what a milling machine is, what they do, or how they do it. They don't know if it's the size of a hamster or an aircraft carrier.

You don't have to go as far as DC. Someone in my family who is pretty high up in the local school district has no idea what a mill or a lathe is. As in, no concept. Not even a vague idea of how things are made. This is a person who has a fair amount of influence on policy. I found this out last Thanksgiving. My jaw dropped on the floor.

 

[Slobray]

No mill required.

http://www.thehomegunsmith.com/pdf/Expedient-Homemade-Firearms-Vol-II-PA-Luty.pdf

TOOLS REQUIRED
1. Electric Drill or Drill Press
2. Drill Bits 1.5 to 9mm diameter
3. Hacksaw
4. Large Files, Round, Half Round and Flat
5. Angle Grinder
6. Bench Grinder
7. Hammer
8. Set square
9. 14.2 mm (9/16) Taper Pin Reamer
10. Taper Cutting Tool
11. Countersink Tool
12. Large Vice

Just sayin....................



Ray

 

[tac]

'Quick, ban ALL glass - some of it can be used in what they call telescopic sights!!!'

Ban milling machines and 99% of ALL US industry will come to a halt. And then, because milling machines are used to make other machines, the final 1%.

What a bunch of loons.

I can't believe this is actually happening in America - the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth.

 

[techxile]

The neo-Marxist elites do not want an independent middle class.

No they don't. Part of the lockdown effort was to strangle small businesses while allowing giant companies to keep functioning as "essential"*. The goal of our modern totalitarians seems to be the construction of a new kind of "command economy" where production of everything is regulated from the government but still in "private" hands. This would be done to avoid the (now) obvious problems with a Soviet style system where even prices and production quotas were set by people distant from the actual process of production.

In the case of machine work, a few large, well connected corporations become the only ones who can get the special licences needed to operate milling machines, 3D printers, etc... I got into 3D printing over 5 years ago and as soon as I knew how the technology worked I could see it would be linked to the gun issue by the gun grabbers eventually.

The people who advocate this stuff are every bit as dangerous as the Bolsheviks and their goals are the same. It's time for people to realize this and start acting preemptively instead of reacting to offensives from the totalitarians. In warfare, there's this concept of "initiative". Basically it means that conflict favors the side that starts the trouble instead of sitting and waiting for the enemy to move. We must regain the initiative.


* A large company is going to tend to have large numbers of employees. The mathematics of contagion are such that the larger the group, the more likely a communicable disease is to spread. If anything, Amazon, Walmart, and Target should have been shut down while smaller companies were deemed essential. Then again, this was never really about public health.

 

[bolus]

Flame suit on. Here is the not so popular opinion so far in this thread:

I am very pro 2A and fully support the right that we can all legally make our own firearms for our own personal use. However, a desktop CNC milling machine specifically marketed, programed, fixtured, and tooled just to allow someone with limited to zero machining ability to kick out an AR lower is WAY different than a 3 axis Haas VF-2 or even a Haas Mini-Mill made for and used in general manufacturing. You can not just buy a VF-2, toss in in your house and start kicking out lowers with no experience, not going to happen unless you have training on how to use, set up, and program that equipment. I used to be a CNC machinist, and still claim it somewhat, I still have my Kennady (machinists will know what that is), it's not as simple as "set it and forget it" to run a real CNC milling machine from scratch.

Heck the posts with the Youtube guy melting down cans or old brass is very proof of what I am talking about. In the Youtube videos, he uses manual milling equipment and most importantly skills learned that is not JUST making a lowers, is way different. That same guy can use his equipment and skills to manufacture about anything, it's not dedicated allowing anyone with the $ to spend to make as many nontraceable lowers as they wish. As for 80% lowers and router jigs, I personally think the jigs sold that specifically allows a router to "mill out" and finish 80% lower almost crosses the same line as dedicated CNC desktop mills. It's made to do one and one thing only with little to no skill to operate.

Again 100% for the right for someone to make their own firearm. (Like the guy on Youtube, rock on) There will always be someone looking to cash in on making it easy. 80% lowers seam to already be that. Pushing it further just makes 2A more of an uphill battle and takes focus on the true rights we are in the fight of our lives.

Just to add to what you said.
Just because it is easy does not make it so that it should be illegal. The reason these machines are being made is because of how restrictive the country has made purchasing firearms. There would be no need for such a machine if (in my state) I did not have to give my medical records to the state, get permission from a doctor, take a $200 15 hour hunting class after waiting 6 months for the class, wait 2 weeks after purchasing the pistol, schedule a pistol registration in person, get finger printed and have the prints sent to the FBI and pay for the privilege, limit the magazine size in the pistol to 10 rounds, and pay taxes for a gun commission to figure out how to restrict rights even further. Once the governor signs a new bill, it will make anything that can be made into a firearm illegal. They worded it so literally a chunk of aluminum or a metal tube is now illegal. Such brilliance!

Given this, it should be dirt easy to make a firearm just like it should be easy to buy one.

