(gun firing)

This is what some people call a Ghost Gun.

It's an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle

that has no serial number, it's untraceable.

I didn't have to go through a background check,

or any sort of waiting period to get it.

The government has no knowledge of its existence, in fact.

And that's because legally speaking, I didn't buy this gun.

I made it.

(gun firing)

Anyone can buy every part of an AR-15 on the internet.

There's one part though, that you can't buy

without a background check,

and that is a functioning lower receiver,

the body of the gun.

What you can buy is this.

This is not a lower receiver,

although it looks a lot like one.

To the government, this is legally just a chunk of aluminum,

but to any gunsmith, it's an 80% lower.

That's a lower receiver that's basically 80% finished.

All you have to do is remove a few cavities of aluminum

from this, and you're left with a true, functioning gun.

For years, DYI gunmakers have been legally creating

their own lower receivers to skirt gun control laws,

and build untraceable weapons.

I wanted to see if new digital tools

could make building one of these ghost guns

easier for someone like me with little firearms

or power tools experience.

If I can legally make a semi-automatic rifle

and circumvent all gun control, anyone can.

So I tried making my AR-15 lower receiver

three different ways.

With a traditional drill press, with a 3D printer,

and with a new computer-controlled milling machine

called the Ghost Gunner.

So first I'm gonna try to do this

the old-fashioned manual way.

Wow that is really not good.

Is there supposed to be a hole there?

This is now detached from this,

and that wasn't supposed to happen.

I've just made like a total mess

of the inside of this thing.

I don't think that this is a working

firearm component by any means.

So next, I used a MakerBot Replicator,

and free plans I downloaded from the web

to 3D print a plastic AR-15 lower receiver from scratch.

Process was incredibly easy,

but the results were somewhat flawed.

I cut a finger trying to remove excess plastic.

Finally, I tried what could be the future

of homemade gunsmithing.

The $1,500 Ghost Gunner is a computer-controlled

milling machine, the latest invention

of Defense Distributed, a controversial group

known for releasing 3D printable blueprints for gun parts,

including a fully 3D printable pistol.

The Ghost Gunner doesn't print parts in plastic though.

It machines them out of aluminum.

And it works on the same 80% lowers

I had tried with the drill press method,

but requires far less equipment and skill.

I could already tell it's a lot better at this than I am.

As I watched the Ghost Gunner precisely carve away aluminum,

it became clear that the barrier to legally obtaining

a fully metal, untraceable, semi-automatic rifle

is lower than ever before.

This is the beautifully milled aluminum lower receiver

for an AR-15 that we built today.

Before I put actual explosive rounds

through anything I'd made,

I thought I should check my work with a professional.

So I took my box of gun parts to Nathan Rinder

at Bay Area Gunsmithing.

Please don't laugh.

This is the lower that I tried to make.

With a drill.

With a drill.

Oh, I've seen worse than this.

[Andy] Nathan argued that only the lower receiver

I'd made with the Ghost Gunner was functional and safe.

We could totally assemble this.

He was nice enough to let me muddle through

the final assembly of the AR-15 at his shop.

I test fired my homemade AR-15 for the first time

at a nearby firing range.

(gun firing)

I can't take this gun with me on a flight back to New York,

and I can't sell it to anyone here in San Francisco,

or even give it to someone else at Wired legally.

So instead, I have to take it apart and either destroy,

or turn over to the police, the lower receiver.

That was the end of my Ghost Gun.

But it's just the beginning

for Defense Distributed's Ghost Gunner.

The group has already sold more than 1,000

of its milling machines.

Every one is a tiny, anarchic rifle factory.

And if they work as well as the one I tested,

there will be many more Ghost Guns to come.