Aug 5, 2018 4 min read

Back in 1981, former Beatle George Harrison closed his album “Somewhere in England” with an indictment of environmental degradation called “Save the World,” and it observed that “Now you can make your own H Bomb, right in the kitchen with your mom.”

We weren’t really at that point 37 years ago, and we can only hope that the day is still a ways off when weaponry that can kill thousands can be whipped up in a kitchen as easily as a souffle. But the day when you can create an untraceable gun right in the kitchen with family and friends could well have arrived. And that’s something that should worry us all.

Until a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday, many Americans would have had a green light to go onto a website operated by Austin, Texas, nonprofit Defense Distributed, and download blueprints for guns that can be manufactured at home if you have some high-quality plastic and a 3D printer. None of the inconveniences associated with purchasing a gun, such as serial numbers or background checks, come into play when you can cook up a gun at home without even getting in a car and heading to a gun store.

As you can imagine, this would be a godsend for terrorists and mass shooters, since such weapons would be able to evade metal detectors. It would also be a boon to felons who can no longer legally purchase guns, the mentally ill and domestic abusers who have had their weapons taken away. This all unfolded as a result of a Trump administration decision to settle a longstanding federal lawsuit against Defense Distributed that allows the organization to release its gun-making files.

If 3D printer guns ever do start circulating widely, it would be a triumph for the furthest fringes of the gun-rights crowd and the loonier precincts of the libertarian right. But for everyone else, it would be a tragedy.

Here in Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and the Pennsylvania State Police successfully sued in federal court to block Defense Distributed from circulating its gun designs in the commonwealth. Shapiro pointed out how “once these untraceable guns are on our streets and in our schools, we can never get them back.”

While some supporters of the federal government’s surrender in this case would likely argue that 3D printers are pricey, the process of making a weapon from these contraptions is lengthy and the end product perhaps not as reliable as what can be purchased in stores, it’s not at all hard to imagine the price rapidly coming down on 3D printers, the technology improving and criminal enterprises having a field day making and distributing plastic guns to people who should be kept far away from firearms.

David Chapman, a retired special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told CBS News, “We are basically handing the keys to the store to terrorists and armed criminals. … I guarantee you, five to 10 years from now, this is going to be a real threat to public safety.”

We hope the temporary restraining order is made permanent. In the meantime, Congress needs to update the Undetectable Firearms Act, which was first signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. It should address guns that can be manufactured from 3D printers, something few people could envisage 30 years ago. At the very least, there should be some elements within plastic guns that make them detectable.

Law enforcement officials across the board have condemned the possibility of plastic “ghost guns” flooding our streets. The citizens they protect should join them.