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- With gun control battles raging among federal and state legislators, it was inevitable that the issue of 3D-printed handguns would come up, especially with such a gun now available.
- California Senator Leland Yee announced Tuesday his plan to propose a law that would ban the technology used to create 3D-printed guns.
- "While I am as impressed as anyone with 3-D printing technology and I believe it has amazing possibilities, we must ensure that it is not used for the wrong purpose with potentially deadly consequences," Yee said in a statement. "I plan to introduce legislation that will ensure public safety and stop the manufacturing of guns that are invisible to metal detectors and that can be easily made without a background check."
- Defense Distributed, a Texas-based group working toward nonprofit status, announced last week that it had created the world's first 3D-printed handgun. The gun is capable of firing standard handgun rounds and is made entirely of plastic, except for a nail used as a firing pin and a six-ounce piece of steel designed solely to allow the gun to be detected by metal detectors.
- Cody Wilson, head of Defense Distributed, announced plans to produce a 3D-printed gun last year. It took just eight months for Wilson and others in Defense Distributed to produce a gun they call the "Liberator."
- The Liberator can be instantly downloaded and anonymously printed by anyone who has access to 3D-printing technology, which is most likely the concern for lawmakers. According to Forbes, the 3D-printed gun's blueprints have already been downloaded more than 100,000 times in just the past two days. The U.S. is currently outpacing all other countries in downloads.
- Proposed legislation to limit these weapons in the U.S. already exists. New York Congressmen Steve Israel and Chuck Schumer have sponsored legislation that aims to add a 3D-printing provision to the U.S. Undetectable Firearms Act, which requires that all guns be capable of being detected by law enforcement tools.
- While most likely opposed to such legislation, Wilson told CNET that he believes Yee's legislation will probably be even further reaching than what Israel and Schumer proposed.
- "There is already a federal ban on undetectable firearms, so Yee's bill is very likely a deeper regulation of the technology's use, as he indicates in his statement," Wilson told CNET.
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