I 
115TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 6649 
To amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the publica-
tion of 3D printer plans for the printing of firearms, and for other 
purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
AUGUST 3, 2018 
Mr. DEUTCH (for himself, Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Mr. SCHNEIDER, and 
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to 
prohibit the publication of 3D printer plans for the print-
ing of firearms, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘3D Printed Gun Safety 
Act of 2018’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Three dimensional, or ‘‘3D’’ printing, in-
volves the programming of a 3D printing machine 
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with a computer file that provides the schematics for 
the item to be printed. 
(2) Recent technological developments have al-
lowed for the 3D printing of firearms and firearm 
parts, including parts made out of plastic, by unli-
censed individuals in possession of relatively inexpen-
sive 3D printers. 
(3) Because 3D printing allows individuals to 
make their own firearms out of plastic, they may be 
able to evade detection by metal detectors at security 
checkpoints, increasing the risk that a firearm will 
be used to perpetrate violence on an airplane or 
other area where people congregate. 
(4) The availability of online schematics for the 
3D printing of firearms and firearm parts increases 
the risk that dangerous people, including felons, do-
mestic abusers, and other people prohibited from 
possessing firearms under Federal law, will obtain a 
firearm through 3D printing. 
(5) On June 7, 2013, an assailant used a gun 
he had constructed by himself to kill his father, 
brother, and 3 other people at Santa Monica College 
in California. The person had failed a background 
check when he tried to purchase a gun from a li-
censed gun dealer. The gun he used was made from 
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an unfinished AR–15-style receiver, similar to a re-
ceiver that can now be made with a 3D printer. 
(6) Firearms tracing is a powerful investigative 
tool. When law enforcement agencies recover fire-
arms that have been used in crimes, the agencies 
work with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire-
arms, and Explosives to trace these firearms to their 
first retail purchaser. The agencies can use that in-
formation to investigate and solve the crimes. In 
2017 alone, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire-
arms, and Explosives conducted 408,000 traces. 
(7) Firearms tracing depends on the ability to 
identify firearms based on their serial number. Tra-
ditionally, when a firearm is manufactured domesti-
cally or imported from abroad, it is engraved with 
a serial number and markings that identify the man-
ufacturer or importer, make, model, and caliber, and 
are unique to the firearm. Firearms made by unli-
censed individuals with 3D printers, however, do not 
contain genuine serial numbers. 
(8) Criminals seek firearms without serial num-
bers because they cannot be traced. In July 2018, 
the Los Angeles Police Department completed a 6- 
month-long investigation that resulted in the seizure 
of 45 firearms, some of which had been assembled 
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without serial numbers in order to be untraceable. If 
the schematics for 3D printing firearms and firearm 
parts are available online, people intending to com-
mit gun crimes may create similarly untraceable 
firearms in order to avoid accountability for these 
crimes. 
(9) Interstate gun trafficking, including the 
trafficking of untraceable firearms, interferes with 
lawful commerce in firearms and significantly con-
tributes to gun crime. Of the 211,384 firearms 
traced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, 
and Explosives in 2016, 60,936 of those firearms 
were originally sold by a licensed firearms dealer in 
a state other than the State where they were recov-
ered. These guns made up 28.8 percent of all fire-
arm recoveries in 2016. 
(10) The proliferation of 3D printed firearms 
threatens to undermine the entire Federal firearms 
regulatory scheme and to endanger public safety and 
national security. By making illegal the publication 
of certain computer code that can be used automati-
cally to program 3D printers and create firearms— 
the only means of combating this unique threat— 
Congress seeks not to regulate the rights of com-
puter programmers under the First Amendment to 
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the Constitution of the United States, but rather to 
curb the pernicious effects of untraceable—and po-
tentially undetectable—firearms. 
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION. 
Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is 
amended by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(aa) It shall be unlawful for any person to inten-
tionally publish, over the Internet or by means of the 
World Wide Web, digital instructions in the form of Com-
puter Aided Design files or other code that can automati-
cally program a 3-dimensional printer or similar device to 
produce a firearm or complete a firearm from an unfin-
ished frame or receiver.’’. 
Æ 
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