Improvised firearms or “zip guns” have been around for a long time. They refer to a firearm made by someone other than a firearms manufacturer or gunsmith. I remember a Clint Eastwood movie from the early 1990’s called “In the Line of Fire” where the bad guy played by John Malkovich uses his model-making skills to build a zip gun out of composite materials to evade metal detectors. Well, here in the 21st century it is now possible to build a plastic firearm using an inexpensive 3-D printer. There are also industrial 3-D printers that are extremely expensive and can print a gun made of metal. In 2013 a U.S. company that develops digital firearms files released the files on the internet for the world’s first completely printed 3-D gun, which are called “ghost guns”. At the time, the U.S. Department of State demanded the files be removed from the internet and, of course, in the land of the free, the company, joined by the Second Amendment Foundation, went to court and just this week the Department of Justice settled with the company who can now again publish instructions for the production of 3-D printed firearms. Isn’t that just ducky? Except that those who want to print a ghost gun don’t plan to use it for shooting ducks.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.