US politicians are calling for all 3D printing blueprints for guns to be removed from all social media and Internet platforms.
The call is made amid fears the terrorists or criminals could access plans for 3D-printed firearms that would be invisible to metal detectors.
The debate around 3D-printed guns came to a head in July, when Defense Distributed announced that it would make blueprints for a working 3D-printed guns available online.
The plans were initially published in 2013, but removed on the order of the US federal government. This order was recently overturned, and Defense Distributed’s Cody Wilson planned to re-publish them on 1 August.
The blueprints include instructions for printing handguns, AR-15-type rifles and AK-47-type assault rifles.
A temporary injunction forbade their publication, although it’s believed that leaked plans for the AR-15 rifle might have been downloaded up to 1 000 times.
Now, a group of US senators has asked Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Microsoft, Craigslist and Reddit to remove content that could teach users how to use 3D printing to create guns.