from Hacker News

Man sells 3D-printed firearms to a buyback program for $21,000

by chelmzy on 10/6/22, 4:47 PM with 128 comments

  • by kube-system on 10/6/22, 5:51 PM

    > "Gun buybacks are a fantastic way of showing, number one, that your policies don't work, and, number 2, you're creating perverse demand. You're causing people to show up to these events, and, they don't actually reduce crime whatsoever."

    Of course, criminals aren't going to turn in their guns. Gun buybacks have always just been useful for their second order effects -- forgotten guns in attics being stolen, found by kids, etc.

    Yes, people take advantage of these events. There's not much of a way to filter participants by intent. People turn in broken or rusty junk that is not of danger anyway. Doing it with a junk plastic gun is not much different than doing the same with junk guns made from other materials. But the bottom line is I don't think anyone ever thought that the results of these events would be 1-for-1 removal of crime guns off the street.

  • by chroma on 10/6/22, 5:54 PM

    The first person I know of to do this was at a gun buyback in Houston in August. He printed 63 single shot .22s and got $6,200 for it.[1] He then used that money to buy a bunch of guns for himself and his daughter. The guy who made $21,000 says he was inspired by the reward from the Houston buyback.[2] He drove six hours to Utica, not Utah[3] and along with three other guys, managed to get $45,000 from the Utica Police Department. One of those three bragged about getting $5,000 for a week of printing plastic and $7 worth of screws.[4]

    These people do this for two reasons. First, it's profitable (though that's likely to change as the buyback programs begin to exclude 3D printed guns). Second, it shows that it is incredibly cheap and easy to make firearms and illegal parts. Anyone with a $200 printer can build a safe and reliable semi-automatic handgun. It's even easier to build devices that convert a semi-auto firearm to full auto. Like the war on drugs, the policymakers have lost, they just don't know it yet.

    1. https://twitter.com/CobraEconomics/status/155541335225971916...

    2. https://twitter.com/kem_regik/status/1570191067235946496

    3. https://twitter.com/kem_regik/status/1570173184640520195

    4. https://twitter.com/ricky2a3d/status/1570306811588141061

  • by tekla on 10/6/22, 5:42 PM

  • by rolph on 10/6/22, 5:27 PM

    “And it ended with the guy and a lady from the budget office finally coming around with the 42 gift cards and counting them in front of me," said Kem. "$21,000 in $500 gift cards."

    Meanwhile, on Wednesday, a spokesperson at the Attorney General's Office released the following statement:

    “It’s shameful that this individual exploited a program that has successfully taken thousands of guns off the streets to protect our communities from gun violence. We have partnered with local police throughout the state to recover more than 3,500 guns, and one individual’s greedy behavior won’t tarnish our work to promote public safety. We have adjusted our policies to ensure that no one can exploit this program again for personal gain.”

  • by nivertech on 10/6/22, 5:35 PM

  • by mynameishere on 10/6/22, 5:45 PM

    Typically two kinds of guns will be exchanged in such a program. Guns worth less than the offer, making it a kind of cash-for-clunkers boondoggle, and stolen guns. This guy came up with a third grift. So what?

  • by Steltek on 10/6/22, 5:50 PM

    Alright, so he...

    1. Spent time, electricity, and filament printing lowers and other components. He's a beginner using a $200 printer so the failure rate was probably pretty high.

    2. He drove from NY to Utah

    3. He haggled all day before getting paid out for only 42 of his 100 "guns"

    And he thinks he's making Utah's buyback program look foolish? This guy wasted a stupendous amount of time and money.

  • by joshcryer on 10/6/22, 5:58 PM

    The Iron Pipeline is responsible for the vast majority of guns used in crimes in NY, which NY has virtually no power over. Guys going out of state and buying guns in private straw purchases to resell or trade on the market back in NY. This guy only shows how easily transporting guns across state lines is. The half solution has always been to regulate the private sell of guns (you have to do a background check in most states to buy a gun but not in a private sale) but even that is a half measure because if you did it private gun ownership "thefts" would skyrocket.

  • by zerocrates on 10/6/22, 5:58 PM

    Man, I had no idea people were so hostile to gun buybacks.

  • by BonoboIO on 10/6/22, 5:58 PM

    Well, that’s not a nice thing to do, but I m amazed by his ingenuity.

  • by f1shy on 10/6/22, 7:36 PM

    This remembers me to the story of the UK trying to eliminate cobras in India. They offered some money in exchange for a dead cobra. It turned out that the locals started to farm cobras to get the bounty. After the government understood it was not working, they stoped the program. All people farming cobras left them in the wild... at the end the amount of cobras was a multiple as the beginning...

    It is difficult to make good public policies.

  • by silexia on 10/6/22, 5:40 PM

    Government regulations are not the answer.

  • by zanethomas on 10/6/22, 6:06 PM

    roflmao

  • by cfeduke on 10/6/22, 5:44 PM

    Based on the search results and how the copy is replicated across multiple "news" domains this story is probably a fake.