Police have raised concerns over the growing risk of 3D-printed firearms, with experts predicting criminals will increasingly turn to it as the technology improves and becomes cheaper.
Firearms Safety Authority chief executive Superintendent Richard Wilson told 1News that 3D-printed firearms were an “emerging risk” which was “trending up”.
“At the moment, 1% of our firearm seizures are 3D-printed firearms. However, it doesn’t deter from the fact that it’s probably going to grow, because as a technology grows and as criminals look for other ways that they can access our firearms illegally.”
He said he believed in time it would become easier to access 3D-printed firearms than it would through straw buyers – one of the main methods of accessing illegal firearms currently.
Wilson said criminals making firearms using 3D printers was something police would not tolerate.
“We will be detecting and chasing those individuals down.”
NZ must ‘get ahead of the game’ — law professor
University of Waikato law professor Al Gillespie said it was “just the tip of an iceberg”.
“The trend looking forward is that there will be many more 3D firearms, and they will get more effective, cheaper, and criminals will increasingly turn to them.”
Currently, the cost was still prohibitive to making 3D-printed firearms an alternative to traditional illegal firearms, but Gillespie said as they became cheaper and more reliable to produce, we could expect to see more of them.
“Criminals often make very strategic decisions about cost and reliability because the other thing about the 3D firearm is that the moment they aren’t reliable and they’ve got a shorter lifespan and that they aren’t yet as good as commercially graded firearms, but that’s probably only a couple of years away.”
New Zealand was at the “lower end of the curve” when it came to facing the problem, with other countries like Canada and the United States experiencing a “much greater rate” of illegal firearms, Gillespie said.
“We can expect that as our criminal fraternity interacts with overseas criminal fraternities through the drug trade and organised crime that they too will learn from the same examples.”
He said New Zealand has “got to get ahead of the game” in terms of a legislative response.
“It’s foreseeable that someone will use these for nefarious purposes. We’ve got to make sure our law is robust as it can be. We have to make sure that illegal firearms of any type do not fall into the wrong hands.”
Govt says legislation needs to be future-proofed
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee said she was “extremely concerned” about 3D printed firearms and that current legislation was ill-equipped to deal with the issue.
“This speaks volumes to why we need to upgrade the Arms Act and make it more future proof.”
McKee confirmed the Government was considering incorporating 3D-printed firearms into the upcoming review of the Arms Act, which would address the evolving landscape of firearms technology.
“The difference that we need to make here in New Zealand is to allow the innovation while making sure that we stamp out the criminal misuse.”
For example, Hamilton-based firm Glacier Rifles used 3D printers to create prototypes of its rifles.
She said she had directed officials to investigate whether blueprints for 3D printed weapons could be allowed for manufacturers or banned for other people.
“I don’t know what that’s going to look like, especially when we are the ones throughout the world that are being innovative for 3D printing.”
McKee hoped to bring the legislation to Cabinet within four to eight weeks.
