Japanese Man Arrested for Having Guns Made with a 3D Printer

Japan’s strict firearms-control laws may not be enough to stop high-tech gun producers.  They’ve been put to the test against the latest in digital manufacturing with the arrest of a man who allegedly made 3D-printed guns.  A raid last month on his home in Kawasaki outside Tokyo turned up five printed guns, two of which can fire real bullets.  However, no bullets were recovered.

Yoshitomo Imura, a 27-year-old employee of the Shonan Institute of Technology, was arrested for 3D-printing guns, and the incident quickly made headlines around the globe. Japan’s firearm laws are very strict.  To add even more fuel to the fire Imura made a call for more gun rights.

Imura defended himself, saying he didn’t know it was illegal to own a plastic gun.“I produced the guns, but I didn’t think it was illegal,” Imura said, according to Japan Times. “I can’t complain about the arrest if the police regard them as real guns.”

On Twitter, Imura has previously defended the right to possess guns, according to public broadcaster NHK. “Gun restrictions are violation of human rights,” he once tweeted.

The arrest itself unprecedented, the Japan Times reports, because it’s the first time the country has had to apply its gun control laws to firearms made by 3D printers. And violations in general are exceptionally rare.Imura, an employee of Shonan Institute of Technology in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, had apparently posted footage of the guns as well as production blueprints online, and mentioned production on Twitter.

Japanese news media posted clips from a grainy YouTube video that apparently shows Imura firing one of the guns in a wooded area.

The guns could apparently fire through more than 10 plywood boards stacked together.

A spokesman for the Kanagawa Prefectural Police was not immediately available for comment on the case.

Japan has very strict controls on firearms compared to other countries. Only 15 people were murdered with handguns in 2012, according to data from the National Police Agency.

Imura’s arrest comes a year after Cody Wilson demonstrated what’s regarded as the world’s first working 3D-printed gun in the U.S.

Wilson later said that design files for the gun were downloaded more than 100,000 times before the U.S. State Department told him to take them down.

It’s unclear where Imura obtained the design files he used, but his guns, including one that looks like a revolver, appear to be different from Wilson’s weapon, dubbed The Liberator.