You can construct (a very crude) gun barrel for .22LR out of 3/4" plastic bar using nothing more than a 1/4" drill bit. You need a mechanism to fire the round, but since you just need to crush the primer, it doesn't have to be anything fancy. Of course you have no rifling and a poor seal so the bullet tumbles and isn't effective more than 10-20 ft away, but it's deadly up close.
Since plastics became commonly available over 50 years ago, I don't understand why everyone is suddenly concerned about plastic guns from 3D printing. What is a criminal more likely to do, buy a 3D printing machine for several hundred dollars, learn how to use the software correctly and print a gun OR just buy some plastic and make one himself for $10 and a few hours of his time?
Think about this: a curious kid could accidentally shoot himself now in many fewer steps than before. Download, load it into dad's printer, assemble. Though, I'm assuming these plastic guns still need real bullets.
It's a zeitgeist thing, IMO. 3D printing is hot in the media, so interesting stories about it (good and bad) tend to get more attention than they would if the same thing had been done by conventional means.
Also, the article does not mention whether or not ammunition was smuggled as well; I'd imagine that'd be harder to hide from a metal detector than plastic -- and the gun isn't much good without bullets.
Were I an evil terrorist, I'd be looking much more at other, completely legal things. Items such as two-part epoxies could be used to make a crude but effective knife, lithium batteries are trivially short-circuitable to cause a fire, etc. But, such things are much less glamorous and scary than a plastic derringer that's about as dangerous to the wielder as anyone else.
Even today, I see pilots open the cockpit during flight to use the toilet. Usually, the FA blocks the passageway with a cart. It seems plausible to me that there's a short period of time that a well-trained ninja-like attacker could leave their first class seat, and obtain cockpit access.
But I guess it'd be too expensive to provide full pilot separation.
Could be at any domestic airport since once you get your badguy stuff inside the wall, you can carry it anywhere inside the system before using it.
There are a lot of potential attack vectors but I do not feel safe to talk about them in detail.
Any single shot pistol is going to be a useless weapon. Less dangerous than a knife in my opinion. Knives don't need to be reloaded and have unlimited ammunition.
I suspect you'd end up having all the same problems that Antivirus software has (basically an arms race, I guess quite literally).
AFAIK all current designs can only fire one bullet before breaking, making them pretty useless for most situations where someone would want one. The only legitimate threat they currently pose is targeted assassinations, and those are a non-issue if you don't have enemies. If you do, invest in bodyguards and private security instead of externalizing your security costs to tax payers.
I think the most absurd thing is worrying about planes these days. Passengers pre-9-11 are completely different than passengers post-9-11. Passengers now know to revolt against any hijackers, especially if they meet the criteria of a hijacker that would use the plane as a flying bomb. In fact, that is exactly what happened with the flight that went down in Pennsylvania. As soon as one passenger discovered what happened at the Twin Towers via their cell phone, they tried to take over the plane and averted disaster.
Plus, all that was done in the time before wifi on board. Nowadays, many people on a plane are using wifi to browse the internet, send email and chat. All those people have access to communications outside the plane, whereas in 9-11 pretty much no one did (at least not legally)
Really shoulda locked those doors....
A plastic firearm is the same thing as holding a cartridge in a pair of pliers and hitting it with a rock.
Rifling in a plastic firearm that fires metal projectiles shows how stupid this exercise is. For rifling to spin a projectile, it must be harder than said projectile, and cut into it forcing it to spin. eg bullets are made of lead or copper and are fired through tempered steel.
The first liberator zip guns that the OSS dropped in France in the 40s were a psy op. They were never used to injure "the enemy".
Most armed government employees -- the presumed intended targets for these dangerous toys -- wear a spectra vest with a metal strike plate the makes plastic and wood projectiles harmless. I guess if one were to use a taser to disable an opponent, then they could hold one of these roman candles to the temple of their victim, and if the plastic gun didn't explode in the shooter's face it would seriously harm the victim.
A simple metal pipe, while not rifled, is vastly superior to plastic guns with one inch barrels because the propellant actually has a chance to burn and generate force. These plastic guns do not contain the force of the propellant and transfer it to the projectile.
These plastic gun affectionatos are an embarrassment to the intelligent readers of HN.
