I 3D-Printed a Glock to See How Far Homemade Guns Have Come

i mean art's in the eye of the beholder right this is just a way of expressing ourselves it's just it's freedom of expression in a much more loud way that's simulated otto that was called the real thing it goes so fast yeah it's extremely fast you know it is on par or stronger than the uh the actual factory one so the 3d printed is better than what you can buy for for this for this one i would say yeah it's a brave new world [Music] this is the liberator the first 3d printed gun created by cody wilson in 2013 3d printing technology has come a long way since then and so have the guns [Music] sometimes made entirely from plastic and just a few metal parts today's 3d printed guns can look and feel like factory-made weapons they're technically ghost guns untraceable firearms with no serial numbers only 10 states and washington dc have laws on ghost guns and they're virtually unregulated federally it is just like buying anything else online the choices here though could be deadly the most common ghost guns come partially finished with all the necessary parts in a box dave these ghost guns are all too familiar for police in philadelphia well a sudden rise in the number of untraceable guns has law enforcement scrambling to react yeah they're called ghost guns with gun violence on the rise in some u.s cities the biden administration is cracking down and the president is taking aim at ghost gun kits in particular want to reign in the proliferation of so-called ghost guns anyone from a criminal to a terrorist can buy this kit as little as 30 minutes put together a weapon but building a 3d printed gun from scratch isn't quite so easy and there's another side to ghost guns a nerdy group of inventors and designers who just love to build and tinker with 3d printed guns and that brings us here to this shooting range in florida which is hosting the first ever shooting competition exclusively for ghost guns [Music] i think my hammer broke to see what today's 3d printed guns are capable of i decided to enter the contest but first i needed a ghost gun [Music] the very first thing i printed was uh for my daughter she's five she's like what kind of stuff does it make i'm like well i can make all kinds of stuff make toys she's like can i make a cat it can make a cat so the first very very first thing i printed was a cat for her and then uh second thing i printed was a gun for me rob pincus lives and breathes guns he's an ex-cop who now teaches classes on self-defense and firearm safety he helped organize the shooting contest and he agreed to help us build our ghost gun so we have looked at our options and decided to print a glock 19. so this will be our ghost glock i guess the question for people is what is a ghost gun like what defines a ghost gun you know it really depends on your ass that's the problem ghost gun started out sort of as an internal conversation in the gun community like well that gun there's no record of it existing right so when you make your own gun in this case 3d printing you're making a gun that no one else knows exists if you don't want them to right so for our purposes here today because we're 3d printing this gun frame and it doesn't have a serial number on it if the atf wanted to try to figure out where this gun came from if i didn't tell them they would have no way to know absolutely right and that is totally legal right this is my first 3d printing experience and it will be the first time i have shot a handgun in quite a long time you aren't like a ringer you're not going to win the competition well i'm coming in i'm aiming to win but i don't expect it well if you do there's gonna be questions asked how long start to finish do you think it's gonna take to print this glock frame i'm thinking this should be 16 hours longer than it would take to go to the store and buy it you have to want to do it this way i don't know who the person is that falls into the weird zone where they're not just going to they don't want to buy a gun they can't buy a gun but they really want a gun and this is the path of least resistance as opposed to finding somebody to buy a gun for them or buying a gun illegally you know out of somebody's trunk somewhere all right we've got our gun frame on this little card here now we're gonna put in the printer and make it happen [Music] 16 hours later we'll come back so you can see we've got we're five minutes in and zero percent of the layers it's wild that this becomes a firearm still wrapping my head around that a little bit [Music] a group called are we cool yet has been pushing the envelope recently with 3d printed guns they released the plans on the internet for anyone to download hyping up their new designs on youtube and instagram are we cool yet claims their work isn't just protected by the right to bear arms but also the first amendment and the right to freedom of expression because their guns are works of art the shooting match in florida was the first time many of the members met face to face and the first time anyone from the group spoke to the media so you see on your hat from the guns yes awcy yes what does it stand for and what is it are we cool yet the group name was actually used for like an scp channel it was used to kind of hide the group for a while until we decided that you know we didn't really want to be hidden anymore why did you want to be hidden in the first place just because of the the political situation out there right now there's a lot of members from states where this stuff is in the gray not not necessarily illegal but it's frowned upon and they feel like there would be reprisals against them at work or at school or you know wherever they tend to reside how did you get into the 3d printed gun community oh man so i've always loved firearms i love building them honestly i i i'll say i like building them more than i like shooting them um just because i like putting things together and uh 3d printing was just the next step to that so what what are we looking at here so this is based off of the scorpion which is a cz evo design this one is obviously extremely modified really just for the event i thought why not go go big or go home you talk about this you use the word art to describe this people see this and see a weapon you see art what's the distinction i mean art's in the eye of the beholder right so this is just a way of expressing ourselves it's just it's freedom of expression in a much more loud way most art can't be used to kill people if you wanted to yes