But the idea that you can keep guns out of people's hands is truly dead, and it was a cold-blooded murder.

See, while criminals have always had access to guns one way or another, the more restrictive you make it for law-abiding citizens, though, the theory goes that you'll make it even harder for criminals to get them. That might be true if the only way to get a gun was through lawful purchase or theft from lawful gun buyers. It's not, though. There are numerous sources out there that while our criminals might not avail themselves of, it's only because they haven't needed it.

But a piece in The Guardian has a headline that begins with a quote, and it's one everyone needs to understand: "Gun control is dead, and we killed it." (Apologies in advance for the language.)

Nyman was working from a blueprint, easily available online, for a model called the FGC-9, which revolutionised the world of 3D-printed weapons when it was published in March 2020. FGC stands for “fuck gun control” and 9 refers to the 9mm bullets it uses. The slogan reflects the ideological leaning of many involved in the development of 3D-printed guns. In an anonymised interview given after the manual was published, the creator of the FGC-9, who posted under the name JStark1809, said, “We fucked gun control for good … Gun control is dead, and we killed it.” JStark1809 has since been revealed to be Jacob Duygu, a German man of Kurdish origin. In the FGC-9 manifesto, he called on people “to defend yourself and not be a victim to unjust firearm legislation any longer”. Elsewhere, he had posted about being an “incel”. In 2021, he was arrested by the German police. Two days later, he was found dead in a car parked outside his parents’ home in Hanover. He was 28. The German magazine Der Spiegel reported that an autopsy had been unable to determine the cause of death, but foul play and suicide had been ruled out. His mysterious death is the subject of many online conspiracy theories in the 3D-printed gun world.

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The FGC-9 changed everything. Unlike those early models, the FGC-9 includes no regulated components: it can be made using just a 3D printer and parts available from a hardware store; it requires only some metalworking skills. Today, 3D printers are available for a couple of hundred pounds, while strong plastic polymers to print with are relatively inexpensive. The upper and lower receivers of the FGC-9 (the barrel assembly and trigger sections) are fully 3D-printed from plastic, as are the pistol grip and stock. The magazine can also be printed. Unlike previous 3D-printed gun models, it is a semi-automatic weapon. “It was revolutionary,” says Dr Rajan Basra, a researcher from King’s College London who studies 3D-printed weapons. The FGC-9 is now thought to be the most popular 3D-printed weapon in the world. It is particularly difficult to police, given that it doesn’t involve illegal parts. As Basra says, “You can’t regulate a steel tube or a spring.”

The piece in question is written to make these guns terrifying. All the wrong people are making them, after all, and they invoke the specter of "far-right" violence, racial accelerationists, and other boogiemen that terrify decent British folks.

But here's the thing that The Guardian isn't going to tell you. Guns like the FCG-9? They make it so no nation can oppress the people if the people have the will to challenge them.

Yes, criminals may well make guns, including designs like the FGC-9, but so can common folk who don't wish to let a tyrant rule them. Then there are those in the middle who simply think it's cool to make stuff or who know it's illegal, but they'd rather rot in prison than be killed by a bad guy they were powerless to defend themselves against.

Years ago, when I first started here, I wrote about P.A. Luty's backyard submachine gun. I noted how that gun shattered gun control myths because it was an approachable way to build a firearm regardless of gun control regulations in any given place. However, Luty's design still requires at least some tooling most people don't have and skills that many don't really wish to acquire.

The rise of the 3D printer marked the end of any hope gun control had of keeping guns out of anyone's hands. While most people here just build with traditional gun parts, using the printer to make the bits that constitute a gun under federal law, the FGC-9 invalidates proposals to serialize and restrict other parts of the weapon.

Now, you can build a firearm that works just fine with unrestricted, off-the-shelf parts.

Other designs will follow, I'm sure, and so it's time to start looking elsewhere to address crime. You're never going to stop the files from floating around. You're never going to stop criminals from being able to make their own firearms.

It's time to start looking elsewhere if you want to curtail violent crime, even if you long thought gun control was a good idea. It won't work now, even if the base assumptions behind it were valid. Since they never were, it's really not going to work.