Is an e-reader case as harmful as a Glock 19?
Final month, Louisville, Kentucky-based creator Luke The Maker confirmed off a weird, 3D-printed, pistol-shaped case design for the favored minimalist Xteink X4 e-reader. The X4 lies vertically atop the plastic gun’s slide, with a cutout on the aspect to entry its buttons. Although the body was digitally modeled after an actual gun, this “case” can’t shoot bullets. Squeezing the set off does nothing in any respect. He calls his contraption the “Gundle.”
In a post displaying off the wacky accent, Luke (whose final identify is Blackford) will be seen flipping via Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher within the Rye earlier than tossing the gun e-reader case in his automobile’s middle console.
“The proper e-reader for public studying,” textual content reads over the clip.
However despite the fact that this web experiment is clearly supposed as a joke or commentary, it’s doable future 3D printers gained’t see it that manner. Lawmakers in a number of states are pushing for legal guidelines mandating gun-blocking software on all new printers offered. This still-evolving know-how would, in concept, scan each file earlier than it’s bodily printed and attempt to algorithmically decide whether or not it’s a firearm or firearm half. If the software program decides that the factor being printed seems sufficient like a gun, it stops the printer from finishing the job. That’s, if it even works. Lawmakers in New York and California are leaving it as much as a panel of business consultants to weigh whether or not the proposed imaginative and prescient is even technically possible. Regardless of that cloud of uncertainty, laws mandating this blocking tech has already become law in New York and passed California’s state assembly.
“I didn’t need it to be so publicly obtainable. I simply didn’t need tons of them on the market.”
Which will sound cheap sufficient, however makers and business consultants previously told The Verge that the tech is underdeveloped and dangers introducing false positives the place non-guns that look gun-like get unnecessarily blocked. Blackford’s e-reader case falls immediately in that detection grey space. Blackford says he didn’t explicitly make the Gundle to problem the proposed legal guidelines, however he additionally didn’t draw back from expressing his opinion about them.
“I’m not for that type of factor as a result of I’m huge into open software program,” Blackford says. “It’s only a wild frontier proper now, so I undoubtedly don’t belief (gun blueprint scanning tech) now.”
“If individuals wish to 3D print a gun, they’re going to do it,” he provides. “I don’t suppose it’s as much as the individuals making the slicers to regulate that type of factor.”
These pushing for these mandates, in the meantime, wouldn’t say whether or not their proposed tech would cease Blackford from making a innocent case. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s workplace didn’t reply to questions on Blackford’s gadget particularly, or the implications false positives may have for a maker’s potential to freely categorical themself.
“Governor Hochul is laser-focused on enhancing public security and decreasing gun violence in New York,” deputy communications director on the Workplace of Governor Kathy Hochul and spokesperson Jess D’Amelia tells The Verge. “This regulation depends on the experience of main subject material consultants to judge and harness rising applied sciences whereas addressing the true and rising risk of ghost weapons and illegally manufactured weapons of struggle. The Governor is assured these measures will make all New York communities safer.”
“The intent of the regulation is to not block prints like this, however I believe this print is a very good instance of why that’s onerous.”
Cliff Braun, affiliate director of know-how coverage and analysis on the Digital Frontier Basis, who has spoken critically of California’s proposal, says it’s unclear whether or not the proposed system would flag Blackford’s design. Whereas the know-how exists, Braun says it’s at the moment in a “restricted kind.” Critics say a extra cautious detection system that depends on hashes to flag identified firearms and elements from a database may very well be trivially straightforward to sidestep by merely making small adjustments to a file’s design. A extra expansive strategy utilizing AI to research a file’s geometry and predict if it’s a gun, in contrast, could also be extra vulnerable to errors. Issues that look gun-ish however aren’t, in different phrases, may get swept up. Lawmakers in each states are leaving it to knowledgeable panels to iron out the small print of implementation, however the closing outcome, Braun says, should grapple with an unavoidable tradeoff between false positives and false negatives.
“The intent of the regulation is to not block prints like this, however I believe this print is a very good instance of why that’s onerous,” Braun says.
Handguns just like the one Blackford modeled his design on are significantly problematic. In 2022, the ATF updated its rules clarifying that the one elements of a firearm that legally require a serial quantity are those who present the housing or construction for the weapon’s “major hearth management element.” In AR-15s and different lengthy weapons, that’s the receiver. Braun notes that the shapes of receivers are comparatively distinctive and distinguishable, as are machine gun conversion gadgets. That’s not fairly the identical with a handgun. There, the part that requires a serial number is the frame. And in contrast to receivers, frames are visually way more ambiguous. Water hoses, toy weapons, and energy instruments all share considerably comparable shapes.
Dartmouth School affiliate professor of engineering Solomon Diamond tells The Verge that whether or not Blackford’s e-reader case will get blocked actually is dependent upon the kind of know-how that individual printer deploys. A extra conservative hashing strategy would fall flat as a result of Blackford’s gadget wouldn’t match one of many precise hashes on a database of prohibited recordsdata. A distinct system utilizing laptop imaginative and prescient and AI to judge the place an object probably resembles a gun, nevertheless, may flag it by mistake.
“Basing blocking tech on visible resemblance is the place the false optimistic issues come up as a result of a prop and an actual purposeful firearm resemble each other,” Diamond instructed The Verge. “The technical problem right here is that relying on coaching knowledge and algorithms used, setting choice thresholds which have acceptably low false optimistic charges might need unacceptably excessive false unfavorable charges and vice versa.”
