Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Monday, October 20th.

Today on Forbes, inside the 3D printed gun movement, and the government's attempts to spy on it.

A pink Uzi, a leopard-skin handgun with a golden scope, a rifle designed to look like it's from the Halo video game,

a multicolor toy assault rifle

made for a four-year-old's birthday. These aren't the kinds of guns you can buy off the rack.

They were built at home with 3D printers, evidence of a burgeoning online community

where enthusiasts imagine, design, and literally print out the guns of their dreams, and then share the results

online. Tens of thousands of users have joined private social media groups on Facebook, Discord,

and other sites to share their latest handgun creation, offer tips on how to print weapons,

and commiserate about anti-gun laws. Many of these so-called, quote, 3D-2A groups are run by Second Amendment absolutists, who

say that they're exercising their constitutional rights and participating in an increasingly

popular American pastime, like an arts and crafts community, but for deadly weapons.

Todd Kelly, who helped set up the 2A printing Facebook group with over 60,000 members,

says, quote,

if you can go to the library and get a book about how to build a gun,

you should be able to do the same thing online.

He describes the gun designs posted in the group as, quote, art that amounts to free speech.

But the movement is up against the twin enforcers of social media companies and the government.

Often, the groups are banned for posts that appear to facilitate weapon sales or are mistakenly

identified by moderators as such, a practice outlawed across most major social platforms, including Facebook, Discord, and Reddit. The Justice Department is also keeping tabs on their activity. Federal agents rated a now-defunct Discord group called the 2A Print Depot in 2024, seizing, quote, group members' chats and data links for a nearly 18-month stretch

beginning in June 23, according to a search warrant reviewed by Forbes.

Two administrators of the group with the same name on Facebook also had their accounts searched,

...