GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- On Tuesday a federal judge temporarily blocked the online distribution of blueprints for 3D-printed guns, just hours ahead of their midnight release.
Concerns are growing over 3-D printed guns after Texas based company Defense Distributed reached a settlement with the federal government allowing them to make plans for the guns accessible to the public.
But late Tuesday night that plan was temporarily blocked, to the relief of local police.
"I mean they're made out of plastic, you're putting a bullet in a plastic device. We don't know how that's going to react," says Joshua Cudney, Grand Rapids Police Department.
In theory, anyone with a 3-D printer could make the fully functional gun, but experts FOX 17 talked to say it’s not the easiest or safest option out there.
"Yes, they could 3D print it, yes with a lot of time and a lot experimentation. Yeah, they could probably put it together where it might be functional. And I say might be functional because there's videos of the liberator pistols blowing up in people's hands," says Paul DeWys, Forerunner 3D Printing Owner.
The Axiom is the 3D printer the average consumer would use. But using the machine to make a 3D printer gun could not only be dangerous, it could be expensive as well.
"An entry level machine that could do what you need it to do for making a 3D printed gun starts at about $75,000. This is definitely the class of machine that people would be attempting to use, but it's not an engineering grade machine, it doesn't use parts that would hold. And anything that comes off of this machine would be widely dangerous," DeWys said.
And hard to trace, which is one of the biggest concerns with 3D guns.
"It is a concern whenever you have a weapon that could be used to hurt somebody when we aren't able to trace it and using our traditional tools is always an issue to our detective," says Cudney.
Though there's a hold on blueprints for the guns being released, GRPD says they're still preparing for the technological advancement.
"I'm sure that as we encounter more and as our forensic unit encounters more they'll start to develop to trace plastic," says Cudney.
FOX 17 also reached out to the TSA to see if these plastic guns could get past security. We’re told they can and have been detected at security checkpoints and anyone found with a 3-D printed firearm in the security line could face criminal charges.
Another hearing on the downloadable plans is set for Aug. 10.
