Oct 16(ABC): A growing number of seizures of guns made at home from 3D-printed parts are raising alarm bells for European police over an emerging threat.
For now, interest among far-right activists may be limited, say analysts – and fears of a society awash with print-it-yourself weapons remain far-fetched.
But homemade guns have become more widespread since 2013, when a US weapons enthusiast first showed off a mostly 3D-printed pistol and shared its design online.
Only in September, Icelandic police said they had arrested four people suspected of planning a “terrorist attack”, confiscating several 3D-printed semi-automatic weapons.
The same month, Spanish authorities discovered an illegal gun-making workshop of a man in his forties in the Basque Country.
That find followed two other such cases in the country in 2021.
Police in Spain’s Canary Islands found white supremacist literature and manuals on urban guerrilla warfare alongside two 3D printers.
And in the northwestern city of A Coruna, police discovered a man close to completing a scratch-built assault rifle.
“Rapidly evolving advanced technology may cause this to emerge as a more significant threat in the near future,” said Ina Mihaylova, a spokeswoman for European police agency Europol.
While traditional weapons are easily traceable thanks to their serial numbers and proof marks, these “home-printed” models are less easy for the authorities to track.
Focus on far-right
For the moment, “there is still a big difference between the quality of the professionally manufactured weapons available on the criminal market and 3D-printed/self-made weapons,” Mihaylova said.
“3D-printed firearms entirely made out of plastics usually cannot resist the pressure from live-firing ammunition,” she added. They require barrels, chambers or firing pins made of metal.
But Christian Goblas, a ballistics expert at France’s University of Rouen, said “3D metallic printing” could become affordable in the next decade – which could make self-made weapons more durable and reliable.
With its 3D parts and metal firing pin, the 2013 “Liberator” pistol showed off in 2013 by self-described “crypto-anarchist” Cody Wilson aped a crude single-shot weapon of the same name air-dropped to French resistance fighters during World War II.