Blueprints for Violence: How Extremists Are Weaponising 3D Printing

Once a revolutionary manufacturing innovation, 3D printing has become a double-edged sword. While the technology is driving progress across sectors like medicine and aerospace, it’s also being exploited to produce untraceable, homemade firearms.

In this episode, host Lucas Webber is joined by Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, Assistant Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and a leading expert on the intersection of terrorism and emerging technologies. Together, they explore how 3D-printed weapons are being used by extremist actors, how online communities are spreading firearm blueprints, and why policymakers are struggling to respond to this growing security challenge.

🎧 Listen to learn:

 ➡︎ Why 3D printing has become so attractive to extremists.
 ➡︎ How online communities are facilitating the global spread of 3D-printed firearm designs.
 ➡︎ The different types of 3D-printed weapons in circulation.
 ➡︎ What governments and platforms can do to mitigate this evolving threat.

📱Connect with Yannick Veilleux-Lepage. 

📚Read Yannick’s latest research Printing Terror: An Empirical Overview of the Use of 3D-Printed Firearms by Right-Wing Extremists

⚡Follow Tech Against Terrorism on Bluesky and LinkedIn. 

🌐Check out the Tech Against Terrorism website.

💬 Connect with our host, Lucas Webber. 

📄 Read a full transcript of this episode here.  

🎙️ An OG Podcasts Ltd production.