The World's First Entirely 3D-Printed Gun
5/03/2013 @ 7:00AM
Eight months ago, Cody Wilson set out to create the
world’s first entirely 3D-printable handgun.
Now he has.
Early next week, Wilson, a 25-year-old University of
Texas law student and founder of the non-profit group Defense Distributed,
plans to release the 3D-printable CAD files for a gun he calls “the Liberator,”
pictured in its initial form above. He’s agreed to let me document the process
of the gun’s creation, so long as I don’t publish details of its mechanics or
its testing until it’s been proven to work reliably and the file has been
uploaded to Defense Distributed’s online collection of printable gun blueprints
at Defcad.org.
All sixteen pieces of the Liberator prototype were
printed in ABS plastic with a Dimension SST printer from 3D printing company
Stratasys, with the exception of a single nail that’s used as a firing pin. The
gun is designed to fire standard handgun rounds, using interchangeable barrels
for different calibers of ammunition.
Technically, Defense Distributed’s gun has one other
non-printed component: the group added a six ounce chunk of steel into the body
to make it detectable by metal detectors in order to comply with the
Undetectable Firearms Act. In March, the group also obtained a federal firearms
license, making it a legal gun manufacturer.
Of course, Defcad’s users may not adhere to so many
rules. Once the file is online, anyone will be able to download and print the
gun in the privacy of their garage, legally or not, with no serial number,
background check, or other regulatory hurdles. “You can print a lethal device,”
Wilson told me last summer. “It’s kind of scary, but that’s what we’re aiming
to show.”
Since it was founded last August, Wilson’s group has
sought to make as many components of a gun as possible into printable
blueprints and to host those controversial files online, thwarting gun laws and
blurring the lines between the regulation of firearms and information
censorship. So far those pieces have included high capacity ammunition
magazines for AR-15s and AK-47s, as well as an AR lower receiver, the body of
that semi-automatic rifle to which off-the-shelf components like a stock and
barrel can be attached.
Those early experiments have made Cody Wilson into one of
the most controversial figures in the 3D printing community. In October of last
year, Stratasys seized a printer it had rented to Defense Distributed after the
company learned how its machine was being used. New York congressman Steve
Israel has responded to Defense Distributed’s work by introducing a bill that
would renew the Undetectable Firearms Act with new provisions aimed
specifically at 3D printed components. In January, personal 3D printing firm
Makerbot removed all gun components from Thingiverse, its popular site for
hosting users’ printable designs.
All of that opposition has only made Wilson more eager to
prove the possibility of a 3D printed firearm. “Everyone talks about the 3D
printing revolution. Well, what did you think would happen when everyone has
the means of production?” Wilson asked when we spoke earlier in the week. “I’m
interested to see what the potential for this tool really is. Can it print a
gun?”
It seems that it can.
Update: Defense Distributed’s political opponents aren’t
waiting around for its printable gun to be finished and uploaded before calling
for it to be banned. Congressman Steve Israel issued a press release Friday
responding to this story: “Security checkpoints, background checks, and gun
regulations will do little good if criminals can print plastic firearms at home
and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser,” his
statement reads. “When I started talking about the issue of plastic firearms
months ago, I was told the idea of a plastic gun is science-fiction. Now that
this technology is proven, we need to act now to extend the ban [on] plastic
firearms.”
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