‘World’s first 3-D printable handgun’ under fire

[Kelvin Mace]

40. Describe "forseeable future"

I am seeing them under a $2,000 within five years.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a Compugraphics salesman in 1989. Compugraphic sold photo-digital typesetters, state of the art stuff that ran $50,000 and up and required an elaborate developing process and expensive ($1 a page) photo paper. I asked him what was the company's strategy now that LASERs were coming on strong and cheap (a nickel a page). His response is that his product line was safe because:

1) LASERs didn't have anywhere near the resolution of typesetters (true at the time, 300 dpi versus 2400 dpi).

2) LASERs were too slow.

3) People were not going to dump equipment they had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions, for "tinker toys" run by "unreliable" PCs.

I pointed out to him that:

1) 600 dpi printers were due out the next year and that most people not in the trade couldn't tell the difference between 600 and 2400dpi without a magnifying glass, especially when printed on newsprint.

2) This was only true when you left the developing process out of the equation, and again, faster printers were coming next year.

3) People would dump expensive equipment despite the investment when they were spending a similar amount on consumables, a price that would drop 95% with LaserJet printers. Also, given the choice between $250,000 workstations which could only set type and $10,000 PCs that could set type and much more, getting rid of the equipment would be a no-brainer.

In fact, we dumped all our equipment within 18 months, and he lost his job shortly after that as the typesetting division scaled back.

All the points you make are completely true, but as I keep explaining we deal in fact, they deal in "perception". The allure of a "unregistered", "untraceable" gun will be too much for these folks, and ultimately, 3-D guns is not something the gun makers can let stand.