For Cody Wilson, the world's most notorious 3D printing gunsmith, it all started with a simple question: "Can you use a 3D printer to print a gun?" The answer to that question might come sooner than anybody expected, as Wilson says he will 3D-print an entire handgun in just a couple of weeks.

If Wilson does print an entire handgun, he will reach a milestone that many thought couldn't be reached so soon. And he will also throw a monkey wrench into not only the broader gun control debate, but also into recent legislative efforts to limit the use of 3D printers to make weapons.

Yesterday, the controversial founder and director of Defense Distributed, a non-profit that he launched to explore the possibility of manufacturing weapons with 3D printers, was in Manhattan to talk at the Inside 3D Printing Conference. After a panel on how copyright affects the 3D printing industry, he confirmed to Mashable what he had already hinted at before: that what was once unthinkable — a gun entirely made of 3D-printed parts — is actually right around the corner.

Will it work? Wilson thinks it will, and it won't be just a one-shot wonder, it will be able to fire a few shots before melting or breaking.

Wilson didn't want to reveal too much about what could become the world's first fully 3D-printed gun, saying he will make the actual announcement soon. He did reveal some details, however.

The gun will be made of 12 parts, all printed in ABS+, a very sturdy type of thermoplastic. There might be, perhaps, just one small metal part — a firing pin. While Wilson and his team are still designing the weapon, it won't be a reproduction of an existing firearm, but instead a custom design.

Defense Distributed has been working on this project — dubbed Wiki Weapon — since last summer, but the group initially focused on printing specific gun parts, like lower receivers and magazines. But in the last two months they have moved away from that to go after the bigger prize: printing an entire gun.

If Defense Distributed is really able to print an entire working handgun, the group will be one step closer to reaching its lofty goal of giving every citizen of the world "near-instant access to a firearm through the Internet." If they do, everybody will then have a chance to print their own gun, in their own bedroom — with just a 3D printer and a blueprint downloaded from DefCad, Defense Distributed's search engine and repository for 3D-printable weapons' designs.

SEE ALSO: 3D Printing's Next Frontier: Guns

Despite having been called a provocateur and being a self-labeled crypto-anarchist, Wilson is trying to do everything by the book — after all, he is also a law student at University of Texas. Last month, Defense Distributed finally received a license to sell and manufacture guns from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Wilson is aware, though, that his upcoming feat might land him in muddy waters.

The Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 makes it a federal offense to "manufacture, import, sell, ship, deliver, possess, transfer, or receive" a weapon that can fool an airport metal detector. However, the law also gives some leeway to manufacturers that want to test a certain design or make a prototype. Either way, Wilson is aware of the risks he faces.

"We're gonna be flirting with the edge of detectability," Wilson told Mashable. "It's possible that there is no good way for us to comply [with the law] and that would open up a line of prosecution."

Wilson was also invited to give a talk on how 3D printed guns could wither gun control, and despite the topic's explosiveness — pun intended — his talk filled only half the room. Somehow, this might be a reflection of the 3D printing industry's diffidence towards Wilson, who's seen by some in the community as an outsider with dangerous ideas.

"It's a very frightening prospect," said Brian Quan, president of X-Object, a Brooklyn-based startups that distributes consumer 3D printers made by Delta Micro Factory Corporation. "I'm against the idea that someone could stealthily have a weapon that could kill somebody without even being traced."

At the same time, though, Quan doesn't think the government should step in. He's more in favor of an industry self-imposed regulation, perhaps using DRM-style access control technologies, which are used to limit the copy of DVDs.

Abe Reichental, president and CEO of 3D Systems, one of the biggest 3D Printing companies in the world, doesn't think companies like his should intervene with the actions of digital gunsmiths like Wilson. "We're not lawmakers [...] we're not a law-enforcement agency," he told Mashable. At the same time, though, he thinks that as industry representatives, their role is to influence and educate legislators so that "they understand the good, the bad, and the unintended."

And even though he didn't want to get too much into the details and said that they "can't go and prevent somebody from doing this anymore than an automaker company can prevent a drunk driver from reckless driving," Reichental didn't sound completely against any kind of government regulation of 3D printed guns.

"I'm for doing everything that's creative, innovative and responsible, and if that means some restrictions, that's OK," he said.

SEE ALSO: How 3D Printing Actually Works

Regulations might have unintended consequences, though. While trying to stop people from printing guns, legislators might foreclose and limit other harmless applications of an innovation that, after all, like most technologies, is neutral. Michael Weinberg, a copyright expert and advocate at Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group, says regulating 3D printing is as intricate a problem as regulating the Internet or computers, and to do so presents the risk of stifling a rising industry with lots of innovative applications that few can foresee.

Wilson, who thinks that his project is about "teaching practical anarchy," doesn't want any restrictions, or any regulations — at all. And at the end of the day, whatever Capitol Hill throws at him, it might already be too late.

Even Bre Pettis, the influential founder of MakerBot, one of the first manufacturers of consumer 3D printers, thinks it might be too late. "The cat is out of the bag, and that cat can be armed with guns made with printed parts," he wrote in a 2011 blog post, long before Wilson followed the example of Michal Gunslick, and long before MakerBot decided to pull Wilson's weapons designs from Thingiverse, MakerBot's online repository of digital design files.

"There will be a gun that will be able to shoot a bullet," Wilson said. "That's over. There's no way of ever stopping that."

So what happens in two weeks, after that gun is printed, and its design file is uploaded on the Internet for everybody to download?

Wilson shrugged. "I don't know what's gonna happen after that. Probably, a lot of bad things," he said, and after a pause, he clarified, matter-of-factly: "I mean to me, I don't even mean to the world."

Image courtesy of YouTube, DXLiberty