You think your home inkjet printer is causing you problems?

That’s nothing like the problems we all might have when peolple start printing assault rifles at home.

Defense Distributed, makers of the completely plastic pistol “Liberator,” and brain-child of crypto anarchist Cody Wilson, have taken us closer to that reality.

They have released the fighteningly titled Ghost Gunner. This allows people with a 3-D printer (available for sale at select home depots) to make the only part of an assault rifle you cannot readily purchase in the US: the “lower receiver.”

The ghost part of the name comes from the fact that the construction of these weapons is completely undetectable by the government due to its lack of a serial number, and also completely legal. The total cost of making the weapon comes out to about $1200, not much more expensive than buying a similar weapon through other legal channels.

With the vital lower receiver in your possession, you can use the printer (or buy the parts) to build the rest of the deadly assault weapon.

Clearly, technology like this is of great concern to advocates of stricter gun control policies. As 3D printing technology proliferates it will become less expensive, and the number of people capable of cheaply constructing their own ‘ghost’ weapons will rise.

The problem is that the regulatory process in our country is too slow to adapt to the rapid advance of technology in areas like this. A point that Wilson is aiming to prove with his new advancement.

Should the government step in before this technology becomes more widely available or more deadly?

And can it accomplish that goal without stifling innovation in other important areas? 

And we thought our inkjet printers were a source of headaches.