Apink uzi. A leopardskin handgun with a golden scope. A rifle designed to look like it's from the Halo videogame. A multicolor toy assault rifle, made for a four-year-old’s birthday.
These aren't the kinds of guns you can buy off the rack. They were built at home, with 3D printers, evidence of a burgeoning online community where enthusiasts imagine, design and literally print out the guns of their dreams and then share the results online. Tens of thousands of users have joined private social media groups on Facebook, Discord and other sites to share their latest handgun creation, offer tips on how to print weapons and commiserate about anti-gun laws. Many of these so-called “3D2A” groups are run by 2nd amendment absolutists who say that they’re exercising their constitutional rights and participating in an increasingly popular American pastime; like an arts and crafts community, but for deadly weapons.
“If you can go to the library and get a book about how to build a gun, you should be able to do the same thing online,” says Todd Kelly, who helped set up the 2A Printing Facebook group with over 60,000 members. He describes the gun designs posted in the group as “art” that amounts to free speech, and is explicit about his political aims. “Our goal in the 3D printed community is that no government will ever be able to tell someone that they cannot have a gun.”
“As soon as you are collecting at that scale, you are inevitably collecting information from people who are just curious.”
But the movement is up against the twin enforcers of social media companies and the government. Often, the groups are banned for posts that appear to facilitate weapons sales or are mistakenly identified by moderators as such, a practice outlawed across most major social platforms, including Facebook, Discord and Reddit. The Justice Department is also keeping tabs on their activity. Federal agents raided a now-defunct Discord group called the 2A Print Depot in 2024, seizing “group members’ chats and data links” for a nearly 18 month stretch beginning in June 2023, according to a search warrant reviewed by Forbes. Two administrators of a group with the same name on Facebook also had their accounts searched, the warrant said. Agents similarly looked into communications between members of Kelly’s Facebook group. The warrant also said federal investigators have run undercover profiles in at least one of the private groups, which require users to apply for entry, through to 2025.
The warrant said that at least one user was a convicted felon, and appeared to be posting images of themselves illegally using a firearm. Two of the five group administrators named in the warrant have been charged, one for being a felon in ownership of a firearm, another for failing to register their 3D-printed rifle. Both have pleaded not guilty.
The concern among social sites and lawmakers is understandable, given the barrage of shootings in America over the last year, one of which —the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, in December 2024—was allegedly perpetrated with a 3D-printed weapon, also known as a ghost gun. Since 2013, when an organization called Defense Distributed made the world’s first almost-entirely 3D-printed gun, there’s been a rising anxiety around the proliferation of the weapons, largely because they’re not traceable like firearms manufactured by accredited companies like Glock or Remington. It’s led to a hodgepodge of laws governing their creation. Federally, as long as the gun is for personal use and not to be sold, it’s legal to print them. In some states—including Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Island—it’s a crime to either print guns and their parts or to share designs and distribute unserialized weapons, meaning some group member activities could be deemed illegal in those parts of America. Anti-gun hardliners like Everytown For Gun Safety, a nonprofit advocating gun control, believe updating the law to fully ban 3D printed weapons is one of the best ways to counter the threat.
There’s no doubt criminals are availing themselves of unregistered, untraceable ghost guns. Earlier this year, in a previously-unreported case, an individual in Granby, Connecticut was charged after making threats to use explosive devices on New Year’s Eve in 2024. When federal agents raided his home and his electronics, they found a 3D printer and evidence he’d been building a sizable arsenal, in part by manufacturing multiple firearm parts based on designs from dark web sites. He’s been charged with firearms trafficking, as well as unlawful possession of machine guns and a silencer. He has pleaded not guilty.
The admins and moderators of 3D2A groups try to distance themselves from such associations by maintaining strict rules. The Black Lotus Coalition, in which more than 20,000 followers across Facebook and Discord share and test 3D-printed gun designs, has explicit policies requiring compliance with the law, along with civility and no abuse or bullying. Black Lotus founder Gage Moran said he and fellow admins vet design contributors for knowledge of federal statutes before being allowed into the Coalition, and it regularly turns people away who don’t know the law or give any indication that they might be willing to break it.
That hasn’t stopped the Justice Department from investigating 3D printed gun enthusiasts. Such data grabs from entire social media groups are rare; more often, singular accounts are raided when the government has probable cause to show how account owners were involved in a specific crime. John Davisson, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told Forbes that while 3D printed guns are a “serious public health concern,” the data raids amounted to “borderline overreach” by law enforcement.
“As soon as you are collecting at that scale, you are inevitably collecting information from people who are just curious, or who are exercising their own First Amendment protected speech and not actually engaged in any kind of criminal activity,” Davisson said.
The Department of Justice declined to comment. Facebook parent Meta and Discord did not respond to comment requests.
Admins of the groups are well aware they’re being monitored. Kelly suspects about half of the various groups of which he’s either an admin or a moderator are cops. “I always assume that the government is surveilling me,” he said. “I don't like it… but you don't do things on the internet that you don't want people to find out about.”
But there’s some clear overlap with criminality. Despite being a convicted felon with no legal right to carry a weapon, Peter Laucella runs a 3D2A group on Facebook with more than 5,000 members. But he’s not particularly concerned about government surveillance. “I run the group but I’m not really doing much since I am a convicted felon and can’t legally own a firearm. Legally is a vague terminology, if you get my point,” he said. “I believe everyone, whether or not they have a felony, should own and possess any firearm they wish for protection.”
The state isn’t the only one watching. Earlier this year, Facebook and Discord banned their respective 2A Print Depot groups; Kelly’s biggest group was shut down in September over a 2024 post in which an admin posted a link to a website containing links to 3D printing files and places to buy gun parts. Kelly appealed the decision and was told the group would be reinstated. It still hasn’t. Similarly, Moran has seen Black Lotus Coalition accounts removed by Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and YouTube, though most surprising was when X barred his group. “Especially when Elon Musk made such a big deal about freedom of speech,” he said.
But Moran has been able to either create new accounts with a similar name or get suspensions lifted. And when one group goes down, Kelly and his fellow admins say the other groups they run see a spike in activity. “We have backup groups for the backup groups… They can’t stop the signal,” he said.
Still, Moran said many Black Lotus Coalition members use non-social, encrypted messengers to share 3D gun designs and printing files. “The majority of members have families, and our membership includes doctors, lawyers, teachers and engineers,” he said. “We are aware of the controversial nature of this hobby and have seen individuals be doxxed by everyone from anti-firearms groups to news media.”
Not that such apps will always stop law enforcement from finding criminal users. Last month, a 25-year-old U.S. Army National Guard employee from Tulsa was charged over allegations he used encrypted messengers Signal and WhatsApp to ship 3D-printed gun and drone parts to an individual claiming to have connections to the terror group Al-Qaida. (He is yet to issue a plea). According to the complaint, the suspect allegedly printed and sold various gun parts, including 119 switches—devices that transform handguns into machine guns.
In the logic of 2nd Amendment absolutists, such criminality shouldn’t preclude everyone printing and owning guns. “Being a criminal is a very dangerous occupation, and they need to protect themselves,” Kelly says. “If our Second Amendment is being enacted properly, we don't have to be scared of criminals with guns, because we're armed too. An armed society is a polite society.”