This is more than just a little scary.
People with the means (a 3D printer) and the desire now have the capability of printing -- PRINTING -- a gun. That shoots. Real bullets.
The scariest part of this isn't the fact that it exists. Three-Dimensional printing is amazing and has thousands of practical, helpful applications: medical supplies, electronics, consumer goods, and more made cheaply and quickly, all at home. Not only that, but it's just plain cool. Want a new cover for your phone that no one else can own? Print it! Need a new TARDIS figurine to compliment the complete set of plastic replica Dr. Who Doctors and companions? Print it!
But now some people can ask themselves a very dangerous question: Do I want a gun? And, unfortunately, the answer is now the same as the ones I jokingly described above: print it. What's worse, because it's plastic -- only one piece on the entire "gun" is metal -- it can slip through metal detectors onto planes, into buildings, and into the private, secure locations where you do not want just anyone carrying a gun.
Justifiably, law enforcement around the world are worried. Not only are the guns undetectable by conventional means of metal detection, but they are also untraceable. Anyone with a 3D printer can now own a gun without a permit.
I'm hoping that my location in central Mississippi means that no one around me has access to such technology. But I'm sure as the process becomes cheaper, the novelty of printing a gun -- "Now in Camo pattern!" -- will spread to more people who probably shouldn't have the option.
-JJ
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