THE owner of a Texas company that makes untraceable 3D-printed guns said this morning that he has begun selling the blueprints through his website to anyone who wants to make one, despite a federal court order barring him from posting the plans online.

Cody Wilson said at a news conference that he’ll make the plans available to anyone who wants them at any price.

He said sales started on Tuesday morning and that he’d already gotten nearly 400 orders.

That follows a federal judge in Seattle blocking Mr Wilson’s company from posting the blueprints online.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia had sought an injunction to stop a settlement that the federal government reached with Mr Wilson’s Austin-based Defence Distributed.

The states argued that online access to the undetectable plastic guns would pose a security risk and could be acquired by felons or terrorists.

US District Judge Robert Lasnik agreed, saying the government’s actions “not only impact national security but have domestic repercussions as well.”

The State Department reached the deal with the company after the agency removed the 3D gun-making plans from a list of weapons or technical data that are not allowed to be exported.

Mr Wilson said he anticipates that states may try to sue to stop him from selling the plans, but that he is raising money for his legal defence.

“Anyone who wants to get these files is going to get them,” he said. “They can name their own price.”

Mr Wilson also said he will continue to challenge the federal court order.

HOW DO 3D PRINTED GUNS WORK
The most common type of 3D printing is the process called Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), and this is the technology used to make the handful of working 3D printed guns that have been made.

It works by slicing a digital file into hundreds of thin layers, often about 0.1mm thick.

The 3D printer will then use robotic precision to place these layers on top of each other to replicate the item it is printing ie a physical copy of the digital file.

This can take several hours.

The 3D printer works with melted thermoplastics, or liquefied plastic, so it can’t print off a complex mechanism like a functional gun all in one piece.

Instead, each separate component of the gun needs to be 3D printed individually and then later assembled.

It becomes even harder if any of those parts has an overhang of more than about 45 degrees. It makes 3D printing a functional gun very time consuming and difficult but not impossible.

Many of these guns will also fall apart after firing a single shot due to the explosive force involved.

High-end 3D printers needed to make such weapons can be very expensive as well, often costing thousands of dollars, meaning it would often be more expensive then actually buying a gun in the US.