The Liberator is a
3D-printable single shot
handgun
A handgun is a short- barrelled gun, typically a firearm, that is designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun (i.e. rifle, shotgun or machine gun, etc.), which needs to be held by both hands and also braced ...
, the first such
printable firearm design made widely available online. The
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
firm
Defense Distributed
Defense Distributed is an online open-source hardware organization that develops digital schematics of firearms in CAD files, or "wiki weapons", that may be downloaded from the Internet and used in 3D printing or CNC milling applications. Among ...
designed the gun and released the plans on the Internet on May 6, 2013. The plans were downloaded over 100,000 times in the two days before the
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
demanded that Defense Distributed retract the plans.
The plans for the gun remain hosted across the Internet and are available at
file sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...
websites like
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute mag ...
and
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
.
On July 19, 2018 the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...
reached a settlement with
Defense Distributed
Defense Distributed is an online open-source hardware organization that develops digital schematics of firearms in CAD files, or "wiki weapons", that may be downloaded from the Internet and used in 3D printing or CNC milling applications. Among ...
, allowing the sale of plans for 3D-printed firearms online, beginning August 1, 2018.
On July 31, 2018 President of the United States
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
posted on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
about the decision to allow the online publication of the Liberator's files: “I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to
NRA
The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent gun rights lobbying organization while conti ...
, doesn’t seem to make much sense!”
On the same day the tweet was posted, a federal judge stopped the release of blueprints to make the Liberator due to it being an untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed plastic gun, citing safety concerns.
On April 27, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the injunction and ordered the district court to dismiss the case, holding that Congress had expressly prohibited judicial review of the agency decisions in question. President
Joe Biden announced in early April that the Justice Department would issue new rules for ghost guns within 30 days.
Namesake and concept
The pistol is named after the
FP-45 Liberator
The FP-45 Liberator is a Handgun, pistol manufactured by the United States military during World War II for use by resistance forces in occupied territories. The ''Liberator'' was never issued to American or other Allied troops, and there are fe ...
, a single-shot pistol that
George Hyde designed and that the Inland Manufacturing Division of the
General Motors Corporation
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
mass-produced for the United States
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
(OSS) in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The OSS intended to air drop the gun into occupied Europe for
resistance forces to use.
A project of the OSS (which would later become the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
), it is thought the Liberator was equally purposed as a tool of
psychological warfare
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Mi ...
.
Occupying forces in Europe would have to weigh evidence of distributed pistols as a factor in planning against civilian resistance, which would complicate their strategy and affect morale. However, though used in France, there is little proof that the pistols were ever dropped into occupied Europe in large quantities.
The
physible
The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute mag ...
Liberator's release to the Internet can be understood as Defense Distributed's attempt to more successfully execute the historical psychological operation, and as a symbolic act supporting resistance to world governments.
Withdrawal of plans and The Pirate Bay hosting
Days after their publication, the
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
's Office of Defense Trade Controls issued a letter to Defense Distributed demanding that it retract the Liberator plans from public availability. The State Department justified this demand by asserting the right to regulate the flow of technical data related to arms, and its role in enforcing the
Arms Export Control Act
The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (Title II of , codified at ) gives the President of the United States the authority to control the import and export of defense articles and defense services. The H.R. 13680 legislation was passed by the 94th ...
of 1976.
However, soon thereafter the design appeared on
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute mag ...
(TPB), which publicly stated its defense of the information. Quoted on
TorrentFreak
__NOTOC__
TorrentFreak (TF) is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing, as well as on copyright infringement and digital rights.
The website was started in November 2005 by a Dutchman ...
: "TPB has for close to 10 years been operating without taking down one single torrent due to pressure from the outside. And it will never start doing that."
The site would go on to issue a statement on its Facebook page:
Reception
Original copies of the Liberator have been permanently acquired by the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
,
and a copy of the gun is on display at London's
Science Museum
A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...
.
Writing in ''
The Register
''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tec ...
'', Lewis Page ridiculed the Liberator, stating "it isn't any more a gun than any other very short piece of plastic pipe is a "gun"", and comparing it with a 1950s
zip gun.
The television series ''
How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)
''How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)'' is a German coming-of-age dark humor crime streaming television series co-created by Philipp Käßbohrer and Matthias Murmann. The first season, consisting of six episodes, was released on 31 May 2019, on Ne ...
'' depicts one of its protagonists printing and using a Liberator for self defense.
Usage history
In May 2013, Finnish
Yle TV2
Yle TV2 ( fi, Yle TV Kaksi; sv, Yle TV Två) is a Finnish television channel owned and operated by Yle. TV2 was launched in 1965 as the successor to the former television channels TES-TV (Tesvisio) and Tamvisio, and broadcasts public service p ...
current affairs programme ''
Ajankohtainen kakkonen'' produced a Liberator handgun under the supervision of a licensed gunsmith and fired it under controlled conditions. During the experiment, the weapon shattered. It was later found that an error was made concerning the settings of the 3D printer. Printed under the right conditions, the Liberator gun has a lifespan of 8–10 shots.
Israeli
Channel 10 reporters built and tested a Liberator with a 9 mm cartridge, successfully hitting a target at a distance of several meters. On June 24, 2013, the reporters smuggled the gun (without barrel and ammunition) into the Israeli
house of parliament, coming within a short distance of Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...
.
A Japanese man
printed
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
and assembled five copies of the Liberator, and on or about April 12, 2014, he uploaded video evidence of his possession of the weapons to the internet. Authorities arrested him on May 8, 2014, and found that at least two of the copies possessed lethal power.
Cody Wilson
Cody Rutledge Wilson (born January 31, 1988) is an American gun rights activist and crypto-anarchist. He is a founder and director of Defense Distributed, a non-profit organization that develops and publishes open source gun designs, so-called ...
, a founder of
Defense Distributed
Defense Distributed is an online open-source hardware organization that develops digital schematics of firearms in CAD files, or "wiki weapons", that may be downloaded from the Internet and used in 3D printing or CNC milling applications. Among ...
, stated on the incident that the man "performed his work in the open, without suspicion, fear or dishonor".
See also
*
List of notable 3D printed weapons and parts
This is a list of notable 3D printed weapons and parts. The table below lists noteworthy 3D printed weapons (mainly firearms) and parts of weapons as well as items with a defense-related background. It includes 3D printed weapons and parts creat ...
References
External links
Fosscad repository of Liberator variationsDEFCAD
{{Portal bar, Anarchism, Law, Freedom of speech, Internet, Libertarianism, United States, War
Personal weapons
Handguns
3D printed firearms
Weapons and ammunition introduced in 2013
Fused filament fabrication