The arrest of Luigi Mangione, suspected in the brazen killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is certain to bring renewed scrutiny to the debate over restricting the capabilities of 3D printers to make so-called “ghost guns.” Mangione, apprehended Monday at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, was carrying a 3D-printed black pistol with a silencer that is also believed to be made on a 3D printer. Police believe they were used in the shooting of Thompson in Midtown Manhattan last week.
Initially, investigators speculated the gun used in the ambush was a conventional firearm, quite possibly a bolt-action pistol with an integrated suppressor, such as the B&T Station Six or a WWII English Welrod pistol. Some commentors speculated it was a standard semi-auto that was jamming, so had to be cleared with each shot when it failed to cycle as displayed in surveillance video of the way he fired the weapon. However, the discovery of the ghost gun—assembled without a serial number—may explain the functional limitations of the firearm if not properly created. But it will also no doubt stoke the flames of anti-gun politicians and leaders.
Police are not yet certain if the gun used in the shooting was a ghost gun, but they suspect it was and are currently testing the firearm.
“It may have been made on a 3D printer, the capability of firing a nine-millimeter round,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. “Obviously, that will come out during our ballistics testing.”
3D-printed guns can be assembled at home and are part of a longstanding tradition of gun enthusiasts who enjoy building their own firearms. The ease-of-use and prevalence of 3D printers, however, have led to an increase in the guns’ use in crimes. In New York City, police recovered 382 ghost guns this year, a 154% increase from 2020, ABC 7 in New York City reports. Mangione’s pistol reportedly had a metal slide and plastic handle with a metal threaded barrel.
The case, involving a high-profile target and a self-manufactured weapon, is expected to intensify scrutiny of ghost guns nationwide. Gun enthusiasts who build these weapons, often for sport or self-defense, may face increased regulation and enforcement as a result.
>>>382 ghost guns
Are they referring to privately made firearms (PMF), firearms with serial numbers defaced, or conflating both of those (like what is done when a firearm is used in suicides & homicides) to achieve their spooky number?
The linked article only mentions PMF, but that doesn’t mean anything. You know how journalism works.
Not just the media. I have zero doubt that so called law enforcement is adding them all together as ghosts. Homemade, defaced and ones old enough they never had a serial number.
That’s what F-Troop did. Combine PMFs and commercial guns with defaced serial numbers into the same “ghost gun” statistic.
Looks like a diy Glock clone. If that’s the case then he probably installed the slide lock backwards, which would result in the gun not cycling. And/or he neglected putting a buffer in the can, which would result in similar cycling failure.
Per reports 3 live rds and 3 hulls were found at the scene. 3 shots fired. Assuming those reports are accurate, and assuming the shooter did not hand throw the 3 live rounds on the ground while leaving, there was definitely nothing wrong with the gun.
Bang, gun cycles (hull on the ground, live rnd in the chamber), manual rack (live rnd on the ground, new round in the chamber), repeat for 2 more shots.
As to why he would do this: I sometimes mark brass with a felt tip when reloading. Firing smudges the marks, makes them hard to read – I think this megalomaniac froot loop wanted to be sure his “all-important message” was legible.
Further, I am betting he bought this gun. I doubt he has what it takes to make even an 80% himself.
May also want to check said fruit loops family re connections to Nancy Pelosi and what the CEO was going to testify for this week. The fact checks are a bit telling.
Can you provide a link to this information about his testimony?
Given his death obviously not but the internet is rather barren of any information beyond the fact checks h ttps://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2024/12/fact-check-no-evidence-slain-unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-was-set-to-testify-against-nancy-pelosi-for-insider-trading.html
The above is as good a starting point as any.
Much as I disrespect Pelosi, I don’t think that washes. The loopy dude was such a crappy shot, and got so monstrously lucky to actually achieve his goal, I just think something that specific and sinister would require a much more reliable assassin. Just an evil untermensch who thinks he is an ubermensch is what this is. It’s not surprising he likes the unabomber…
That said, you might be right, because it’s a big old world, plus I have done zero research on what you reference.
JMO
Could go a lot of ways and the sheer number of things that went right for him to have a functional weapon in NYC, take out a CEO, and escape the city/state is rather remarkable even if he got picked up in a McDonald’s days later. Coincidence is absolutely still a likely possibility but the lack of data and loud (in comparison) denials attract my attention much like the Covid data of the last 5 years.
