Guns

3D-Printed Guns Are Getting Good

If I can build a functional, unregistered handgun in less than two hours, so can you.

Zach Weissmueller | 3.19.2026 4:40 PM

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The 3D-printed gun movement has survived the downfall of its charismatic founder, a major defeat at the Supreme Court, and involvement in one of the most talked-about crimes of last year.

Meanwhile, the guns have gotten good. Really good. Today's hobbyist gun makers are creating better and better weapons that are easier and easier to make, including some with wildly creative designs.

There's anger and passionate disagreement about strategy, law, copyright, and leadership. The movement's critics are scathing: Lizzie, who met her husband Spezz through an online 3D-gun printing forum, calls movement founder Cody Wilson "a thief, a federal informant, and a pedophile." Spezz says "most of the cool stuff he does he just steals from other people." Wilson, for his part, is dismissive: "If you have evidence, present your evidence."

But in the meantime, this technology is fundamentally undermining the power of the state to control our access to firearms. And what I can't figure out is why more people aren't talking about it.

Is gun control finally dead?

I Built a Gun

A few months ago, I spent an afternoon in Alex Holladay's workshop, putting together two 3D-printed guns. Holladay runs CTRL PEW, which tests and reviews online gun designs, creates video tutorials, and provides step-by-step instructions for how to assemble guns at home.

We had to put about $6 worth of filament into the 3D printer to generate a mold in the shape of a pistol frame. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' (ATF) view of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, this inert block of plastic was already a real firearm and would require a federal registration and a serial number to be sold.

Assembling an unregistered Glock-like handgun using the 3D printer and metallic gun parts purchased online was fairly straightforward, taking a little more than half an hour with an expert teacher like Holladay looking over my shoulder. The AR-15 was more complicated, but with Holladay's guidance I got through that, too, and we moved on to the fun part: pew-pew. 

And that's how I found myself in a Central Florida backyard on a Monday afternoon shooting at a painted metal target with a newly assembled bright orange AR-15 just off the 3D printer and hoping nothing would go too wrong. The worst that happened was the magazine slipping out of the homemade Glock-like handgun, which Holladay assured me could be fixed with a little extra gunsmithing back in the workshop.  

If I can put together two guns in a couple of hours, many, many others can, too.

The Legal Landscape

On the federal level, at least, there is nothing illegal about building a firearm for personal use: Your printer, your gun—unless you happen to be in one of the 16 states that regulate homemade guns. There, you might be committing a felony and could face up to 10 years in prison.

The question of whether it's legal to make your own gun is complicated not only by geography but by how it's put together. 3D-printed guns are just one type of "ghost gun," a term that refers to any firearm without a serial number. Politicians have embraced the label because it sounds spooky and dangerous.

Kamala Harris warned that ghost guns "can be purchased on the internet, and assembled at a kitchen table" without a background check. Joe Biden said "someone on a terrorist list could purchase one of these guns." Gavin Newsom called it "a crisis in this state and country." Chuck Schumer described ghost guns as "unmarked, unregistered, and completely untraceable firearms." Richard Blumenthal called them "the fastest-growing gun violence menace in the nation."

While 3D printing your own frame remains legal at the federal level and in most states, the Supreme Court ruled in 2025 that a different type of ghost gun—in which you order a kit online to assemble at home—can be regulated by the federal government. That means if you buy a kit, you need a background check, and the gun needs a serial number. The ruling has pretty much wiped out the gun kit market. Meanwhile, 3D-printed gunsmithing remains mostly legal, and it's booming.

A Long History of Homemade Guns

Homemade firearms date back to the American Revolution. The colonists fought off a professional army using factory-produced muskets alongside rifles put together by independent gunsmiths. Gun magazines were instructing readers on how to do custom builds long before 3D printing was a thing. The Unabomber not only made his own bombs, but his own gun as well.

What's changed is that you no longer need much technical expertise or specialized tools to produce weapons far superior to the Unabomber's rickety pistol. As Holladay puts it, "I can make whatever I want with this. There are people from around the community who specialize in trying to clone guns from video games, like sci-fi video games."

The 3D printing gun community is dominated by hobbyists like Holladay, who love the craft. But critics worry some people opt for 3D-printed guns because they can't pass a background check, or because they live in a state where buying a firearm at a gun shop is impossible. There were 26 ghost guns recovered at crime scenes in California in 2015; that number climbed to over 12,000 in 2021. A 2023 ATF report notes a 1,600 percent increase in homemade guns at crime scenes........

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