you know it could be used for harm but i feel like most people that are going to do that are going to go out and steal one or the amount of effort that you you put into these you're not going to do that just to go and do someone harm [Applause] while i sat with xander the ghost gun was busy printing after 18 hours it was almost finished or so i thought turns out printing the gun is only half the process all right rob it's day two it's been about 18 hours of printing later and we have what looks more or less like the frame of a gun there's a frame of a firearm inside of there with the supports and of course on that raft we did for adhesion but yeah i mean it looks like a clean print it even has you know your text on the side in order to turn a 3d pinched piece of plastic into a gun we need metal parts you need the metal parts technically could you build one out of all plastic yes is it going to be reliable and awesome probably not okay right these are about 320 bucks worth of parts that we ordered off of the internet and delivered here to assemble this into a gun i'm going to be honest i have no idea what i'm doing here perfect that's a good a lot of people think they know what they're doing and then it is going to get down a bunny trail i think what scares people is that literally anyone with a printer and plastic could make this but why is that a problem because people who are legally barred from getting a firearm like a convicted felon for example so could make this themselves but don't do you think do you not believe in in one paying their debt reforming going through the process the solution first of all is accepting the reality that freedom isn't safe right so so once you accept freedom isn't safe now how do we mitigate the risks that come with freedom i think that it's there's just the fundamental difference in in politically in america right now people who say guns should be have as little regulation as possible because of the second amendment and people say it's so easy to get a gun anyone can do it and that's causing high rates of gun violence and that the troubling thing for a lot of people about what we're seeing here is this this is sort of like the last frontier of no matter what the government will try to do to regulate gun sales now someone could just buy a printer in a roll of plastic and make make this let's let's table that debate for a second let's just okay you think guns should be harder to get does that mean you want to start regulating rolls of plastic and 3d printers that's the slippery slope that we've gotten to of like how do you even if the government wanted to to stop this could they and i think the answer is pretty clearly no okay where do i start start with that little guy this one yeah okay it's looking more and more like a gun should probably give it a good good whack so this is the barrel and the slide yep so pop that open like with strength yes now check the fit like see if the slide slides [Music] does it look even left or right uh honestly i'm not sure what i'm looking for i see i think i put this on backwards don't let it flatten your eye all right now the moment of truth does it go on to the frame moment of truth boom you sir we just made a ghost gun we're roughly four and a half hours from picking up the plastic off the printer and assembling all the bits and pieces i'm i am genuinely curious i mean just from a standpoint of the the hype if you will right the politician the rhetoric around ghost guns is this the easy path to guns it is not easy this is quite a process that without your expertise and tools i would have been lost it would all be kind of anti-climatic if we didn't actually go try to shoot it right so we're going to try to shoot it i think we should okay let's go shoot our ghost guns all right but you have shot before yes it's been a while a long while all right fair enough it's going to load up a few rounds we have to make sure the guns cycle so that's what we're concerned about right first one should be a given when i've explained this to people like my mom is like this gun's not just gonna blow apart in your hands that's very low probability honestly the most likely thing that's gonna happen is the gun's just not gonna function smoothly okay i'm with you so far any big questions uh is this gonna be okay i i wouldn't be here if i didn't think it was gonna be okay all right let's do it then pull and release okay so right there that's a functioning issue right okay we're gonna cheat this a little bit smack the back of the gun nope so let me see it this is what it looks like we're pretty jammed up there no all right so that's still not quite perfectly going in the battery all right here's the moment of truth keep pulling keep pulling keep pulling keep and you hit the target all right so there you go first shot successful are we fist bumping or high fiving i'm not sure like i almost feel like we should hug but i don't know if they're far enough away from corona all right this is jamming every time yep so we're gonna go back we're gonna work on it a little bit more back to the filing you love the filing man [Music] maybe try like like making like a tiger noise yeah like that still not quite going into battery is this a common common thing is you've built guns that that they all have this little hiccup yeah that's very common and the other common thing is that as a new shooter you're not strong behind the gun there you go it worked and it locked open and you hit the target all right now you have two shots in a row now you have an operational semi-automatic gun got real you don't look convinced but this is part of the process right your ghost gun is kinda ready kinda ready yup we just need to get you we'll get you some more practice tomorrow before the match [Music] back at the shooting range today is contest day i just signed up we're going to enter the pistol i 3d printed in this first ever shooting contest just for homemade 3d printed guns we're going to see how it goes rob pinkis helped me print it two days ago i did print it slices dices circumcises juliennes we'll see what happens welcome to the first gun makers match this event is definitely a adventure so it's going to be competition in there somewhere it's going to be a lot of show and tell it's going to be a lot of like friendliness happiness and all that meet the guys from aussie which is pronounced 17 different ways are we cool yet these guys have worked incredibly hard to make sure that this was going to happen but this is really what we want to be the first