I’m not saying this probably happened, but when it does, they find someone that fits the profile, and they give them a nudge. That isn’t speculation. The FBI has been caught doing this multiple times. After the nudge, the FBI swoops in to save the day before “it” happens. But what if they decided not to swoop in and save day? What if they let the thing happen? Other people/entities can use the FBI playbook.
It isn’t like they need to hire a professional to get the job done these days. They can even give various nudges anonymously (online).
He had a degree in engineering so he should have had some mechanical knowledge.
However, education ain’t what it used to be.
3d printed suppressor without a booster.
He got the exact results you would expect from this setup.
Could be a fail to go into battery after each shot. He tapped the rear of the gun before the last shot as if he figured out it wasn’t going into battery.
True. And good point.
Didn’t see the tap. All pistols I have had fail to lock up usually lose their grip on the extractor groove with a simple re-rack – plus the re-rack is as likely to fail to go into battery as the initial hangup – yet every actual shot came after a simple and practiced manual rack.
All that, and the words written on the unfired shells make me confident he was just being “clever”.
Could be viewed as important in proving premeditation. Or not.
This thing really pisses me off. Shoot a man in the back, and then NYC shitheels act like the bushwhacker is a hero. Maybe I watched too many cowboy movies, but damn these folks are ugly.
YEP
Tell me you know nothing about suppressors and boosters without telling me you know nothing about suppressors and boosters . . .
“… the discovery of the ghost gun … may explain the functional limitations of the firearm if not properly created.”
That may not be the case at all. My cousin and I both had the same experience: we attached a commercially manufactured suppressor to a commercially manufactured handgun. (And both of us acquired all of those items legally.) Both of our pistols function normally by themselves. When we combined them with suppressors, however, our handguns did not cycle properly even though we both included a Nielsen device. In my cousin’s case, he had to install a different recoil spring (not sure if it was more or less stiff than the factory spring) to achieve reliable operation. In my case I have not yet experimented with different recoil springs.
I have also heard that placing a suppressor on a semi-auto rifle can require tweaking the semi-auto action of the rifle as well. I have no personal experience in that regard.
Interesting, I run cans on stock Glocks all the time with no problem whatsoever.
The killer could have used a dollar store fillet knife with just as much success. Ban all the things but criminals will still find a rock to bash people’s heads in even if weapons bans actually worked (they don’t.)
Banning 3d printers and homemade firearms etc will not be able to stop the signal.
Seems that one solution would be for manufacturers of hard-to-make components such as barrels, slides, BCGs, etc. to run a NICS background check on purchases, BUT not have to record that check on a form 4473. That would help prevent these components from going to prohibited persons while allowing law-abiding citizens to keep building guns for their own use that aren’t traceable by an oppresive government.
Of course, such a scheme would require trusting manufacturers and alowing citizens to have guns free from government records, so the gun control lobby has no interest, even if it would address the problem they claim to be concerned about.
Serpent_Vision,
You raise interesting points worthy of discussion.
So let’s get this straight – a suspect in the shooting of someone supposedly had a personally manufactured firearm (PMF). Prior to the shooting, was this suspect a “prohibited person”? If not, then what, pray tell, would running an NICS background check on any portion of the PMF would have achieved?
Absolute fuck-all of course. Just like they achieve now.
I personally know not one, but two felons who were convicted at very young ages for doing dumb things. Not harmful things that affected anyone, but unwise that crossed the threshold from misdemeanor over into felony on technicalities. They both served some time and have been respectable citizens of the community ever since, many years later.
Conversely, I know a dozen yahoos who have clean records but who I’d never trust with anything due to their poor character. These are people who have done illegal and harmful things but simply were never caught and convicted. They’d pass any NICS no problem.
Would have achieved as much as the same background check had the guy bought a serialized gun from an FFL instead of adding to the gun-grabber hype about “ghost guns”. Comment was about the issue in general, not this particular case.
Big fat NO! It never stops there!
Serpent failed to take his meds this morning. Or is a idiot.
No.
