Last week, media outlets all over the globe shared the shocking footage of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson being gunned down in front of his hotel in Midtown Manhattan by a masked man. Over the weekend, a large-scale manhunt took place across New York City and further afield for the assassin, who reportedly left a decoy backpack filled with Monopoly money in Central Park. Yesterday, authorities reported that they had apprehended the suspect, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He had on him a written manifesto, various IDs and a ghost gun that according to police cited in The Guardian was “made with a 3D printer”.
According to the police who arrested Mangione, this ghost gun could have been the one used to kill Thompson, as it was capable of firing nine millimeter rounds and could be used with a silencer. While we still don’t know all the details yet, it is possible that this killing is the highest profile crime involving a (possibly 3D printed) ghost gun. (There was also speculation that the gun used in the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe may have been 3D printed, though that has never been confirmed.)
Ghost guns have proven to be a challenge for gun control efforts, particularly in recent years. The unserialized firearms are typically constructed from DIY kits bought online, which can be assembled at home with varying degrees of reliability and functionality. With the rise of 3D printing in the past few decades, the ability to rapidly produce gun components from digital files has become a real concern.
To be clear, we are not in the habit of stoking the flames of a debate that has dominated mainstream coverage of 3D printing technologies. For every healthcare or art 3D printing story that breaks through into mainstream news, there are many more about the threat of 3D printed guns. As everyone in the AM industry will know well, this isn’t really representative of 3D printing’s abilities and its applications. That said, 3D printed guns, and ghost guns more broadly, are a growing problem.
In an article in The Guardian, Rueben Dass, a researcher on the topic at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said: “If you look at the numbers, 95% of the plots have been failures in the sense that people have been arrested before they actually shot the guns—for manufacture, possession, trafficking. But it’s a serious, growing risk because the technologies are becoming cheaper and more advanced and accessible.”
Brian Thompson acted as CEO for UnitedHealthcare, the United States’ largest health insurance provider whose claim denial rate is reportedly double the industry average and which is currently facing a class action lawsuit for using AI to automate claim refusal.
