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| July 12, 2023
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. All About 3D Guns
3D printed guns are appearing more and more in the news and both makers and lawmakers around the world have taken notice. There have been efforts to stifle the use and creation of 3D printed firearms and efforts to make them cheaper, more accessible, and easier to manufacture. Regardless of where you stand, the rise in the status and power of these weapons poses a number of difficult questions. Should someone with the files for a 3D printed gun be charged with the same crime as someone who actually has the gun? What is the best way to regulate 3D printed weapons? Are 3D printed guns even legal? What is their history? Read on to find the answers to these questions and more. ———————– A coalition of 20 states and the District of Columbia is suing the federal government in the US over the Trump Administration’s plan to let people share 3D printed gun blueprints online, the Associated Press reports. The coalition, led by Washington state, filed its lawsuit on January 23 in Seattle. It’s not the first time states have banded together to sue the federal government over this issue. In 2018, a federal judge in Seattle delivered a temporary restraining order to stop Defense Distributed, a pro-gun organization, from releasing the 3D printable gun files. This current attempt to block 3D printed gun files from going online is an effort to stop the federal government’s latest route to allowing the files for ghost guns to be freely shared. Critics are concerned sharing the files online will give criminals access to untraceable guns, while advocates of sharing the files say they are exercising their first and second amendment rights. 01/05/2021 – Possessing Gun Blueprints Is Now a Crime in Singapore On January 5, 2021, Singapore Parliament tightened gun control with a revised Guns, Explosives, and Weapons Control Bill. The bill makes the ownership of digital blueprints of a gun or gun parts without a license illegal. This includes explicitly 3D printed guns. Excluded are blueprints for 3D printing imitation guns or props. The bill also raises the fines for gun and explosive offenses to US $38,000 for individuals and $75,800 for entities. Singapore has one of the strictest gun control laws in the world, even punishable by death. |
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Do They Work? Sort of. If built properly, they can work; but on some occasions, guns blew up in the shooter’s hand. There are recent examples of where someone tried to use a 3D printed gun and it didn’t work as expected (remember the shooting in Halle, Germany?). Generally speaking, most 3D printable gun files still require non-3D printed parts in order to complete the build, otherwise, they’re not all that reliable – making them a less than ideal option for would-be criminals looking to have an unregistered firearm. But, this is changing and a lot of improvements have been made since the Liberator was released. In the Deterrence Dispensed community, they have continued 3D printing gun parts including AR-15 lowers, Glock frames, AK receivers (which can handle 2,000 rounds and are only partially 3D printed, and some pistols like the Songbird (which is primarily 3D printed). Part of their goal is to allow people to 3D print guns as cheaply as possible, using the cheapest 3D printers and filaments. While the former gun parts (Glock frames, AK receivers, etc.) still require a host of metal parts to be completed, the latter does not. However, many groups committed to building their own guns are moving away from 3D printing them and shifting to using CNC milling instead. Defense Distributed left the Liberator behind and is now focused on its Ghost Gunner (they’re on their third iteration of the machine, the Ghost Gunner 3, which costs $2,100), a desktop CNC milling machine that can produce parts for an AR-15, AR-308, 1911, and Polymer80. Rather than trying to print an entire gun out of plastic, these groups are milling unfinished lower receivers for AR-15s, known as the 80% lowers or 80% receivers, and using that along with other parts to produce completed rifles. The 80% is the magic number in this case because since the lower receiver is only partially completed, it is not legally considered a firearm in the US. With these CNC milled guns, after buying the CNC mill itself, you can spend about $200 to $400 more for the additional gun parts. Thanks for reading, P.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click GopherArchives |
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