The war on homemade firearms is moving into the digital age, and the attacks are coming from every angle imaginable. From federal judges to Big Tech platforms and even AI-powered printers, “ghost guns” have become the latest boogeyman for freedom-hating bureaucrats who are determined to stomp out the right to make and own arms.
Things heated up in March, when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took his crusade global by pressuring 3D printer manufacturers to install artificial intelligence systems designed to scan and block 3D data files that resemble gun parts. Thingiverse, the world’s largest 3D printing file site, caved first—rolling out automated systems to detect and delete firearm-related files before users can even download them.
Bragg’s office bragged (pun intended) that these “commonsense measures” are about keeping communities safe.
But Americans see this for what it really is: another step in the long campaign to erase homemade firearms—and the privacy, independence, and freedom they represent.
3D Printers “Fingerprinted”
Meanwhile, police departments are experimenting with new forensic techniques to link “ghost guns” to the exact 3D printer that made them. Investigators claim that microscopic toolmarks left during the printing process act like “fingerprints,” making it possible to trace a plastic receiver back to a specific machine.
It’s a chilling thought: government agencies creating a roadmap to track private gun-making tools back to their owners, despite federal law clearly allowing Americans to manufacture firearms for personal use.
As San Bernardino forensic investigator Kirk Garrison admitted, his new method can’t yet deliver courtroom-proof evidence. But it doesn’t take much imagination to see how politicians, prosecutors, or rogue government agencies will use this as an excuse to demand mandatory printer registration, serial numbers, and even warrantless inspections of your home workshop.
Anti-Gun Groups Are Piling On
It’s not just Bragg and the NYPD. Anti-gun groups like Everytown are calling for nationwide laws to ban sharing of CAD files (the digital blueprints for 3D printed parts) and to classify unlicensed possession of a 3D printer as a federal crime if it “might” be used to make a firearm.
And in New Jersey, a federal judge ruled that CAD files for 3D printed guns are not protected free speech under the First Amendment. The case, brought by Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation, argued that computer code is expression—but the court brushed that aside, greenlighting state censorship of gun-making knowledge.
This echoes earlier attempts like the Stop Home Manufacture of Ghost Guns Act of 2020, which would have made it a crime to own a “firearm manufacturing machine” without a federal license.
Translation: your $260 3D printer or tabletop CNC mill would make you a felon.
A Digital Backdoor to Gun Control
These efforts are part of a growing pattern. When politicians can’t outright ban firearms, they go after the tools and platforms that enable Americans to exercise their rights:
- Payment processors blacklist gun-related purchases.
- Social media platforms throttle or delete Second Amendment content.
- Now 3D printer makers and file hosts are being strong-armed into censorship.
For gun owners, it’s obvious: this isn’t about stopping crime—it’s about stopping freedom. Criminals don’t care about Thingiverse’s upload policies or Bambu Lab’s AI file scanners. But law-abiding Americans who want to build a pistol or rifle in their garage are about to be treated like enemies of the state.
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The Bottom Line
The fight for the Second Amendment isn’t just happening in courtrooms or legislatures anymore. It’s happening in the cloud, on your printer, and in your code. Anti-gun forces are trying to control not just what you own, but what you know and what you’re allowed to create.
Pro-gun Americans need to see through the smoke and mirrors. Today it’s ghost guns. Tomorrow it’s the files, the tools, and even the knowledge itself.
As one AmmoLand reader put it:
“The Second Amendment wasn’t written for a world where government decides what shapes you’re allowed to print. It was written to stop exactly this kind of tyranny.”
The future of freedom may very well depend on whether we can keep our personal tools—and our data—free.
Manhattan DA Bragg Pressures 3D Printer Makers to Block Users From Printing of Guns
About Tred Law
Tred Law is your everyday patriot with a deep love for this country and a no-compromise approach to the Second Amendment. He does not write articles for Ammoland every week, but when he does write, it is usually about liberals Fing with his right to keep and bear arms.
“Meanwhile, police departments are experimenting with new forensic techniques to link “ghost guns” to the exact 3D printer that made them. Investigators claim that microscopic toolmarks left during the printing process act like “fingerprints,” making it possible to trace a plastic receiver back to a specific machine.”
Meh!
Change the nozzle. Change the slicer settings just a wee bit. Get completely different tool marks and hot end track on the print.
End of discussion.
Your move, Mr. Bragg!
Keep in mind, Trump expressed concerns about the availability of 3D-printed guns and stated that it “doesn’t seem to make much sense” to allow their sale.
Police can’t track them but somehow manage to pull DNA from an improperly stored piece of garbage that’s 2 decades old. Good thing we don’t leave fingerprints on them either. They can’t track knives and yet somehow manage to prosecute just like the recent murders in Idaho
Now I want a 3D printer. Never had much interest in them until now.
the Bill of Rights was created to protect us from government, they are individual rights.
the only concern of government(s) is to accumulate power over its citizens and wield it over them. other than that they are ok.
We have been building our own weapons at home workshops since colonial days before we booted the Brits and created our own government. We never gave that new government authority over citizens’ arms; in fact, we explicitly denied it any such power. Gun files and printers that can make guns are protected under the 2nd, 1st and additional amendments. We will not subject ourselves to licenses or permits to purchase, etc. As for markings on builds tracing to a printer, sure, like the bs of barrel lans and grooves… besides which, easily alter either to change patterns.
more goobers that need to meet hemp the hard way
Did anyone really expect that as technology develops government wouldn’t find ways to track/trace/whatever?
Since, as the article states, “…federal law clearly allowing Americans to manufacture firearms for personal use.”, can someone tell me where I can find the statutes that cover what all can or can’t be done, whether an 80% or printed?
If I have one, can it be given to a son, daughter, or relative? Can it be inherited? Is it a federal law that a gunsmith can not do anything to a ghost gun?
I’m not knocking anyone’s knowledge on the subject, but I would like to get the actual statutes.
Thanks
If burning a flag is “protected speech”, how can computer code files, actual instructive communication in furtherance of your 2A rights, , NOT be protected speech?