THE GUN FORUM

This is my ghost gun. To quote the rifleman’s creed, there are many like it, however this one is mine. It’s known as a “ghost gun”—a term popularized by gun control advocates but increasingly adopted by gun lovers too—because it’s an untraceable semiautomatic rifle with no serial number, existing beyond law enforcement’s information and management. And if I really feel an unusually private connection to this deadly, libertarian weapon, it’s because I made it myself, in a back room of WIRED’s downtown San Francisco workplace on a cloudy afternoon.

Video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2skc8 ... wired_tech

I did this mostly alone. I have nearly no technical understanding of firearms and a Cro-Magnon man’s mastery of power tools. Still, I made a completely metallic, functional, and accurate AR-15. To be particular, I made the rifle’s lower receiver; that’s the body of the gun, the only part that US legislation defines and regulates as a “firearm.” All I needed for my completely legal DIY gunsmithing venture was about six hours, a 12-yr–old’s understanding of pc software program, an $80 chunk of aluminum, and an almost featureless black 1-cubic-foot desktop milling machine known as the Ghost Gunner.



Fully assembled AR-15

The Ghost Gunner is a $1,500 computer-numerical-controlled (CNC) mill sold by Defense Distributed, the gun access advocacy group that gained notoriety in 2012 and 2013 when it started creating 3D-printed gun components and the Liberator, the world’s first totally 3D printed pistol. While the political controversy surrounding the notion of a deadly plastic weapon that anybody can obtain and print has waxed and waned, Defense Distributed’s DIY gun-making has advanced from plastic to metallic. Like different CNC mills, the Ghost Gunner uses a digital file to carve objects out of aluminum. With the primary shipments of this sold-out machine starting this spring, the group intends to make it vastly simpler for regular folks to manufacture gun elements out of a material that’s practically as sturdy as the stuff utilized in industrially manufactured weapons.