Homemade solution.
Rare Bird
Police now sound confident that the handgun and suppressor found in possession of Luigi Mangione, the suspect charged with the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, were fabricated with a 3D-printer, The New York Times reports.
Initially, authorities had only suggested that the weapon may have been 3D-printed, but were certain that it was a variety of “ghost gun”: a homemade firearm assembled from parts sourced outside regulated channels that come with no serial numbers and are almost impossible to trace.
However, police have not determined whether the 26-year-old Mangione printed or assembled the gun parts himself or if he purchased the weapon from someone.
In any case, law enforcement experts say it is exceedingly rare to recover a 3D-printed gun used in a crime, nevermind a suppressor (though enthusiasts have previously 3D printed those components, also known as silencers, which mute the sound of a gunshot.)
“If the gun used in the New York assassination really was 3D-printed, it would certainly be the highest-profile crime ever committed with one, and it would be one of a small number overall,” Tom Chittum, a former associate deputy director of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, told the NYT.
Parts to Play
3D-printed guns and gun parts are generally legal in the US, allowing owners to skirt federal oversight when obtaining these weapons. This is especially useful with a gun’s lower receiver, or “lower,” because it’s the only individual gun part that federal law requires background checks to buy from licensed dealers. Other parts, like the slide, barrel, and trigger mechanism, aren’t regulated and can be bought from aftermarket vendors, according to Chittum.
Firearms produced this way are popularly packaged as do-it-yourself gun kits. Some of these kits are considered easy to assemble, but others may require more expertise, depending on how many metal components an owner decides to use.
In Mangione’s case, authorities say the recovered pistol had a plastic handle, a metal slide, and a metal barrel that was threaded to allow the attachment of a suppressor. They also say it’s a visual match to the gun seen in security footage of the shooting, and that it’s capable of firing the 9mm round recovered at the scene.
Some experts believe that the weapon is a Chairmanwon V1, a variant of a popular 3D-printed Glock clone known as the FMDA 19.2, according to Wired.
Black Market
3D-printed firearms and other ghost guns have proved difficult to crack down on, due not only to their murky provenance, but also the lax gun control for traditional firearms in this country.
In 2022, the Biden Administration introduced stronger regulations on gun kits, requiring that they were sold with serial numbers — but the law is in limbo and is currently being challenged in court.
Nevertheless, the popularity of ghost guns — 3D-printed or otherwise — has surged in the past decade, and as of 2022, the Department of Justice says that over 25,000 of these weapons have been seized domestically. Due to their untraceable nature, however, there’s a dearth of reliable data in how many ghost guns are in circulation, or how often they’re involved in crimes.
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