Multi-colored Printed Guns Leads To Arrest In Japan
Over at AllOutdoor.com Ashley reports on the arrest of a Japanese man for printing guns on a 3D printer. He was not aware that plastic guns were illegal and possessed no ammunition. Ashely writes …
Such is the case this week when 27-year-old Japanese man Yoshitomo Imura was arrested for 3D printing guns in his home. Firearm laws in Japan are notoriously strict, although many find ways around that (some legal, some not). A law passed in 1958 prohibits possession of firearms or swords (as we discussed a bit in our history profile of the Higo no Kami pocket knife).
According to a Japanese news outlet, Imura was not aware that owning plastic guns was illegal. Imura downloaded the gun blueprints from a foreign website. About a month prior to his arrest, police had confiscated five of the guns he had printed. Ten toy guns were also discovered, and it was reported that his 3D printer, too, was seized. However, police did not find any live ammunition.
Gun ownership is now just a click away (where the definition of a gun in this context is a plastic hand grenade more dangerous to the user than anyone else). You can now pick up all the equipment to manufacture guns at Walmart, with no skills required beyond those possessed by any iPad-using eight year old child. Download, print, enjoy your prison cell. We live in strange times.
I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. I retired as Editor in Chief in 2017. During my decade at TFB I was fortunate to work with the most amazing talented writers and genuinely good people!
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Those Japs need to stay disarmed. My uncle was one of the few survivors that was off of the USS Arizona the morning of its sinking at Pearl harbor. he lost so many friends, that after the war he would not even allow a toyota on his property or anything even remotely japanese.
"You can now pick up all the equipment to manufacture guns at Walmart, with
no skills required beyond those possessed by any iPad-using eight year
old child. Download, print, enjoy your prison cell. We live in strange
times."
As someone who owns a 3d printer, and has access to several, along with working in prototyping utilizing all sorts of SLS, FDM and SLA machines... that comment comes across the same as someone who think semi-autos are of the devil and that little ladies need to keep to a 38 revolver.
3D printing any of these designs (I have) is not 100% perfect. Nor is it likely to happen the first 5, or even 10 times. If you do get it down, there is still heat treating, checmical treating, or any number of other methods you need to do to make a barrel able to hold the original liberator's .380 chambering.