When Will They Get the Message With 3D-Printed Guns

I’m not exactly a tech bro by any stretch of the imagination. I love seeing new technology and all the ways it can make our lives better, but I generally don’t get overly excited by new technology. I’ve seen too many things hyped up as the next big then only to fizzle on the vine. Please tell me I’m not the only one who remembers Google Glass, just to name one example.

But 3D printing is one technology that I’m genuinely excited about. The idea of just printing whatever it is that you need or want is amazing to me.

And that was before we could start printing guns.

Now that we can, the landscape has changed entirely. The idea of preventing people from getting guns is even more ridiculous. Now, with something you can get for a few hundred dollars on Amazon, anyone can make a firearm for themselves regardless of the laws on the books.

And yes, people are doing that, and not just here.

Police investigating the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, have announced that the suspected assailant had used a 3D-printed gun. Several high-profile crimes in recent years have involved this kind of homemade, or partially homemade, weapon.

Often called “ghost guns” because they can be hard to trace, these firearms can be either partially or completely made with components that have been produced in metal or plastic on commercially available 3D printers. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering the legality of current federal restrictions on these firearms.

The first known criminal case involving a 3D-printed gun resulted in the arrest of a U.K. man in 2013. But since then, police worldwide have reported finding increasing numbers of these weapons.

My research focuses on the economic and social effects of advanced digital technologies, including 3D printing. I see that the use of 3D-printed guns in criminal and violent activities is likely to continue to increase. And it will likely prove ever harder for governments and police to regulate these firearms.

Surge in arrests and seizures

Arrests and seizures connected to 3D-printed guns are escalating quickly. Between 2017 and 2021, U.S. law enforcement agencies seized and reported nearly 38,000 suspected ghost guns, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In 2021 alone, 19,273 suspected ghost guns were traced, a significant increase from 8,504 in 2020. The number of seized 3D-printed guns in New York state alone surged dramatically, from 100 in 2019 to 637 in 2022.

Now, the numbers are what they are. 

However, it should be remembered that these only account for a small percentage of the total number of firearms recovered by police as it stands.

Further, what always gets missed in these discussions is any evidence that those in possession of these 3D-printed firearms couldn’t get a firearm through any other means. In fact, often, these guns are recovered with more traditionally manufactured weapons, which still account for most of the guns in criminal hands.

Yet let’s also come to recognize something very important about these guns.

Even though they’re still not the predominant way criminals get guns, they do mark something important. That something is the end of gun control as being remotely viable as a means to keep people disarmed.

Gun control never worked, but if it didn’t work when people were beholden to the traditional market, how is it ever going to work if they can just make up their own guns?

“We need to ban people making their own guns!” someone will quip.

However, let’s be real. A number of states have done just that and it hasn’t stopped anything. As it is, people can buy gun parts easily enough, but now there are designs that don’t use any traditional parts, just stuff you can get from Home Depot.

Gun control is never going to keep anyone disarmed, so the message here is to stop trying.