A growing number of homemade guns from 3D-printed parts are raising alarm bells for European police.
For now, interest among far-right activists may be limited – and fears of a society full of self-printing weapons are far-fetched, analysts say.
But homemade guns have become more widespread since 2013, when an American weapons enthusiast first showed off a mostly 3D-printed pistol and shared its design online.
Just in September, Icelandic police said they had arrested four people suspected of planning a “terrorist attack,” seizing a number of 3D-printed semi-automatic weapons.
That same month, Spanish authorities discovered an illegal gun-making workshop by a man in his forties in the Basque Country.
The discovery followed two other such incidents in the country in 2021.
Police in Spain’s Canary Islands found two 3D printers, as well as white supremacist literature and pamphlets on urban guerrilla warfare.
And in the northwestern city of A Coruña, police found a man who was close to perfecting a scratch-made assault rifle.
“Rapidly developing modern technology may cause this to emerge as a more significant threat in the near future,” said Anna Mihailova, spokeswoman for the European police agency Europol.
While conventional weapons are easily traceable thanks to their serial numbers and proof marks, these “home-printed” models are less easy for authorities to track.
Focus on Far-Right
Currently, “there is still a big difference between the quality of professionally produced weapons and 3D printed/self-made weapons available on the criminal market,” Myhailova said.
“3D-printed firearms made entirely of plastic generally cannot withstand the pressure of live ammunition,” he added. They require a metal barrel, chamber or firing pin.
But Christian Gublas, a ballistics expert at the University of Rouen in France, said “3D metallic printing” could become affordable in the next decade – making self-made weapons more durable and reliable.
With its 3D parts and metal firing pin, the 2013 “Liberator” pistol was launched by self-described “crypto-anarchist” Cody Wilson in 2013 as the crude single-shot weapon of the same name was tossed around the world by French Resistance fighters. War II
Wilson posted instructions for the weapons online, raising alarm bells in a United States already struggling with gun control and a history of deadly mass shootings.
Since then, 3D printers have gotten cheaper, and more blueprints have been posted on the so-called dark web.
Rajan Basra, a senior research fellow at the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR), said, however, that 3D weapon printing remains a curiosity for most firearms enthusiasts or libertarians. Is.
Even in countries with strict gun restrictions, there are better options for people to acquire firearms: In France, you can find a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the black market for between $485-$1,460.
Basra added that to a certain extent, DIY guns are also attractive to “terrorists”, far-right militants and gangsters.
He pointed out that far-right activists were involved in 11 of the 12 recent trips to Europe.
