3D-printed firearm
firearm created using 3D printing
A 3D-printed firearm is a firearm that is partially or primarily produced with a 3D printer. While plastic printed firearms are associated with improvised firearms, or the politics of gun control, digitally-produced metal firearms are more associated with commercial manufacturing or experiments in traditional firearms design.
Although it is possible to create fully printed plastic firearms and silencers, these tend to have short operating lives. 3D-printed gun culture is built around the printing of open-source firearm frames and receivers, the use of standard, metal commercial components (such as an action and barrel), and other parts that can be made or purchased in a parts kit.
While 3D-printed parts are made in the development and production of conventional firearms, they are more commonly associated with homemade firearms and the 3D2A movement in American gun politics. 3D-printed parts complicate the debates regarding high-capacity magazine and assault weapon bans, as well as federal regulations, such as the ATF's pistol brace rule.
History
In May 2013, the American company Defense Distributed published plans for the first complete firearm that could be downloaded and reproduced by anyone with a desktop 3D printer. Defense Distributed also designed the first generation of 3D-printed AR-15–type rifle receivers and magazines. With these early online publications, the United States Department of State demanded removal of the files from the company's website DEFCAD, deeming the activity a violation of the Arms Export Control Act. In 2015, Defense Distributed sued the State Department on free speech grounds, and in 2018, the Department of Justice settled, acknowledging the American right to publish instructions for the production of 3D-printed firearms online.
The public source identifies “3D-printed firearm” as firearm created using 3D printing. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around 3D-printed, firearm and created.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16001073. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2013, 2015 and 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “3D-printed firearm” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.