Police say a fully functional firearm can't be printed, but conversion kits can be found that make the plastic tool dangerous.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/SUBMITTED/Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit B.C.

Law enforcement agencies across Canada have started sounding the alarm over the proliferation of 3D printed guns this summer. One man in Kamloops was just recently charged for building them at his home.

Part of the problem for police aiming to track them is that the files are easy to come by. So-called "ghost guns" can't be traced and don't have serial numbers on them, but their are numerous websites that make the files available to make the parts needed.

Adrian Picketts-Yoxall might be the first man charged with manufacturing them in BC, allegedly associated with a Thompson-Okanagan trade network of privately made firearms. He was charged this month, more than a year after police found three 3D printed receivers in his Heffley Creek home.

He's not the only man in the Thompson-Okanagan associated with ghost guns.

Police in Lake Country searched the home of a suspected drug dealer in June 2022, six months after they searched Picketts-Yoxall's house. Among the drugs and cash they seized, police also took in 45 ghost guns at Jess Bou-Saleh's Lake Country home, according to a court documents filed earlier this year.

Bou-Saleh hasn't been criminally charged and it's not clear whether the guns police say they found at his house are related to Picketts-Yoxall, but BC's gang enforcement squad says the availability of 3D printers gives criminals an "new avenues for firearm trafficking."

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A quick Google search reveals websites that largely appear to be based in the U.S. with one called 3Dgunbuilder.com featuring multiple models, like a receiver for the "Biden's Bane AR15."

A receiver is part of a firearm that houses the hammer, bolt or breechblock and firing mechanism, which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or ATF.

3Dgunbuilder.com claims to be based in Colorado, but its mission to make guns available to people isn't restricted to the U.S.

"We strongly believe in not only the 2nd amendment but the right for humans worldwide to defend themselves, their families, and their property," its website reads.

It also says it's not a firearm manufacturer, and it only sells the files for others to build them.

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There are files to build different firearm components or accessories on the 3D printing websites, but the crucial piece, which is also available, is the receiver. A receiver is a firearm's central component, tying together other parts like the barrel, trigger and stock. Depending on the firearm, most other parts can be purchased separately after only printing the receivers.

It's also the part of the firearm that would typically get a serial number stamped on, allowing the federal government to track legally manufactured guns and who owns them. It makes the tracking of firearms in line with Canada's gun control legislation impossible.

While it's not illegal to possess the computer file to build the firearms, it is illegal to privately manufacture them in Canada, which accounts some of Picketts-Yoxall's criminal charges.

Police said Picketts-Yoxall had three 3D printed receivers in his home when they searched it in January 2022, along with a shotgun, body armour and ammunition.

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He's facing a total of  six criminal charges, all firearms related.

Whether he's the only manufacturer suspected in the Thompson-Okanagan network isn't clear, but the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of BC said they received information about the ghost guns in December 2021, just a month before his home was searched.

The 31-year-old doesn't have a lengthy criminal history in BC, prior to the firearm investigation.

In 2012, he pleaded guilty to assault in Nanaimo and was charged with assault in Lethbridge two years later, according to the Calgary Herald.

Picketts-Yoxall was charged following the ghost gun investigation on Oct. 10 and is now wanted for arrest.

— With files from The Canadian Press.

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