Police say fully functional 3D-printed handguns seized in a raid on a Sunshine Coast property were eerily similar in their feel and grip to police-issued weapons.
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Detective Senior Sergeant Daren Edwards said the guns were of high quality and it was a concern that such weapons, capable of being fired, could be created by a printer.
"They are pretty well made ... we use police Glocks and to hold them and feel them, they're pretty good," Det Snr Sgt Edwards said.
"They are all polymer and all they needed was a pin and a spring-type assembly pushed into it to make it work. For all intents and purposes they would look like a gun."
Police allege that three 3D-printed handguns, along with weapon parts, a knuckle duster, false licences and drugs, were found at a house at Mudjimba on Wednesday.
Sean Patrick Murphy, 27 faced Maroochydore Magistrates Court on Thursday over weapons and drug charges and was remanded in custody.
His case will return to court on August 31.
Det Snr Sgt Edwards said the man was known to police and it was "definitely" the first charges involving the manufacturing of a firearm using a 3D printer to be laid on the Sunshine Coast.
"The trigger was in them and if a couple of other parts were in them they would have been able to fire a projectile," he said.
It may be a first for the Sunshine Coast but it was the not a first for Queensland.
Last year a Gold Coast man was handed a suspended jail term after making parts for a 3D-printed gun that police later put together and fired.
The successful prosecution followed a 2015 raid and was believed to have been one of the first in the state for manufacturing a weapon without a licence by 3D printing.
In November, 2016, police raids on workshops in an industrial area at Nerang uncovered 3D-made machine guns.
Queensland parliament rejected the Weapons (Digital 3D and Printed Firearms) Amendment Bill in 2014 which would have made it illegal to make, distribute, possess or acquire a 3D firearm without a licence.
Mr Edwards said there was sufficient scope within the current laws to file all the charges necessary after the raid.
"I can't comment on the act, but there were appropriate charges for what we discovered in relation to manufacturing a firearm," he said.
Australian Associated Press