of many celebrations of what i call like a freedom hobby all right gun making and that's what it is and for for some of us it's hey i want to make my own gun i want the government involved for some of us it's i want a custom gun that has my logo or my name or my grip angle or whatever i want for other people it's i want to create designs that never existed before and share them with all of earth derwood right after the competition we're going to set up some areas where we can do show and tell but enjoy the day thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] make it look so easy oh yeah it is i'm a little nervous i'm not gonna lie i mean i fired about five bullets total so far out of this gun all right man you ready to go as ready as i'll ever be good oh we jammed reliability's problem with this weapon okay don't shoot karen jamming again so my gun kept jamming this was our issue when we were test firing a couple days ago after the gun was ready uh but it wouldn't properly eject the bullet and load another bullet into the chamber i guess it's an issue with with not filing that that slide enough to get it running smoothly it just shows that you can spend hours making these guns it still doesn't work the way it's supposed to work i wasn't the only one with jamming problems 3d printed guns might look just like the real thing but even the most hardcore 3d gun makers struggle with reliability rob i have sad news to deliver it jammed repeatedly did not finish you're a jammer jammed how many shots you get out six maybe all right did you check to see if the thing was touching the other thing in there every round it was jamming on the shell ejection and not cleanly reloading another one this is horrible it's horrible news i know i feel like you need to use the ghost gun frame with a different top end he's getting uh that slide hey barrett barry grab me a little thing of wool so rob is very kind and he's explaining that we need a new part so we're going to swap in a new slide top part of the gun and hopefully that will make the action better to be able to eject the shell and reload a new one so the semi-automatic weapon actually functions semi-automatically oh kagan's a lover i mean you can tell right and he's got soft hands first of all right that's a sign right there right he takes care of himself right he's well groomed man cares about himself means he cares about other people that's the way i look at it oh that's so much better that just that alone was better looks like it's running nice and smooth that's much better all right round two with a new glock slide swapped in so i'm getting my second chance at round one see how it goes [Music] how's that stack up to the competition pretty well all right i'll take it i'll take pretty well good job like for the record to show that i did not suck it up completely that i did okay ghost gun is performing its duties well now i guess [Music] it's hot all right thank you all for coming this will be the last run of the day this is the 3d printed only side match the contestants have only been allowed a barrel and springs and or a self-diy bolt everything you see here is 100 percent they did it there's no answers or buts about it come on let's get some cheering in here let's see what they can do hi everybody my name is ben i sometimes go by online insert me our ima uh this is the uh mod 9 v1 with the mod barrel system i think my hammer broke this is the pps43 printed receiver handmade bolt by me [Music] run up and [Music] [Music] [Applause] this gun is the fgc9 i had nothing to do with the design of it but i love anything that goes bang so you know okay here we go so i need to say something to people when i'm watching okay i think it's good this is the new king cobra it's uh designed by durwood and mussy it's still under development but uh hope to be getting that out there everybody real soon this is durwood or at least that's his handle on the internet he's a legend in the 3d printed gun world mostly because his guns are totally unique and seem to work better than everyone else's i met him the day before the match [Music] durwood's designs allow for guns to be built using almost entirely homemade parts he makes the blueprints public for people to make or modify however they want his work inspired something called the fgc-9 or gun control nine millimeter which is turned up in europe where the laws on gun ownership are very strict now you're seeing these guns pop up all over the world yeah and that's fulfilling that's very fulfilling even in europe where it's used as this this sort of like i'm not so happy with that yeah because hey they got laws over there obey your local laws i'm not encouraging anybody to do anything illegal and this is just purely your own interest and enjoyment there's no deeper motivation than that not really i haven't ever made a dime off of it i've invested thousands just in the hobby yeah but uh no i haven't made a red cent you mind if i shoot your gun i don't care just keeps going thank you for being here i'm gonna go put some holes in paper right now this is cody wilson the inventor of the first 3d printed gun when vice spoke to him in 2013 wilson predicted a world where 3d printing technology would evolve to the point where it would be impossible for the government to stop gun control for us is a fantasy in a way that like people say you're being unrealistic about printing a gun i think it's more unrealistic now especially going forward to think you could ever control this technology wilson makes money off a website that hosts 3d printed gun files and by selling a machine called the ghost gunner which helps convert partially finished gun parts into assault rifles he's also gotten into trouble with the law but not for guns in 2019 wilson pled guilty to injuring a child for sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl he met on the internet he got seven years probation and was required to register as a sex offender when you started out creating the 3d gun at the very beginning did you in your wildest dreams think that it would come this far so fast yeah i i literally thought this is how it should happen this was what it would look like it would be these types of people these young men quasi-alienated but actually rather literate rather letters if you talk with them with political outlooks i thought there was a risk that the politics would be deluded over time but in fact no there's a kind of ironic engagement that the zoomer i think influx added to it which is perfect you talk about ironic what about