There are hundreds of 2nd Amendment supporters on the world’s largest social media sites who consider that everybody should give you the option to make use of a 3D printer to construct their very own gun. Meta, Discord and the DOJ try – and mostly fail – to contain it.
Apink Uzi. A leopard skin pistol with a gold scope. A rifle designed to seem like it got here from the Halo video game. A multi-colored toy assault rifle made for a four-year-old’s birthday.
You cannot buy weapons like this off the shelf. Built at home using 3D printers, they seem to be a testament to a growing online community where enthusiasts imagine, design and literally print the weapons of their dreams, then share the outcomes online. Tens of hundreds of users have joined private social media groups on Facebook, Discord and other sites to share their latest pistol creation, offer gun printing suggestions and complain about anti-gun laws. Many of those so-called “3D2A” groups are led by 2nd Amendment absolutists who say they’re exercising their constitutional rights and participating in an increasingly popular American pastime; like an arts and crafts community, but for deadly weapons.
“If you can go to the library and pick up a book about building a gun, you should be able to do the same thing online,” says Todd Kelly, who helped create the Facebook group 2A Printing, which has greater than 60,000 members. He describes the weapon designs published within the group as “art,” which amounts to free expression, and clearly expresses his political goals. “Our goal in the 3D printed community is that no government can ever tell someone they can’t have a gun.”
“Once you start collecting at this scale, you’re inevitably collecting information from people who are just curious.”
But the movement faces two enforcement agencies, social media corporations and the federal government. The groups are sometimes banned for posts that appear to facilitate gun sales or are misidentified as such by moderators – a practice banned on most major social platforms, including Facebook, Discord and Reddit. The Ministry of Justice also monitors their activities. According to a search warrant reviewed by, federal agents raided a now-defunct Discord group called 2A Print Depot in 2024 and seized “chats and datalinks from group members” for nearly 18 months starting in June 2023. Forbes. The accounts of two administrators of a gaggle of the identical name on Facebook were also searched, the warrant said. Agents also examined communications between members of Kelly’s Facebook group. The warrant also states that by 2025, federal investigators had created covert profiles in at the very least one in all the private groups that require users to use to enter.
According to the arrest warrant, at the very least one user was a convicted felon who appeared to post images of himself illegally using a firearm. Two of the five group managers named within the arrest warrant were charged, one with felonious possession of a firearm, one other with failing to register his 3D-printed rifle. Both have pleaded not guilty.
The concern of social media and lawmakers is comprehensible given the spate of shootings in America during the last 12 months, one in all which – the December 2024 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson – was allegedly carried out with a 3D-printed gun, also referred to as a ghost gun. Since 2013, when a corporation called Defense Distributed created the world’s first, almost entirely 3D-printed gun, there was growing concern concerning the proliferation of those weapons, largely because they aren’t traceable like firearms made by accredited corporations like Glock or Remington. This has led to a hodgepodge of laws governing their creation. As long because the gun is for private use and never on the market, it’s federally legal to print it. In some states – including Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Island – it’s a criminal offense to either print guns and their parts or share designs and distribute unserialized guns, meaning some activities by group members may very well be considered illegal in these parts of America. Anti-gun hardliners like Everytown For Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control, consider updating the law to completely ban 3D printed guns is among the best ways to counter the threat.
Do you’ve a tip about Big Tech’s role in surveillance? Contact reporter Thomas Brewster at tbrewster@forbes.com or 929-512-7964 on Signal.
There is little question that criminals make use of unregistered, untraceable ghost guns. Earlier this 12 months, in a previously unreported case, an individual in Granby, Connecticut, was charged with threatening to make use of explosive devices on New Year’s Eve 2024. When federal agents searched his home and electronics, they found a 3D printer and evidence that he had built a large arsenal, including by manufacturing several firearm parts based on designs from dark web sites. He is accused of arms trafficking and the illegal possession of machine guns and a silencer. He has pleaded not guilty.
