This Vice video report by Keegan Hamilton on so-called ghost guns and the 3D printing revolution that’s making building your own firearm increasingly accessible to more people is well worth the 30 minutes it will take you to watch it.
As part of his report, Hamilton attended the Gun Maker’s Match held in June in St. Augustine, Florida. He also printed his own GLOCK 19 frame and built a pistol to shoot in the competition (with a lot of help from Rob Pincus).
Hamilton notes that “ghost guns” are becoming a concern for law enforcement. A DOJ report claims that 24,000 of them have been recovered at crime scenes from 2016 to 2020. That probably wildly overstates the actual number of home-built firearms police have found as departments are increasingly categorizing factory firearms that have had their serial numbers obliterated as “ghost guns.”
Anyway, it seems that in the process of compiling his story (the more hoplophobic written version that emphasizes gun grabbers’ claims about “ghost guns” is here), the intrepid reporter learned a couple of things . . .
- 3D printing is not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. It takes time, a little expertise and a fair amount of work to get to the final product. Joe Biden lied when he claimed that people are making or printing guns in 30 minutes. Even kit guns using 80% frames or lowers take time and effort to produce a finished, working firearm.
- “No matter how the law changes, it’s probably too late to contain ‘ghost guns.'” That’s a quote from Hamilton from the video which might be more economically stated as, You Can’t Stop the Signal. The technological genie is long since out of the bottle. People can and will build their own firearms, whatever the law says they can and can’t do.
We talked to Rob Pincus to get his impression of the Vice report. He told us . . .
It’s as fair a piece as we could have hoped for. Obviously, they are going to include some of the attacks against private gun making to establish a backdrop, but the documentary clearly refutes many of the myths and miss-characterizations about “ghost guns” and private gun makers.
When you have the ATF agent looking like he wished he was there shooting with us and clearly stating that there’s nothing inherently wrong with 3D printed guns or gun building, I’d say that’s a win for our side.
In the end, the experience of building and shooting his own handgun (and winning a trophy in the process) didn’t make Hamilton a convert. As he wrote . . .
I have no interest in owning a handgun—let alone one with “Ghost Gun” on the handle—so I decided to melt down the frame and return the gun to its original form: molten plastic.
Fair enough. That’s his prerogative. As he said in the video just before setting his 3D printed frame alight, “Let’s make one fewer gun right now.”
Don’t worry. There are plenty more where that came from.
What a maroon! He still doesn’t get it. Hopefully, one day he will get it without going through the trauma of wishing he had a gun when bad stuff happens. But I’m not holding my breath until then.
I hope he does learn the hard way. Those hard-knocks are the best teachers life has to offer any of us.
He would melt it down on camera to virtue signal for the “report” even if he promptly made a second for himself to keep right after
Moron is an idiot.
Maroon is a color.
Not a fan of Bugs Bunny, I see.
He doesn’t want to own a handgun. Fine. So long as he doesn’t try to interfere with my owning a handgun. Freedom works that way.
…. and now with his insightful interloping from far left field, our resident idiot dacian. Today’s word salad is sponsored by none other than the great George Soros – take it away little d ….
Some people shouldn’t own guns. Some are fine.
My body, my choice.
(Just don’t call yourself a feminist if you’re pro-gun control.)
I would never call myself a feminist for any reason. I support equality for all.
Thanks for sharing.
@jwm,
Exactly. The freedom to make your own decisions for your life includes – by default – the option to not own a gun. I like that he at least tried it for himself and therefore made an educated decision. But as you state…just don’t try to project your decision onto me and attempt to force me to make the same decision as you.
This is the problem. They want THEIR choice to be OUR choice.
quote————– That probably wildly overstates the actual number of home-built firearms police have found as departments are increasingly categorizing factory firearms that have had their serial numbers obliterated as “ghost guns.”————quote
Speculation, let us see the stats from an accredited source or police reports.
quote————-“No matter how the law changes, it’s probably too late to contain ‘ghost guns.’”———–quote
Wrong. Now that the ATF has forbidden them the general public will not be buying 80 per cent finished receivers anymore and the demand will go down to the point were most of the Johnny come lately manufactures will just cease to even sell them.
Yes people will continue to buy 100 per cent finished receivers with a serial number on them who want to build a gun but then again the average guy only does it if he can build it substantially cheaper than buying a factory made gun and AR type weapons and glock import look a-likes are so numerous and low cost that building one cheaper would not amount to all that much to waste all that time and trouble building one that has no resale value anyway. In other words you end up taking a big financial hit when you sell it.
Most criminals are such morons that making even 3D gun frames is way out of their league as well and of course outlawing programs to make them will make it even tougher for the low intellect moron to find a way to make them. Right now its just so easy that any low intellect nut case can build one by buying a partially made receiver and the ATF just made it a lot tougher by outlawing the partially finished receiver without a serial number on it.
No law is perfect that is a fact but we do not do away with laws against, murder or rape or robbery or being able to buy a machine gun over the counter or a silencer over the counter and the outlawing of ghost guns is no different. It was a needed regulation/law that did not come too soon.
Nazi boi doing what nazi bois do. Pushing gun control so their victims will be helpless to fight back.
He jumped the slippery slope arguement and went straight to the absurd extreme in the last paragraph.
I suppose criminals are too stupid to perform multiple organic chemistry reactions to produce drugs. Yet, somehow there still seems to be a lot of drugs available. Maybe criminals have some smart friends or know smart people who will do shady things in exchange for money, sex, drugs, or blackmail.
The number of criminal ghost guns is probably over inflated to get support for laws against such firearms that were trashed from the start with labels such as ghost and untraceable.
The huge numbers for evacuations from Afghanistan is probably just as inflated to save what’s left of Jim Crow Gun Control joe’s sorry behind.
It’s an ongoing pattern whenever democRats cause a huge pileup their fix is to let time and short memories wash the blood and guts away.
In the famous Benghazi fixing words of the self serving democRat hilliary rotten clintoon, “At this point what does it matter?”
The Vice thing The Iron Pipeline was pretty interesting FWIW. The fact that the leftie melted his gat down tells me everything I need to know. That & the Pincus name…
He really didn’t want to melt it down but he got a bad pour and after 159 rounds she melted.
He looks, talks and behaves exactly like how I’d expect a Vice reporter to. I bet he’d be scared of the chisels in my garage shop.
Biden is a liar and so by extension are the alphabet bois
“I have no interest in owning a handgun—let alone one with “Ghost Gun” on the handle”
Virtue Signal Much Keegan Hamilton?!?!?
“becoming a concern for law enforcement” – yawn, WTF cares what some prog urban tool police CHIEF is “concerned” about?
I’m gonna make two just to offset the one he destroyed.
Joe Biden on 3D printing is akin to Joe Biden on most anything. Untrustworthy to say the least.
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