Last year, Yoshitomo Imura was arrested in Japan for 3D printing revolvers. Imura designed the "zig-zag" pistol, and was sentenced to two years in jail for making the weapon. Thanks to the power of the Internet, hobbyist gunmakers shared his plans, and this week one fan announced the completion of a printed gun. It's not the first 3D printed gun, but it is notable for its name: the 'Imura Pistol' v2.0.

Why print a gun? To quote Kurt Vonnegut, a gun is "a tool whose only purpose [is] to make holes in human beings," and 3D printed guns can certainly do that (though multiple police departments warn that printed guns may hurt their makers by exploding when fired). In countries like Japan, the United Kingdom, or Australia, where there are strict controls on guns, people may choose to print the weapons as a way around the controls. But the 3D-printed gun community doesn't just make the weapons because they can. The language gunmakers user to describe their weapons is not that of improvisers stumbling onto a solution. To read the forum and public pronouncements, printing a gun isn't just making a weapon, it's also making a free speech argument, one that combines the act of gun-making with an ideological challenge about freedom of information and file-sharing.