Not the best photo… Looks like a Chairmanwon Glock but in all honesty could be an Unseen Killer or Middleton Made version as well. For those who don’t know, the body of the pistol is printed in PLA Plus or Nylon Carbon Fiber Filament (typically). A metal rail kit is installed with pins and is what creates the metal to metal contact area that the slide attaches to. you can then install your typical OEM or aftermarket lower parts kit and then you can install an oem or clone slide kit. There are dozens of creators sometimes creating dozens of models. The most popular are most versions of 9mm glock (17, 19,26, 43, 43X etx.), Smith and Wesson Shield and of course a few really nice AR 15 Lowers. Popular accessories are printed Glock Switches, Forced reset triggers, silencers and the list goes on. Most parts are off the shelf but some versions are using barrel liners and electro chemical etching to produce rifling in countries that don’t readily have parts. This stuff has come quite a ways in the last few years as the general public is just now finding out. Some of the more unique projects that are currently being worked on are belt fed machine guns and gatling guns as well as rifle caliber silencers and grenade launchers. The malfunction of the pistol in this case could be anything from subsonic ammo to poor quality glock clone parts but most people who know what they are doing are able to figure out any issues… Hoffman Tactical and Print Shoot Repeat are great sources of info…
“The malfunction of the pistol in this case”
What malfunction? See above.
The concern over discovering he carried a “ghost gun” is inconsequential, as they have the weapon and the suspect in their custody, negating a serial trace being nessary. Also inconsequential is the fact it was apparently a “ghost gun” used in the murder – well, inconsequential to Thompson anyway, whom is just as deceased as he would be if shot by a one day old factory Glock picked up at a B and M gunshop the day before the shooting, after filling out and passing a 4473 and NICS.
Oh, and the “silencer”?
That makes him Hollywood Dead, which canbe up to five times deader.
Oops, I missed a space between can and be, so here’s a preemptive fuck you to Miner.
He’ll be along shortly anyway to point out your major gaffe and then start yapping about some six year old article from a newspaper in Resume Speed, Nebraska blaming the lowered crop yields on Trump.
Resume Speed, Nebraska.
Why am I thinking that’s a thing?
Either way good one unicorn.
that was good.
He fainted when he read “deader”. :0)
… I hope he hit his head
You can waste all the tax dollars you want with laws and programs to detect and collect “ghost guns”. That is just a worthless lip-flapping political stunt.
The only effective solution is quick zero tolerance with mandatory incarceration of 5 years for displaying and execution for 2nd violation and/or causing an injury or fatality.
I would fast track that with a 6 month automatic appeal and fulfillment of the juries decision upon leaving the courtroom.
Luigi got charged with 2ND degree murder. WT he!! is that about?!? Boy came from $. Conspiracy? Mentally ill? Dumbazz? As mentioned ya can’t stop the signal. Like glock switches🙄
I wonder if Luigi has gotten in touch with the family consigliari ? I’m certain they have one, given the family history, wealth, and prominence.
In Minnesota at least, a Grand Jury has to convene to indite on First Degree Murder charges – not sure about all of the other states.
I just murdered someone and I get caught with the weapon that did it.
Uhhh yeah.
Democrats And Corrupt Media Rush To Make Health Insurance CEO’s Murder All About Grabbing Guns.
h ttps://thefederalist.com/2024/12/10/democrats-and-corrupt-media-rush-to-make-health-insurance-ceos-murder-all-about-grabbing-guns/
I’m still not ever gonna support ghost gun bans and 3d printer restrictions lol
He wasn’t a restricted person so the ghost gun wasn’t necessary. Didn’t help him get away with it either so what’s the issue?
If the perp used an ice pick he would have done better with a clean escape. Now the disgruntled ivory tower dumbazz sits in jail with his shirt tail dipped in sht for many moons to come.
There are too many questions left unanswered here; He allegedly used the gun in NYC, why would he be “caught” in PA with that exact “ghost gun” and printed silencer? Oh yeah and with a manifesto and fake IDs. Yet when the trans-shooter went on a rampage at the Christian school the manifesto was not release until it was leaked…I don’t know, perhaps an agenda?
If this was a 3d-printed gun, it did nothing at all to make his crime easier to accomplish, and it didn’t prevent him from being caught. It was a total non-factor. He could just as easily have used a gun bought at a gun store with exactly the same results. So why care?
“Brings Focus to Ghost Guns”
WHO is bringing that focus? The gun-hating media. And why?
The ONLY reason this can be “in focus” would be if the suspect was unable to legally purchase a firearm. If he was not a prohibited person, then this “focus” on “ghost” guns is just a red herring designed to cast more dispersion on home-made firearms by law-abiding citizens.
Otherwise it’s just a silly distraction.