The admins and moderators of 3D2A groups attempt to distance themselves from such associations by adhering to strict rules. The Black Lotus Coalition, where greater than 20,000 followers on Facebook and Discord share and test 3D printed gun designs, has explicit policies that require compliance with the law, civility, and prohibition of abuse or bullying. Black Lotus founder Gage Moran said that he and his administration colleagues vet design contributors for his or her knowledge of federal law before they’re accepted into the coalition, and repeatedly turn away individuals who do not know the law or give indications that they could be willing to interrupt it.
But that hasn’t stopped the Justice Department from investigating 3D printed gun fans. Such data collection from entire social media groups is rare; More often, individual accounts are raided when the federal government has good cause to reveal how the account holders were involved in a specific crime. John Davisson, senior counsel on the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Forbes that while 3D printed weapons pose a “serious public health problem,” the info searches amounted to “borderline overreach” by law enforcement.
“Once you collect at this scale, you’re inevitably collecting information from people who are just curious or who are exercising their own speech protected under the First Amendment and are not actually engaged in any kind of criminal activity,” Davisson said.
The Justice Department declined to comment. Facebook parent Meta and Discord didn’t reply to requests for comment.
Two posts from a 3D printed gun group on Facebook that were seized by law enforcement and published in a search warrant filed earlier this 12 months.
Ministry of Justice
Group administrators are aware that they’re being monitored. Kelly suspects that about half of the varied groups he’s an administrator or moderator for are cops. “I always assume that the government is monitoring me,” he said. “I don’t like it… but you don’t do things on the internet that you don’t want people to know about.”
However, there are some clear overlaps with crime. Although Peter Laucella is a convicted felon without the proper to bear a weapon, he runs a 3D2A group on Facebook with greater than 5,000 members. But government surveillance doesn’t particularly worry him. “I run the group, but I don’t really do much since I’m a convicted felon and can’t legally own a firearm. ‘Legally’ is vague terminology, if you get my point,” he said. “I believe that everyone, whether they have committed a crime or not, should own and possess whatever firearm they desire for protection.”
The state shouldn’t be the just one watching. Earlier this 12 months, Facebook and Discord banned their respective 2A Print Depot groups; Kelly’s largest group was shut down in September over a 2024 post by which an administrator posted a link to an internet site with links to 3D printing files and places to purchase gun parts. Kelly appealed the choice and was told the group could be reinstated. That continues to be not the case. Similarly, Moran has seen Black Lotus Coalition accounts faraway from Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and YouTube. What was most surprising was that X banned his group. “Especially when Elon Musk placed so much emphasis on freedom of speech,” he said.
But Moran could either create latest accounts with an identical name or unban them. And when one group goes down, Kelly and his fellow admins say the opposite groups they run see an uptick in activity. “We have backup groups for the backup groups…You can’t stop the signal,” he said.
Still, Moran said, many members of the Black Lotus Coalition use non-social, encrypted messengers to share 3D weapon designs and print files. “The majority of members have families, and our members include doctors, lawyers, teachers and engineers,” he said. “We recognize the controversial nature of this hobby and have seen individuals tortured by all sorts of supporters, from anti-gun groups to the news media.”
Not that such apps will at all times stop law enforcement from finding criminal users. Last month, a 25-year-old U.S. Army National Guard worker from Tulsa was indicted on allegations that he used the encrypted messengers Signal and WhatsApp to send 3D-printed weapons and drone parts to a one who claimed to have ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda. (He has not yet entered a plea). According to the criticism, the suspect allegedly printed and sold various gun parts, including 119 switches – devices that turn handguns into machine guns.
In the logic of 2nd Amendment absolutists, such criminality mustn’t prevent everyone from printing and owning guns. “Being a criminal is a very dangerous profession and they have to protect themselves,” Kelly said. “If our Second Amendment is implemented properly, we don’t have to be afraid of criminals with guns, because we are armed too. An armed society is a polite society.”
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