With a shot heard round the Internet, the first known 3-D printed gun is a reality. But the bigger ruckus comes from the gun's digital blueprints, now available for free download by any shooters who want to build their own.
Cody Wilso
n, the polemic face of the not-for-profit 3-D gunsmith Defense Distributed, fired the organization's latest prototype at the opening of a 28-second video posted on YouTube Friday. "The Liberator," as the weapon is provocatively titled, is a 16-piece firearm made almost entirely of ABS plastic, with a metal firing pin and an embedded metal shank meant to provide enough metal mass to comply with the 1988 U.S. Undetectable Firearms ActBlue and white, and bearing more than a passing resemblance to a Star Trek phaser, the .380-caliber pistol fires with a single "pop" in Wilson's hands. Apparently, the design works, though this version was rendered unusable after firing six rounds.Eight months into its mission to create and distribute the computer-assisted design (CAD) for a 100-percent 3-D printed gun, Defense Distributed is about as close to this goal as it can legally get. That is, provided laws don't change to make what the group is doing illegal.Even now, Defense Distributed's latest success — though it may be a rather costly and cumbersome way to obtain a firearm, especially one that tends to self destruct — has gun-control advocates on the move. This was predicted byWilson, who has long said that his group’s ultimate goal is not to build arms, but to test constitutional rights."I think this isn't a project about firearms, it’s a project about political equality," Wilson recently told NBC’s Nightly News.Wilson, a law student at the University of Texas in Austin, is federally licensed to manufacture and sell guns and gun parts, as long as they're not fully automatic. Not only is it legal for Wilson to make "The Liberator," but distributing its plans for others to make it is also legal, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
n, the polemic face of the not-for-profit 3-D gunsmith Defense Distributed, fired the organization's latest prototype at the opening of a 28-second video posted on YouTube Friday. "The Liberator," as the weapon is provocatively titled, is a 16-piece firearm made almost entirely of ABS plastic, with a metal firing pin and an embedded metal shank meant to provide enough metal mass to comply with the 1988 U.S. Undetectable Firearms ActBlue and white, and bearing more than a passing resemblance to a Star Trek phaser, the .380-caliber pistol fires with a single "pop" in Wilson's hands. Apparently, the design works, though this version was rendered unusable after firing six rounds.Eight months into its mission to create and distribute the computer-assisted design (CAD) for a 100-percent 3-D printed gun, Defense Distributed is about as close to this goal as it can legally get. That is, provided laws don't change to make what the group is doing illegal.Even now, Defense Distributed's latest success — though it may be a rather costly and cumbersome way to obtain a firearm, especially one that tends to self destruct — has gun-control advocates on the move. This was predicted byWilson, who has long said that his group’s ultimate goal is not to build arms, but to test constitutional rights."I think this isn't a project about firearms, it’s a project about political equality," Wilson recently told NBC’s Nightly News.Wilson, a law student at the University of Texas in Austin, is federally licensed to manufacture and sell guns and gun parts, as long as they're not fully automatic. Not only is it legal for Wilson to make "The Liberator," but distributing its plans for others to make it is also legal, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
"An individual who wishes to manufacturer a firearm for his or her personal use does not need a license, as long as it isn’t for an automatic firearm," an ATF spokesperson told NBC News.
But the fact that the gun can be homemade and is largely plastic — and therefore harder to spot via metal detectors — has made it the center of a new debate in Washington.
WNBC
Sen. Chuck Schumer, speaking in support of the Undetectable Firearms Modernization Act, shown with an image of a 3-D printed gun from Defense Distributed.
On Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., endorsed a bill, entitled the Undetectable Firearms Modernization Act, that would bring the 1988 law up to date by banning 3-D-printed guns that "have no metal and could therefore slip through a metal detector." Under the law, it would be a crime to build suchaweapon."We're facing a situation where anyone — a felon, a terrorist — can open a gun factory in their garage, and the weapons they make will be undetectable," Schumer said at a conference. "It's stomach churning." Schumer said his bill would not restrict the use of 3-D printers for other purposes.Schumer was speaking in support of legislation, proposed in the House of Representatives Friday by Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., that bans "homemade, 3-D printed, plastic high-capacity magazines."
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