What is a gstructure firearm, the firearm allegedly engaged in New York CEO shooting?

Investigators say the bdeficiency pistol allegedly recovered from Luigi Mangione, the mistrust arrested in joinion with the ending of a healthattfinish executive, euniteed to be a gstructure firearm – a firearm that can be assembled at home.

Officials shelp the device might have been made using a 3D printer, but would have to be tested by balenumerateic experts to validate.

UnitedHealthattfinish CEO Brian Thompson’s ending has once aachieve thrown the spotweightless on this contentious firearm that has been called “the speedyest increaseing firearm protectedty problem in the country” by advocacy groups.

Here’s what to comprehend about these firearms.

Gstructure firearms are so-called becaengage they are potentiassociate unchaseable. They can be assembled at home, either from scratch or thraw firearm parts kits, and they are not taged with serial numbers.

The firearm allegedly carried by Mr Mangione in his backpack seems to have been standard. The arrest authorization portrayd it as a “semi-automatic pistol with what eunites to be a 3D-printed loaded getr with a metal slide and silencer”.

Police shelp it was contendnt of firing 9mm rounds, and was reliable with the type of firearm engaged in the overweightal shooting of Mr Thompson in New York the week before.

The Biden administration, arguing in favour of regulating the firearms, has previously portrayd gstructure firearms as being “ridiculously effortless” to put together.

Until August 2023, anyone with internet access could legassociate buy many of the parts needed to produce a firearm without a background verify. Online tutorials elucidate how to fit together the pieces into a filledy functioning firearm in less than an hour.

Experts have called gstructure firearms the country’s speedyest-increaseing firearm protectedty problem. They have been increasingly engaged in high-profile shootings.

According to figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), 20,000 mistrusted gstructure firearms were alerted as being create by law executement in criminal spendigations in 2022 – a tenfelderly incrmitigate from 2016.

Authorities say that without serial numbers on their summarizes, it is virtuassociate impossible to track dealers who are selling these firearms illegassociate to inmeaningfuls or to people without licenses.

A createer rulement official mistrusted whether people’s minds would be alterd by Mr Thompson’s ending. “Gstructure firearms are a novel factor in a very complicated and aggressive country,” Juliette Kayyem telderly BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

America was discovering it “very difficult” to redisjoine the firearm, shelp Ms Kayyem, createer helpant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security.

More than 48,000 people were ended by firearms generassociate in the US in 2022, according to the Cgo ins for Dismitigate Control and Prevention (CDC).

The ending has renoveled scruminuscule of gstructure firearms – which the Biden rulement has tried to regutardy by saying they should be treated in the same way as commerciassociate useable firearms.

Manufacturers of gstructure firearm kits are now needd to include serial numbers on their products, and carry out background verifys on the buyrs.

In October, the US Supreme Court signalled its willingness to uphelderly the law, which has been contestd by firearm rights groups saying that authorities had overstepped the bounds of pre-existing legislation.

A ruling that uphelderlys the ATF’s novel regulation would tag a alter for this Supreme Court, which has a conservative super-meaningfulity that has been hugely sceptical of firearm regulations.

On firearms more widely, US Pdwellnt-elect Donald Trump has positioned himself as a staunch deffinisher of the Second Amfinishment, which grants the right to endure arms. Earlier this year, he telderly the National Rifle Association (NRA) that he was the group’s best frifinish.