3D printing firm is licensed to make and sell firearms

3D PRINTABLE GUN PROJECT Defense Distributed has acquired a federal license to make and sell firearms in the US.

The organisation revealed the news via its Facebook page on Saturday along with a picture of the Type 7 federal firearms license (FFL) to prove it with the caption, "Look who now has a license to manufacture firearms! The work begins!"

Defense Ditributed's founder Cody Wilson submitted the application to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms last October. With US government approval, Wilson will be able to distribute guns, but as a firearms dealer the company must keep records of gun production and all transactions.

Wilson said he will not actually begin manufacturing and selling guns until he receives an "add-on" to the FFL, known as a Class 2 Special Occupational Taxpayer (SOT), as licensed under federal law.

Under the National Firearms Act, the addition of an SOT will give Wilson the right to produce a wider range of firearms, allowing Defense Distributed to manufacture a fully automatic rifle, for example, if it sees a demand for them.

According to Ars Technica, Wilson applied for the SOT on Saturday and is expecting approval within the next couple of weeks.

"In a way it's like we're just beginning, I'm not going to begin until we have that SOT," he told Ars. "[We're going to] sell some of the stuff we've already made, we'll probably make some stuff to sell and that will be a better way of covering the prototyping."

Defense Ditributed has been producing 3D printed gun prototypes for a while, including an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, which is allowed under US law without a licence.

The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world, with 89 guns for every 100 Americans. The introduction of easy accessed 3D printed guns is only going to aid its increase.

There were 12,664 murders in the US in 2011 and of those, 8,583 were caused by firearms, according to the FBI's uniform crime report. µ