[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3304 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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115th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 3304
To amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the
publication of 3D printer plans for the printing of firearms, and for
other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
July 31, 2018
Mr. Nelson (for himself, Mr. Schumer, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Blumenthal,
Mr. Markey, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Brown, Ms. Klobuchar,
Mrs. Murray, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Reed, Mr. Booker, Mr. Schatz, Mr. Casey,
Ms. Hirono, Mr. Kaine, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Harris, Mr. Leahy, Mr.
Carper, Ms. Smith, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Whitehouse, Ms.
Warren, Ms. Duckworth, Mr. Coons, Ms. Hassan, Mr. Merkley, and Mr.
Cardin) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and
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 printing of firearms, and for
other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 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, involves the
programming of a 3D printing machine with a computer file that
provides the schematics for the item to be printed.
(2) Recent technological developments have allowed for the
3D printing of firearms and firearm parts, including parts made
out of plastic, by unlicensed individuals in possession of
relatively inexpensive 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, domestic 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 licensed gun dealer. The gun he used was made from an
unfinished AR-15-style receiver, similar to a receiver that can
now be made with a 3D printer.
(6) Firearms tracing is a powerful investigative tool. When
law enforcement agencies recover firearms that have been used
in crimes, the agencies work with the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to trace these firearms to
their first retail purchaser. The agencies can use that
information to investigate and solve the crimes. In 2017 alone,
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
conducted 408,000 traces.
(7) Firearms tracing depends on the ability to identify
firearms based on their serial number. Traditionally, when a
firearm is manufactured domestically or imported from abroad,
it is engraved with a serial number and markings that identify
the manufacturer or importer, make, model, and caliber, and are
unique to the firearm. Firearms made by unlicensed individuals
with 3D printers, however, do not contain genuine serial
numbers.
(8) Criminals seek firearms without serial numbers 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
without serial numbers in order to be untraceable. If the
schematics for 3D printing firearms and firearm parts are
available online, people intending to commit 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 contributes 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 recovered. These guns made up
28.8 percent of all firearm 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
automatically to program 3D printers and create firearms--the
only means of combating this unique threat--Congress seeks not
to regulate the rights of computer programmers under the First
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, but rather
to curb the pernicious effects of untraceable--and potentially
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 intentionally
publish, over the Internet or by means of the World Wide Web, digital
instructions in the form of Computer Aided Design files or other code
that can automatically program a 3-dimensional printer or similar
device to produce a firearm or complete a firearm from an unfinished
frame or receiver.''.
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