Are 3D-printed guns really dangerous?

BANGALORE, INDIA: Ever since Cody Wilson, the founder of Defense Distributed, fired the first shot from his 3D-printed gun few days ago, he created a flutter across the technology world with experts weighing down the pros and cons of 3D printing. After the blueprints for the plastic gun were downloaded 100,000 times, the US government has now demanded designs for a 3D-printed gun be taken offline.

A BBC report says that although the files have been removed from the company's Defcad site, it is not clear whether this will stop people accessing the blueprints. The printed gun, also called the Liberator, is made out of plastic on a printer. Many links to copies of the blueprints have been uploaded to file-sharing site the Pirate Bay and social networking site Reddit.

The danger lies in the fact that gun-making is made easier and there is fear that such guns will not be detected by metal detectors. Cody Wilson has an explanation for why the guns aren't dangerous. For him, 3D printed gun isn't to give people efficient weapons. He told CNET that using 3D printers to make guns is the most ridiculous way of making a gun part because it's so brittle, so expensive, and so impractical."

Beyond the gun debate, there is tremendous hope about 3D printing being the next revolutionary technology. We can recall what President Barack obama said during his State of the Union address early this year."A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything," Obama said.

"A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything," the New York Times quoted Obama as saying.

These printers can produce objects, even rather intricate ones, by printing thin layer after layer of plastic, metal, ceramics or other materials. And the products they make can be highly customized.

Hod Lipson, an associate professor and the director of the Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University, told New York Times that the 3D printing won't simply replace existing manufacturing anytime soon, but it would give rise to new businesses. "The bigger opportunity in the US is that it opens and creates new business models that are based on this idea of customization," he said.