3d printers will change weapons trafficking

The technology behind 3d printing is becoming cheaper and more widely available. Within ten years, Latin American universities, businesses and governments should be able to have at least a basic 3d printer and those with money will get more advanced versions.

These printers will reshape manufacturing and medicine (a printer in Europe was recently used to create a new jaw for a patient; doctors are working on a printer that can print a new kidney). But, from the negative side, it's also going to completely reshape the weapons trafficking debate.

What happens when guns and gun parts can be printed locally rather than trafficked across borders? Certainly criminal groups will be able to afford printers that can manage metal or plastic objects that can serve as guns. While the cost will be quite expensive at first, eventually, it will be cheaper to print than smuggle.

For criminals, this could be a boom era. The parts of narcocultura that like to put designs and bling into their guns will get the opportunity to design their own. More seriously, they'll be able to manufacture parts that can easily convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons, perhaps a economically feasible first step for the use of 3d printing for the bad guys. They can also work to design better (more deadly) weapons once they become proficient with the technology.

Governments will attempt restrictions. They'll try to restrict the flow of information including files with gun designs that can be used by the printers. However, that will be nearly impossible. They'll try to restrict the printers and the specific "ink", materials preferred for gun manufacturing. But those restrictions will inhibit innovation and the criminals will find ways around them. They'll try to block ammunition sales, and in this they will only be as successful as they are today.

Police will need some sort of ballistics or forensics mechanism to not just tell which gun fired a bullet but which printer created the gun. One comparison may be to the fight against counterfeit money given better color printers today. There will be questions on the criminal charges people supplying the printers, materials and designs will face.

Then again, this could significantly reduce the cross-border trade in illegal firearms, which is itself a very profitable industry. That loss of profit could hit some criminal group's bottom lines. Could we see criminals sabotaging each other's printers to keep market share?