I was reading this story at Salon.com titled "3-D-printed guns could doom the NRA". The story is how 3D-printed guns could bring about the demise of the NRA by depriving its biggest contributors, the firearms manufacturers, of revenues as firearms enthusiasts would soon move to printing their own firearms as brought about by developments in 3D printing technology.

With blueprints for guns that can be used for 3D printing open sourced, we are observing an acceleration on the development of more reliable 3D-printed guns. As more enthusiasts share their experiences and designs to improve existing models through the open source way, the developments in the 3D printing space for firearms are just moving faster and no government can even stop it. The beauty of the internet is that once an idea or design is released online, it will remain there forever as it will be downloaded and shared by people over great geographical distances.

In this case,  if over the years, reliable 3D printed guns are widely printed by hobbyists, firearms manufacturers will find their revenues threatened as their customers won't be dependent on their products. They just grab a blueprint online and print their own guns. The companies who win  will be the 3D printer manufacturers and raw material suppliers.

Sounds plausible? Perhaps, though we're not totally convinced yet that it will leave firearms companies without customers given that they still have the mass production capabilities and many customers would rather buy something already built and went through quality control. We see 3D printed guns made more by tinkerers and those who prefer to make their own, but not everyone's a gunsmith.

In terms of 3D-printed airsoft guns, the tolerances in design will be much wider rather than exacting as we don't exactly need all the materials used in firearms used in airsoft guns. We are happy to play with ABS airsoft guns and thus we can make actually print out our own airsoft receivers, stocks, rail, covers, mounts, etc. with 3D printers. Rather than waiting for that order from the Far East, you can have that part printed in a matter of hours for you to use. Thus, we see some airsoft companies, especially the parts manufacturers, but not all, will be affected by such impact of the 3D printer. It's also basic economics, the law of supply and demand, where 3D printers will be able to answer the lack of spare parts.

The only way for airsoft manufacturers to avoid the threat of irrelevancy is to make it very convenient for airsoft players to have access to their products meaning that they should move fast to meet the demand. Whilst some airsoft companies will have limited quantities produced to keep prices high, and ensure smaller inventories, if they don’t find the right balance of satisfying their demands and keeping prices right to assure profitability, then they might see their customers resorting to 3D printers to answer the supply issues. In this age, the internet customer always expects the product to have arrived "yesterday."

Now, we await for the first 3D-printed airsoft gun.