It remains unclear how politicians will get around the issue of people making their own guns at home. Someone with a 3-D printer or a milling machine can make a gun at home without being connected to a network that might detect what they’re doing.
“You’d basically have to pass a law saying it’s illegal to make something without a license, and you could probably get that done, but that’s really a tectonic shift in gun politics—a much heavier list than saying, ‘We’re going to add X and Y to the background check requirements,’” Wilson said. He said that since 3-D printers are general-purpose devices, it would be difficult to ban making a specific item with them. He also said that the First Amendment protects sharing files, like the files his company shares for making guns.
The city of Philadelphia made headlines in 2013 when it banned 3-D-printed guns. Trying to do such a thing on a much larger scale might prove to be difficult.
“[3D printing guns] certainly adds a layer of complexity to gun control that we haven’t seen before, and it’s likely to undermine many of our current gun laws,” Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA and second amendment expert, told The Daily Beast.
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