Plans for producing these firearms are easily available online, and the item can be made using a consumer-grade 3D printer.īen Lawson, acting staff sergeant of the Calgary Police Service's Firearms Investigative Unit, shows 3D-printed firearms that were seized by his unit. The other parts of the gun can be purchased at gun stores and online without a firearms licence. They have no serial number, because the printed part of the gun is the receiver, the part of the weapon that is regulated in Canada. 'All of a sudden now, we're seeing this uptick in 2022, so who knows what 2023 is going to bring.'ģD-printed guns fall into a category of homemade firearms referred to as 'ghost guns,' in part because they are untraceable. 'I wasn't a big proponent of putting a lot of resources into 3D-printed guns here in Calgary when we first started, because we just didn't see them,' said Ben Lawson, acting staff sergeant of the Calgary Police Service Firearms Investigative Unit. In Calgary, for example, police seized 17 3D-printed guns in 2022, compared to just one each in 20. Police in Canada seized more than 100 3D-printed guns last year, with some jurisdictions seeing big increases in this type of weapon and even busting manufacturing rings for the first time.