“Visible resemblance could be fooled by (the) gun-shaped e-reader case,” he added.
Diamond famous a 3rd choice, “geometric identification,” may doubtlessly thread the needle. This strategy, which is at the moment being deployed to information high quality management in manufacturing, will be fine-tuned for what Diamond refers to as “precise geometric match,” the place a zero false-positive price is a minimum of theoretically doable. This strategy remains to be comparatively new on the subject of 3D print blocking tech.
“Geometric Identification wouldn’t be fooled by your gun-shaped e-reader case,” he mentioned.
3D printer producers and the consultants setting the requirements for the way blocking software program mandates will work are then left with a fancy alternative. Requiring programs which might be each truly efficient at detecting weapons and technically possible to introduce within the close to future will essentially imply some non-guns get caught within the crossfire. Fairly shortly, that begins limiting how makers, hobbyists, and artists can categorical themselves.
“In case you’re going to attempt to block all of these splendidly inventive people, you’re going to make it very onerous to print props or make social commentary,” Braun mentioned.
Blackford says making the Gundle was comparatively easy. He first went on-line and did a easy seek for “free gun mannequin,” which turned up the blueprints for the gun shell a part of the case. He then uploaded that to Fusion 360, his most well-liked modeling program, and added the e-reader on prime and constructed the case round it. The Xteink X4 is among the cheaper e-readers in the marketplace, and although it has restricted performance, its devoted neighborhood regularly works to improve it. With the digital design finalized, Blackford despatched it off to his Bambu Lab H2D printer. All the course of, from preliminary thought to printed product, took lower than 24 hours.
Although the gadget doesn’t shoot, Blackford says he nonetheless hasn’t taken it out in public. He’s since published the files on his website, the place anybody with a 3D printer can obtain them and make their very own. Blackford admits he did this with some hesitation. The case isn’t a gun, however it seems sufficient like one that somebody brandishing it within the open, or revealing it throughout a confrontation with regulation enforcement, may discover themselves in a critically harmful misunderstanding. He talked issues over along with his spouse earlier than publishing, and finally determined to keep away from bigger marketplaces like Thingiverse or Printables so it wouldn’t unfold too broadly. This manner, he says, individuals can nonetheless discover it if they’re however gained’t randomly come upon it.
“I didn’t need it to be so publicly obtainable,” Blackford says. “I simply didn’t need tons of them on the market.”
“In case you’re going to attempt to block all of these splendidly inventive people, you’re going to make it very onerous to print props or make social commentary.”
There’s additionally some query as as to if strolling round with the case would violate already existing federal laws requiring toys or different “look-alike firearms” to have distinctive markings. These so-called “orange tip legal guidelines” are why faux weapons and airsoft weapons have blaze-orange plastic suggestions hooked up to their muzzles when they’re manufactured and offered. However the e-reader case isn’t actually a toy or a faux gun, however an artwork challenge.
Regardless, Blackford says if he ever did take it out in public, he’d print a model in a unique coloration to clarify it isn’t imitating an actual weapon. That’s not an overreaction. Strolling round in public with one thing that resembles a gun, even whether it is functionally ineffective, could make interactions with police and different gun homeowners harmful, and even lethal. In 2014, Cleveland police shot and killed a 12-year-old boy named Tamir Rice after he reached for a toy gun. A 2016 Washington Post report estimated that over the span of two years, police shot and killed 86 individuals who have been holding realistic-looking toy weapons and pellet and airsoft weapons.
Supporters of blueprint scanning mandates say it’s obligatory to shut an enforcement hole that’s giving these with felony convictions and others entry to weapons after they shouldn’t have them. Varied legal guidelines prohibiting the manufacture and sale of 3D-printed ghost weapons (untraceable firearms with out serial numbers) exist already throughout the nation. However individuals print within the privateness of their very own properties, making implementing these legal guidelines almost unimaginable. Hochul has referred to as this dynamic the “plastic pipeline” and warns of criminals printing weapons on their kitchen tables. Mandating scanning software program would shift the duty onto printer producers, stopping the unlawful weapons earlier than they’re ever made.
Whether or not the risk posed by 3D-printed weapons truly justifies such a transformative change to how printers work stays up for debate. The weapons are actually getting higher when it comes to efficiency. There are additionally extra of them. In 2024, the NYPD mentioned it recovered 109 mostly 3D-printed guns from crime scenes. That’s up from only one recorded three years prior. A separate 2024 report from the gun management advocacy group Everytown discovered comparable ends in 20 different cities.
All of that may be a drop within the bucket in comparison with standard weapons collected at crime scenes. In 2025 alone, then-Mayor Eric Adams claimed the NYPD seized more than 5,200 illegal guns. The full variety of firearms within the nation extra broadly has been estimated to outnumber people.
However Blackford says he wasn’t satisfied 3D-printed weapons pose an particularly quick hazard. In his view, they’re nonetheless primarily made by tinkerers and gun fanatics with a ardour for the method and loads of time on their fingers. Usually, he’s satisfied, getting an actual gun remains to be a lot simpler than printing one.
3D printing, Blackford says, “is an excessive amount of of a ache within the ass.”
And if laws like New York’s or California’s ever reaches Kentucky, Blackford says he’s able to get inventive, both through the use of VPNs or determining another workaround. He’s probably not alone.
“Some firms are going to be placing these locks in place, however I believe open-source software program is all the time going to prevail,” Blackford says.