it's ironic to you the files the activity will always be met with some level of police repression either on the internet or in actuality like if maybe you won't be able to own a gun in this country in 10 years or maybe you won't be able to build a gun in this country in 10 years and these guys are kind of already playing with that future in an ironic and distasteful way they're vulgarizing it you know they're making it mobile they're making it too flexible to be contained is there any limit that you have in terms of where this should go or where it should stop no no i find no limiting principle like i can't find one or describe one these guys are practicing something that is at once distasteful to the legacy gun manufacturers as much as it is to the activist wine moms and all that stuff so it's a matter of taste and artistic principle if the government wanted to stop this to outlaw to make it impossible for people to get files could they do it uh the government should invent a time machine and kill me seven years ago it's it's far too late no the equipment the 3d printing it's so cheap you can make anything you can design anything coming close this is our first time doing this match so lots and lots of reasons why this should have been a complete and miserable failure and it wasn't we will start with the printed pistol granted this comes with a little bit of an asterisk needing a slide change keegan hamilton third place all right if you have a bill that you would like to be up for people's choices people's choice popular build sexy build build people love build it may not actually work doesn't matter bring it out here and stand in front of the jordan claws if you like it you don't like it just be quiet i guess [Applause] [Music] the guys at the shooting contest like to say 3d printed guns are just a fun hobby but according to a leaked report from the department of justice first obtained by the trace authorities recovered nearly 24 000 ghost guns at crime scenes in recent years and guns aren't the only concern are we cool yet has designed 3d printed 37 millimeter flare guns that are just a short step away from grenade launchers the us military has been working on the real thing what's something that couldn't be made before at home that can now be made using a 3d printer as far as explosives go so a 3d printed bomblet similar to these when you have an explosive charge inside that with some type of switch on there to initiate the explosive and dropped from a uav uas typically on to our troops so somebody attaches that to a drone flies it over drops it boom correct and what's stopping someone from making that in the united states today don't believe there's anything stopping somebody from making this in the united states today just recently over the last weekend they had the first ever shooting competition for exclusively 3d printed and homemade really firearms and there was some really impressive designs on display from a hundred percent almost every single part of the gun was either home manufactured or printed to kit guns on the other other end of the spectrum sure sure so when you talk about uh those guns and unique designs right only limited by the imagination of the builder and there's some really good imaginations out there absolutely absolutely you want to see some of these guns yeah yeah that'd be cool this is my trophy for third place this is a little tour of all of the right the hardware wow i mean some of the concern there is that some of those look like toys you know with the especially with the the neon colors and this one is 100 homemade all the metal parts are homemade no kidding that's how far it's come maybe some of them look like nerf guns this one's 100 invented design there's no model that they're basing that off of wow this is the scorpion evo in full auto no kidding and this guy's got his sot license so what do you think about that that's wow it's future right yeah there are several recent cases where ghost guns have turned up in the hands of white supremacists and extremists in the u.s and in europe too and the fear is these weapons will keep falling into the wrong hands in the coming years the biden administration wants to require serial numbers on some unfinished gun parts and restrict mail-order ghost gun kits but in a victory for cody wilson and ghost guns a federal appeals court recently lifted restrictions on how 3d printed gun files can be shared online no matter how the law changes probably too late to contain ghost guns [Music] joe biden this is no country for old man is there a way to keep that out of the hands of bad guys and only in the hands of these people who have are doing it just for the fun of it as long as they're used for their intended purposes by people that legally can have firearms i don't have an issue with that i don't think atf has an issue with that it's when people use those firearms for criminal purposes that that's that's when it becomes a problem around here come here come here aaron around back up here photo op somebody that's good at photos make sure i get this contest is over now we need to do something about the ghost gun i can't bring it home with me it's going to come back from once it's came which is melted plastic i mean certainly we saw that it's not easy to print and make your own gun we're still in a world where you need a lot of expertise a lot of just time and labor to make this thing work and then even then it doesn't work perfectly right right but the future it's going to get easier and easier and easier and lower the barrier of entry to getting a gun and in your eyes that's a good thing absolutely because here's the thing think of it this way i know this is counterintuitive for a lot of people but the more people who have guns the more normal gun ownership is the more responsible the community will be and and also the more educated the community will be in judging responsibility right but i think it's really important to acknowledge that you know i don't think everybody should have a gun i think everybody who wants to be a responsible gun owner should have that option you know who wants to and is capable of obviously right let's make one fewer gun right now how do you feel i mean you put a lot of work into this there is a tiny part of me that is like damn i spent a long time filing away on that thing like my hard work is going up in flames right right [Music] you

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Length: 29min 15sec (1755 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 25 2021