3D-printer guns — no longer just speculation

Ugh, ugh and ugh on this news — a 3D-printer handgun has reportedly been successfully fired.

Even more ugh is the reasoning of the person creating this gun:

(Cody) Wilson had said the effort’s intent was to “ensure the democratization of firearms themselves,” allowing universal access that will make the weapons less sensational.

No, it won't. In the violence-addicted US, whether urban ghettos or the violence romancing rural South, it will have just the opposite effect among anybody not already romancing the cult of the handgun.

And, Michael Reyes, top Austin agent for the old ATF, which now has "explosives" added to its name, has said that as far as he can tell, there's nothing illegal. And, were ATF to want to try to track printing of 3D guns (which could surely be bartered rather than sold for cash, a legal dodge right there), wingnuts would raise again the spectre of the evil gummint intruding into private lives. And, given Team Obama's continuing drive to vacuum up ever more online discourse, they'd have evidence on their side, sadly.

So, 3D guns will stay legal, no matter the stupidity level.

If you build it technically right.

That said, the real question is, how easy will it be to build an illegal gun, one that has no steel in it to make detectable by a metal detector. Contra this Atlantic piece, issues of building a legal 3D printer gun aren't the big deal. Building an illegal one, especially if one could use a printer to make a non-metal bullet, or use an infamous ice bullet, is the biggie.