Print & Fire: Are 3D Weapons Transforming Threat Landscape?
Janhavi Pathak | 19 February 2025
Summary
3D Printed Weapons (3DPW) are getting cheaper and expanding the user base worldwide. Targeted strikes and lone-wolf attacks comprise prevailing use cases propelled by improved design, operational efficiency, resource accessibility and legal loopholes. Open-source knowledge & technical transfers on encrypted websites facilitate their widespread adoption, spurring innovative tactics to evade legal oversight.
Extremists, hobbyists and enthusiasts are the dominant users with rising adoption among organised criminal networks and other militias.. Restricted access to conventional weapons, non-existent regulatory guardrails, resource deficits and localised production drive this shift.
3DPW boasts metal-plastic configurations to maintain operational performance and undetectability. Metal parts are sourced from everyday non-regulated products, risking the weaponisation of dual-use technology. Conversely, private defence companies are integrating 3D printing for quicker production to offset supply chain disruptions. The need for faster delivery, a resilient supply chain, and large-scale production of disposable weapons will result in a greater role for 3D printing in defence production.
The Rise Of Hybrid Weapons
The potential for 3D-printing weapons was first actualised in 2013 with the creation of “the Liberator” a plastic gun having minimal metal components. Unlike serialised industrial guns, 3DPW enabled users to produce lethal weapons with no serial numbers at home using online digital blueprint files, dodging regulatory registration and oversight. Easily produced, shared, and disposed of, 3DPW are relatively untraceable through conventional methods. Several lone wolf and targeted attacks have leveraged this below-the-radar nature of “ghost guns” as evident in the 2019 Jewish synagogue attack in Germany and the recent assassination of the United Healthcare CEO. Initially expensive, 3D printers have gradually reduced prices with rapid technological progress, expanding their accessibility to a wider consumer base. Printers now cost between USD 200-1500 with advanced models producing sturdier and better quality products.
3DPW is used extensively among far-right extremists, gun enthusiasts, and hobbyists in rich-income countries due to being untraceable and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) production. Adoption is ideologically driven as groups advocate firearm ownership and reduced state control over personal autonomy. The majority of privately manufactured firearms (PMF) using 3D printing have been guns, semi-automatic and automatic firearms, produced in clandestine workshops that are rising across continents. The USA experienced 36% of global 3D gun-related arrests in 2023, followed by Canada (34%), the UK (10%) and Australia (8%). Europe has experienced a steady uptick in 3DPW with 44 cases in 2021, signalling newer trends and risks altering our threat landscape.
Cheaper, Local & Stronger: Emerging Risks & Trends
Technical progress in 3D printers has reduced the cost of producing 3DPW. This coupled with a rapid open-sourcing of digital files containing different weapon blueprints on encrypted social media channels, peer-to-peer communities and the dark web has improved the accessibility, affordability and efficiency of 3DPW. The threshold of knowledge and expertise required to produce these weapons is diminishing as the barrier to entry lowers for new users, rapidly expanding their user base.
Production is becoming localised and situated in concealed workshops and rundown factories. Expansion of production capabilities is underway with more manufacturing units emerging every year. For smaller groups having resource deficits and no established links with illicit weapon traffickers, a simplified supply chain facilitates arms procurement and downstream distribution with substantial profit margins.
Localised production enables quicker and customised weapon delivery, resulting in innovative designs and operational use cases. Design variability comprising newer plastic-metal configurations is rising as threat actors source metal components from everyday unregulated products or 3D print them entirely. This has accorded threat actors enhanced operational secrecy and production capabilities, aggravating risks to public safety and ensuring crime prevention for law enforcement.
Threat actors in non-Western countries are experimenting with 3DPW incentivised by lowering costs, heralding a global expansion. Ethnic militias in Myanmar have used 3DPW to supplement their dwindling inventories against the Junta. Similarly, transnational organised groups are partaking in the 3DPW trade to profiteer and arm its various units away from legal oversight. Given their vast links, these groups exploit regions with legal loopholes and absent regulatory frameworks, developing new hubs of global crime.
Conversely, private defence manufacturers are integrating 3D printing in industrial weapon production for quicker deliveries, scaling operations and improved efficiency. 3D-printed drones and other components have been battle-tested in Ukraine, demonstrating structural flexibility, modularity and interoperability. As cost drives low, 3DPW may acquire a significant supplementary role in modern inventories to offset supply disruptions and cater to evolving operational needs quickly.
The uptick in 3DPW incidents may spur regulatory initiatives across the globe, leading in high-income countries followed by others. Adoption of 3DPW in newer regions by online exchanges and criminal networks can proliferate violence in vulnerable states. Thus, a greater resource diversion toward public safety and crime prevention is required to dismantle ghost factories and illicit weapon circulations by proactively undertaking awareness campaigns and preemptive measures.
Despite institutional efforts, 3DPW will widen the political divide, and exacerbate societal instability. Crime rates may surge as threat actors leverage accessible weapons to act out their violent beliefs. Extremists’ adoption of 3DPW will aggravate xenophobia and racism, disproportionately affecting marginal communities and foreign workers in high-income countries. Covert support of far-right parties further threatens the social order and fabric of diverse nations that rely heavily on foreign labour to support their economies. Similarly, high crime rates and instability will dissuade investors from specific neighbourhoods, adversely impacting economic opportunities and growth.
Frederick Shaw/Unsplash
Forecast
Short-term
The cost of producing 3D weapons will be slashed further with technological progress, likely resulting in higher circulation of PMFs.
Gradual surges in PMFs will likely intensify insecurity and gun violence in high-income countries struggling to control SAL-related crimes. More incidents of PMF-related targeted attacks can surface in states witnessing a rise in extremism and internal violence, propelled by clandestine channels of knowledge and technical transfers online.
Long-term
More states will likely develop stringent regulatory frameworks to bolster PMF oversight, curb illicit transfers and apprehend culprits, diverting resources towards law enforcement and public safety initiatives.
Technological progress will likely incentivise private defence manufacturers to incorporate 3D printers in their upstream production processes of diverse weapons for faster delivery, localised supply chain and to offset logistical disruptions.
Tactical sharing among threat actors through anonymous online platforms and transnational criminal networks will likely facilitate the adoption of 3D-printed weapons in newer regions, amplifying insecurity and violence in marginalised communities, especially in the Global South.