Washington's recent attempts at strengthening firearms regulations have failed and now Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, has turned his attention to banning plastic guns. Not the kind of plastic guns that most American children grow up and play cops and robbers with; plastic guns that are capable of firing real bullets.
Defense Distributed, a non-profit from Texas, has announced that they will release blueprints that will allow people to learn how to make a gun out of plastic using a 3-D printer. According the New York Daily News, Sen. Schumer called Defense Distributed's plan "stomach-churning."
"We're facing a situation where anyone - a felon, a terrorist - can open a gun factory in their garage and the weapons they make will be undetectable," Schumer said.
"The Liberator" blueprints that are being released to the public call for one 6-ounce piece of metal, therefore allowing Defense Distributed to share the plans without violating the law, according to the New York Daily News. Critics are quick to point out that the metal piece can easily be replaced with a plastic substitute, thus making the gun completely plastic, which is where the danger lies according to Rep. Steve Israel.
"Security checkpoints, background checks and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print their own plastic firearms at home and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser," Israel said.
All that is needed to create "The Liberator" is a 3-D printer that can be purchased for about around $1,000 and the free blueprints downloaded from Defense Distributed. After the plastic parts are molded by the 3-D printer they can easily be put together to create a lethal weapon.
A recent documentary by Vice followed the head of Defense Distributed, Cody Wilson, as he attempted to create a working version of an AR-15 out of plastic with some success.
"The Liberator" is a pistol so it probably won't cause the same amount of uproar that would occur if Defense Distributed released blueprints for a semi-automatic weapon, but "The Liberator" could also just be the first of many projects for Defense Distributed with plans for a semi-automatic to follow.
"Gun control for us is a fantasy," Wilson said in the documentary. "In the way that people would say 'You're being unrealistic about printing a gun,' I think it's more unrealistic now, especially going forward, to ever think you could control this technology."
A statement on Defense Distributed's website says that this project "might change the way we think about gun control and consumption. How do governments behave if they must one day operate on the assumption that any and every citizen has near-instant access to a firearm through the internet? Let's find out."
It appears if Sen. Schumer and Rep. Israel have already answered that question.
