by Max Slowik Guns.com

Previously by Max Slowik: Official Appleseed u2018Liberty Training Rifle' byMarlin

Firearms 3D printer Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed and the Wiki Weapon project has been making wave after wave with every one of his statements, updates, videos and blog posts. He’s been making the circles, with an interview with Vice Magazine and now CNN.

His most recent proclamation is will alarm many, bring hope to a few, but leaves us with our heads scratching. Wilson has said that they will have the technology to 3D print a firearm by “the end of April.”

“Well to have a printable gun  it's my intention to have that done by the end of this month and we're at the end of March now so it's my intention to have it done by April,” he said. This would, in theory, prompt a new era in personal firearm manufacturing and a new paradigm for gun control.

“The assumption is one day the technology will become more ubiquitous and widespread,” Wilson said on “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

“It will fall in price, and materials will be developed in a better place than they are now, so yes, if you were to have one in your home and you have the gun file, you can just click print and have the gun.”

Here’s where we’re stumped. Defense Distributed has already printed a gun. Technically, that is. They have developed a design that can be used to make AR-15 lowers that are tough enough to use with standard centerfire upper receivers.

By legal definition, this one part is a firearm in the U.S. All the other parts of their gun were commercially-produced and bought separately, and the technology to 3D-print their equivalents is still over the horizon. Wilson’s statement that they’ve 3D-printed a gun is true on a technicality, but what they’ve printed, by itself, could only hurt something if you threw it, and you don’t need a 3D printer to make a rock.

So there are a few things Wilson might be getting at.

It’s conceivable that they have developed a more complete lower receiver. Something with a buttstock, pistol grip and all the parts of the action 3D printed. Some of the parts cannot be 3D printed, like the springs, pins, and a handful of other small parts, but that alone would represent a big step in the project’s history.

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