The gun is called "the Liberator" and it is 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 reason the firing pin is made of steel is so it will be detectable by metal detectors, ensuring it complies with the Undetectable Firearms.
Forbes has an actual hands-on and has said that the founder, Cody Wilson, will release the open source plans on his site. It fires handgun rounds and can be modified to shoot different calibers.
They have also added a piece of steel so that the gun will be detectable by metal detectors, ensuring it complies with the Undetectable Firearms Act.
Despite that being very clear in both the Forbes article about the new 3D-print gun and the Tech-Crunch article, Democratic congressman Steve Israel, issues a knee-jerk reaction statement, declaring the need for a gun ban on 3D-printed guns, following up on his previous ban pitches..
More on the Liberator from Forbes:
Early next week, Wilson, a 25-year 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.
Cody Wilson had a point to make:
"Our project represents total liberation of access to firearms," said Mr. Wilson, a student at the University of Texas at Austin law school. "It's just not functionally possible to control this anymore."More to his point:
"We know so much that this government doesn't want right now the AR-15 in people's hands," Wilson said. "It hates the idea, at least in theory, of gun violence. It's doing everything it can to at least simulate the idea that it has it under control. We like to demonstrate that no, not only does it not have it under control, it's losing control every day."
Wilson's point is an effort to partly expose what he considers the futility of gun regulation
Point made.
Gun control advocates should focus on keeping guns out of the hands of homicidal, mentally ill people and not to attempt to infringe on legal, law abiding gun owners.
On Obama's State of the Union address, he said "A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3-D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything."
As one of the biggest, most vocal gun grabbers existing today, I wonder what Obama's comment will be about the Liberator.