A gun you can print at home
Imagine if acquiring a gun were “as easy as downloading it”. Just feed the blueprints into a 3D printer, hit “print” and “boom” – a fully functioning plastic gun “created on the spot”, said German Lopez on Vox. No serial number, no background check and no metal parts to set off airport security scanners. It’s a terrifying prospect – but there’s no need to imagine it. As far as actually making plastic guns, we’re already there. The only thing inhibiting their spread has been an Obama-era ruling curbing the dissemination of the blueprints. When gun rights activist Cody Wilson published online schematics for the Liberator plastic handgun in 2013, the State Department argued that he was violating the firearms export law and forced him to remove them. But all that changed last month, when Donald Trump’s Justice Department “abruptly” reversed the decision. As Wilson geared up to release blueprints for everything from handguns to assault rifles last week, a federal judge issued a temporary blocking order. But that will likely only “delay the inevitable”.
As ever, the “fearmongering” from the “gun control crowd”, said David Harsanyi in The Federalist, is unanchored to reality. The 3D printers able to produce these plastic guns cost about $10,000. Why would criminals pay that when they can go to a shop and pick up something far more reliable for $250, and even less on the black market? Also nonsensical are fears that plastic guns can be snuck onto planes. Most require one or two metal parts to prevent jams – and in any case, weapons undetectable by airport scanners are “already illegal”. Besides, the “home manufacture” of guns has been legal since “before the founding of the nation”, said David French in National Review. Printing one is no different to assembling it “with parts in your garage”.
It’s true that plastic guns remain for now “a niche product”, said Paul Waldman in The Washington Post, and even the best models “tend to fall apart” after a shot or two. Perhaps that’s why the NRA, usually so active, has shown little interest in the debate. But that won’t “be true for ever”. As the technology improves, 3D printing will become cheaper and better. The frightening thing is, in a couple of decades it really will be the case that pretty much anyone can “produce fully functional and durable plastic guns” at home. “What do we do then?”