I also would not by a $2000 desktop CNC machine for a few firearms, I'd just get a $200 3D printer and have access to ~20 or so firearms including ones that did not need any other firearm specific parts to make. Genie is out of the bottle on this one. Unless they plan to ban 3D printers being pumped out of china by the millions, restricting the ghost gunner CNC is going to do nothing.

We must accept that there will always be crimes and criminals to have a little bit of freedom. If not we might as well let China take over and watch absolutely everything.

EDIT: to add a little more. I can google "how to make Ricin" which is of course the worlds most deadly poison and I can get instructions on how to do it. There is literally a castor oil plant growing in my yard. They grow like weeds here. I see ~50 plants on the way to work.

Why are there no calls to ban google?

 

[Hueco]

People talk about 3D printers and cheap mills like it'll be the fringe criminal elements that use these technologies to obtain firearms.

I'm not sold on that hypothesis. There are already 300+M guns floating around. The criminals already have access to Glock, Sig, etc. and don't need to go spend hours or days at a (also probably stolen) CNC machine or buy from some Bubba.

As always, the criminal use of guns, or making them, will pale in comparison to the legal, and be absolutely minuscule compared to all of the other creative uses put to a mill. Seems these politicians are spending their efforts into a negative ROI venture.

 

[Hueco]

EDIT: to add a little more. I can google "how to make Ricin" which is of course the worlds most deadly poison and I can get instructions on how to do it. There is literally a castor oil plant growing in my yard. They grow like weeds here. I see ~50 plants on the way to work.

Why are there no calls to ban google?

There are calls to ban Google, or at least antitrust it up into a bunch of smaller companies. Those calls, btw, are right.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

I chose to obey the law.
No matter what the item is , my access to it , how many I have or that are out there....etc...
What I chose to do with the item is what matters.

We already have plenty of laws against theft...
Simply put , all of our laws are against theft :
Theft of others property....
Theft of someone else's life....
Theft of the truth...
Theft of safety....

How 'bout enforcing the laws that are in place...rather than making another law for criminals to ignore...or one that will make otherwise honest people criminals.
Andy

 

[Siglvr]

We are law followers but we are currently seriously overstocked right now on laws, extra laws, non existant pretend laws and stupid laws. That's what you get when you elect people who have never worked a day of real work in their lives. That said, the guy who made the AK-47 out of a shovel said it best:

"This receiver turned out to be stiffer than me watching full-featured film of Michael Kalashnikov doing Polina Porizkova in a heavy KVI tank on board of a navy destroyer in a midst of a battle."

That's right, he said it. LINK DIY: Shovel AK - photo tsunami warning!

 

[The Heretic]

I am retired now. If I ever get settled, I would like to have a mill capable of multi-axis operation? I would also like to have a metal lathe capable on relatively good precision operations (boring/etc. and threading, cutting). I also want a MIG/TIG welder, oxy/acetylene torch/etc. and some other metal tools. I would not mind having a very small forge and heat treating setup.

Then I will take some refresher courses at the local comm college in metal working, metallurgy and welding - I used to know a little bit, enough to be dangerous in the shop.

Right now, I am looking for a decent used drill press with a milling table, but I have the router and jig, I need to setup my bench and vises and try that out. I also need a good bench/pedestal bench grinder and belt sander.

Not just for firearms, but also other stuff (vehicles, etc.).

 

[asiparks]

meh. as the article says once you get past the headline :

"The definition of a "firearms manufacturing device" is not clear and has some questioning how far the bill will actually go to ban milling devices that can be used for generic metal milling and customization work."

"While it could be argued by the bill's sponsors that the measure is aimed at high-profile desktop milling machines like the Ghost Gunner and similar devices, it should be pointed out that there are dozens of different brands of hobbyist-level mini CNC machines for sale both online and at hardware outlet chains such as Harbor Freight that can be used in an array of metal and polymer fabrication work to include producing firearm frames or receivers. This suggests the bill's sponsors may not be aware of what they are trying to accomplish, or, worse, are being coy with the scope of the legislation.

the wording is vague enough to be meaningless- this is just political posturing, now the existence of unserialized, home made "Ghost guns" is broady known, someone has to be seen to be doing something to take these killing machines off the streets..blah , blah.
As written, it's just unenforcible nonsense bollocks-

 

[The Heretic]

 

[tinkerbill]

What a bunch of idiots, there are literally millions of "milling machines" in the country, some over 100 years old. How are you going to control all of them? Plus 99.999% of the time they are used for other purposes.

That's like banning all cars because a minority were used in drive by shootings!

 

[2506]

What a bunch of idiots, there are literally millions of "milling machines" in the country, some over 100 years old. How are you going to control all of them? Plus 99.999% of the time they are used for other purposes.

Same with firearms. Millions in this country and they'll never get them all, even if they tried. I lost all mine just last week in a boating accident.

 

[asiparks]

I predict an uptick in boating related misfortunes over the upcoming three months...