this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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On today’s episode of Uncanny Valley, we discuss how WIRED was able to legally 3D-print the same gun allegedly used by Luigi Mangione, and where US law stands on the technology.

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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (38 children)

Unless you keep the gun I guess.

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (37 children)

How do you mean? You 3D print something with no serial and it’s untraceable. Even if they find it they can’t definitively say your firearm shot the bullets. Unless of course you’re on video doing it and admit to it.

[–] seathru 11 points 1 week ago (5 children)

You 3D print something with no serial and it’s untraceable.

Except for all the metal parts they used a debit card/paypal to buy.

[–] magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

The only regulated parts (I know of) are:

  • receiver (considered the actual gun, this is the bit they print)

  • suppressors (not printable but you can make these homemade, though not as good and definitely not as reliable.)

  • autosears (or anything else that makes your gun fully automatic, or even act like it, usually these are super basic and printable)

  • big magazines (not federal but a lot of states have laws on em' Usually states with these laws will allow big ones to be sold with rivets, so they can usually be converted with a drill and new spring. Also they're just boxes w/ springs so you can print one.)

They're also starting to Anodize rifling into barrels using cheap 3D printed jigs, so some of the metal parts are now getting homemade too.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

autosears

Autosears themselves are not actually regulated. It's the action of fully automatic fire that is. Which is kind of ridiculous because it's not terribly uncommon to have a gun do it by accident on worn out parts.

Wild. I suppose, thinking about it, it's also way quicker to iterate on, test, and improve too.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The components aren't traceable either. They don't have serial numbers on them. Typically only the lower receiver does. This is why that's the part that's typically 3D-printed.

[–] joel_feila@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Those would hard to teace and yu can pay cash. How many stores sell metal pipe withthe same inner diameter as a 45 caliber. It would be lole tracing meth lab by ammonia sales.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago

Depends. He used a printed glock, not an FGC2.0. The FGC uses parts like you describe but printed glocks just take glock parts.

That said, it's still fairly trivial to acquire those glock parts anonymously.

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Yeah, you can’t easily print an entire gun, but the parts you buy don’t necessarily tie you to the gun.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip -2 points 1 week ago

Which is obviously why you buy them with Monero instead.

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