If you’re a do-it-yourselfer who dreams of building your own firearm, you may soon have that option. Guns that can be printed from a 3D-printer are coming to America. The AR-15, the gun that’s been used in the majority of mass shootings, will be one of the many guns available. The bad news — the guns will be untraceable and there’ll be no background checks required because they’re made at home. The process of 3D printing uses computer-created digital models to create real objects. The printers follow the shape of the model by stacking layer upon layer of material to make the objects. The high-end 3D printers that are needed to make weapons cost thousands of dollars and chances are too expensive for most people. However, the technology is available and could be a huge potential threat to safety.
The group behind the homemade guns, Defense Distributed, battled with the State Department in order to have the ability to release the blueprints. The group is hailed as “the death of gun control,” and they’ll begin releasing the instructions on August 1.
Cody Wilson, the founder of the pro-gun group, commented on the decision by tweeting a picture of a grave that was marked as “American gun control.”
Wilson has been fighting to release gun blueprints since 2012 when he uploaded the blueprint of a pistol to this website. The instructions were download 100,000 times before his website was blocked by federal authorities. Wilson filed the lawsuit, and it was settled in June.
Gun control advocates are worried about the release of these plans as it puts untraceable weapons only clicks away from those who shouldn’t have access to firearms. This isn’t the first time homemade guns has become popular though. Defense Distributed has sold parts to create “ghost guns” for years.
A source who worked with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, David Chapman, says these guns are favored by criminals.
“Criminals have started using ghost guns as a way to circumvent assault weapon regulations. I imagine that people will also start printing guns to get around laws.”
Of course, the 3D-printers used to make the guns cost quite a bit — from $5,000 to $600,000. The guns can also be dangerous to the shooter as well, as they can explode if quality plastic isn’t used.
A police chief from Idaho, William Bones, says that law enforcement officers have been working on plans for 3d-printed guns for a while, and he hopes legislation will soon appear to regulate these homemade guns.
