3D-printed guns have been making the news a lot recently. That's not to say that they and their creators don't deserve the press — people arming themselves without so much as a permit is pretty terrifying. But whoever it was that said 3D printing was the only way for people to circumvent the law and arm themselves just might not have seen this bad boy.

This fully-automatic Gauss gun, dubbed the CG-42, has a 15-round capacity and can fire an entire clip of ammo in 1.5 seconds. What it fires is almost as frightening as the gun itself, because the CG-42 is armed with nails, side-stepping the need for even the slightest of paper trails.

A Gauss gun, also known as a coilgun, is a battery-operated, electromagnetic linear motor which pulls a projectile forward faster and faster until it exits the weapon's muzzle, no gunpowder required. The CG-42 has a muzzle velocity of 138 feet per second, which doesn't sound like a lot until you see it put a nail right through a laptop's casing. Gauss guns also get more powerful the longer you make them, so a Gauss "rifle" would be capable of much more destruction.

Thankfully there's a lot of technical know-how that goes into the construction of a Gauss gun. Much less thankfully, the creator of the CG-42 has posted not only the math behind his creation, but his construction methods online. We won't be posting that link here because we're worried that you'll hunt us down, but here's a video showing just the sort of destruction the CG-42 is capable of. The poor birthday cake never had a chance.

<---- wants badly

I'm thinking that the age of regulating man-portable weapons is coming to a close. Between things like this and 3D printed guns, how would you even TRY to control this stuff.

Consider the "war on drugs" and re-evaluate your statement.

If you have a workshop and some technical capability, you can build it yourself.

Which part, how badly the "war" has failed?

I would argue it's easier to manufacture illegal drugs than these guns, and yet the government has maintained its policies of regulation thus far.

I dunno. You wouldn't need to hide your workshop in the middle of a forest or run parts across borders in the case of this gun. Anyone with tools could make it, anywhere.

I like the fact that going through a laptop casing is considered to be some sort of demonstration of destructive power. Paintguns can go over 300 FPS; that's just the normal permitted limit in play.

It's also fairly easy to recognize a marijuana farm or a cocaine operation but you could walk into a workshop anywhere in the world and have no idea that something like this is being built.

Oh it definitely isn't high-power. But as a proof of concept/prototype? Good times.

The reason article that linked me to the OP article pointed out it's about the same FPS (if not a bit under) as an airgun.

But aren't they launching nails? Same FPS vs an airgun yes, but the total energy of the projectile is significantly larger.

A nailgun also launches nails. This one just happens to use electromagnetics to do it.

Of course, carrying around an air compressor is a bit impractical.

A properly working nailgun doesn't "launch" a nail. It "drives" them.

They take a bit of jiggerypokery to actually "launch" a nail through the air.