LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - People across the country are waiting to see what might happen once plans for 3D-printed guns are allowed to be downloaded this week.
It’s happening thanks to a group of friends from central Arkansas.
“I thought it was a good idea,” Sean Kubin said. "But I didn’t know how in the world Cody [Wilson] would take it and get legs on it. How do you make an idea actionable? Ideas are a dime a dozen, and here Cody has this idea, and how’s he going to go make this thing bigger than what it is, bigger than just an idea?”
Kubin and Wilson were among a group that grew up in Lonoke County and helped Wilson promote his idea for a handgun made on a 3D printer. He built his first prototype in 2013.
“Right from the get-go,” Kubin said. “It was, ‘get enough money to get a prototype out,’ but you can’t sell it. Like, it’s not something you could ever sell for profit. That’s kind of illegal, to sell it. But you could give it away for free.”
Instead, Wilson settled on a plan to allow people to download blueprints for free. A lengthy legal battle ended last week when a federal judge sided with Wilson, and the downloadable files will again be available on Wednesday, Aug. 1.
Kubin said this could be a transformative moment -- not for guns, but for 3D printing.
“I think that 3D printing, in general, hasn’t gotten the attention that it needs,” he said. “I think people would be sort of blown away by what you can get accomplished with a 3D printer."
“That’s the real revolution here -- is the 3D printing. Guys like Cody and Elon Musk, you know, those guys are pushing that technology farther than humanity’s ever pushed any technology before.”
Students at Don Roberts Elementary in Little Rock used a 3D printer to create thumbs for a classmate who was born without them. Kubin mentioned that dentists are some of the most active early-adopters of 3D printers, because they can quickly scan a patient’s mouth and create molds
While professional-grade 3D printers are too expensive for most people, Kubin says they are becoming more affordable.
“This doesn’t mean much now,” he said. “It’s like the discovery of electricity. You know, it’s not a big deal when you’ve discovered it, but it’s pretty much what runs everything, including this TV show, right?"
“You could think about the olden days of the cell phone, right, when you had the OKI bag phone, or before that you had the big brick, and the Wall Street investor walking on the beach, making his trades from the beach. That’s where we’re at with 3D printers. I mean, it’s a technology that’s gonna get cheaper, that… it’s sort of, like, new like the early fax machines. Like, if you’re the only guy with a fax machine, what do you do with it? But the more design files become available, the more the need for people to have 3D printers, or at least to get access to them.”
Many anti-gun violence activists have spoken concerns that the guns will lead to more crime. Self-made guns are not required to have serial numbers, which might make them appealing to criminals and those planning a mass shooting.
Kubin said he believes that opinion is misinformed.
“If they did [attempt a mass shooting with a 3D-printed gun],” Kubin said. “That would be, in a sense, preferable to them getting a real gun because a plastic gun would fail, and so their ability to get round after round off would be crippled.”
Nathan House, general manager of Arkansas Armory and a licensed firearms instructor, said people are currently able to buy unfinished guns and parts are 80 percent lower receivers, allowing them to make their own guns, and that those guns do not need serial numbers.
House believes the demand for plastic, 3D-printed guns will be very small.
“I can’t imagine it even getting close to approaching one percent of what our, even, very limited business is that we do,” he said. “So, I think it’s just such a small portion of the market, it’s not going to have an impact on us or probably any other gun shop.
“None of us want to have a gun come apart in our hand on the range, so I think it’ll be something that, it’s neat, and it’ll be something to see where the technology goes. It’s probably not going to be widely adopted any time soon.”
“I can’t really conceive of a reason that you would prefer a 3D-printed gun over a gun you could buy,” Kubin added. “Like, a real gun is superior in every way. It’s just the idea of it, that you have something that could never be taken away.”
Kubin said the entire point of giving away the design plans for guns is to promote personal freedom. At the same time, he acknowledged the need for proper regulation.
“People make bad decisions sometimes,” he mentioned. “You hope you have good law enforcement to catch the bad guys and put them in jail. But you can’t just give up freedoms. Yeah, doesn’t work well. Societies do that, that’s how we get despotism and all sorts of other bad things.”
Kubin added that while 3D printers use plastic right now, there may be a time in the future when they can print in metal. “At some point,” he theorized, “there’s going to be a, sort of, the intersection of this curve, where the functionality of a 3D-printed gun could be higher than the functionality of a gun that you could buy. We haven’t gotten there yet, but if we get there, then this will become very relevant to society.”