Bruen Soup: The Murky History of American Selfmade Firearms

On May 2nd, 2013, Texas law student Cody Wilson had his friend tug hard on a yellow string, firing a single shot that would be heard around the world.^[1]  Like at Lexington and Concord, that single shot started a revolution: a technological one, not a political one.  The string was attached to the trigger of a 3-D printed firearm called the Liberator, and the shot proved that a firearm made almost solely of 3-D printed plastic could function.^[2]  The only non-3D printed parts included a nail and a six-ounce cube of steel.^[3] Whether today’s regulations of 3-D printed firearms will survive Constitutional muster requires an examination of the past under a Bruen analysis. Unfortunately, this exploration plunges us into the murky history of American self-made firearms.

In 2018, the state of American firearms law changed drastically. That year, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association sued New York state to challenge the constitutionality of a law requiring the licensure of concealed-carry.^[4] The subsequent Supreme Court decision, known as Bruen, required that plaintiffs making Constitutional challenges to firearm regulations prove that the specific Second Amendment right being asserted was within the scope of conduct protected or permitted under state law at the time of the founding of the American republic.^[5] In other words, the right asserted should have been common practice around the time of the Founding Fathers to be protected by the Second Amendment.

If the plaintiff proved the right in question was under the protection of the Second Amendment, the burden shifts to the government to demonstrate a “relevantly similar” “historical regulation” to serve as an analogue to the modern regulation.^[6] In other words, for a modern firearm regulation to survive constitutional muster, the government must show that around the founding of the American republic, there was a similar law that regulated the Second Amendment right asserted by plaintiff.

Bruen meant that courts would now not only analyze the law and facts of a case, but history as well. Bruen caused a deluge of lawsuits challenging firearms regulations-including the most modern of them all: regulations on 3-D printed firearms.^[7] 3-D printed firearms regulations are some of the most modern laws in existence. The possibility of even creating one only occurred a decade ago, more than 200 years after the founding of America and the passage of the U.S. Constitution.^[8]  The process requires the usage of an advanced 3-D printer, tracing a design from a Computer-Assisted Design file downloaded off the Internet.^[9] Currently, the federal government has attempted to regulate 3-D printed firearms by requiring that they be stamped with a serial number.^[10]

Whether self-manufacture of a firearm was common in pre and post-Founding America, and thus could be credibly claimed to be under the protection of the Second Amendment has been thoroughly examined by both legal and historical academics. Two seminal texts in this field include: The American Tradition of Selfmade Arms by Joseph G.S. Greenlee of the Heartland Institute^[11] and Gunmaking at the Founding by Graham Ambrose, a Stanford Law School alumni.^[12] In this blog, I examine the sources cited to ensure that they may hold up to stringent analysis by the Courts, with a focus on the serialization requirement as comporting with the American tradition of firearms serialization.

Ambrose and Greenlee take care to state the significance of their findings upon Second Amendment regulation, with explicit note of how the historical record they have compiled informs (or attempts to influence) a Bruen analysis on gunmaking. Greenlee specifically argues that he has compiled compelling evidence of how gunmaking is omnipresent throughout American history, and especially how this tradition places the analogous act of manufacturing 3-D printed firearms in the home under the protection of the Second Amendment-and outside the reach of Congress and the federal government.^[13]

By contrast, Ambrose strongly criticizes Greenlee’s conclusions. Ambrose argues that Greenlee ignores a “a tradition even older than American gunmaking itself: the tradition of gun importing.”^[14] He argues that the gunmakers of the time were, unlike those manufacturing entire 3-D printed weapons in their home today, not creating entire firearms, but simply importing the parts to assemble them, or manufacturing small numbers of parts domestically to facilitate repairs.^[15] The massive amount of firearms importation means that, Ambrose argues, no American living in 1789 at the passage of the Second Amendment would believe that included in the right of bearing of arms, and thus protected under the Second Amendment, was the right to manufacture entire arms at home, as it simply was not common.^[16]

Even if the right to manufacture firearms at home is entirely under the protection of the Second Amendment, Ambrose further argues, this ignores that contemporary gunmaking was accompanied by a variety of regulations that laid heavy restrictions and requirements on gunmaking, disarmed dangerous persons, and required the registration and marking of firearms.^[17] In other words, Ambrose argues, even if gunmaking is protected under the Second Amendment as the Founding Fathers would understand it, that certainly does not preclude the government from regulating gunmaking regardless, and certainly not bans on ownership of firearms by dangerous persons like felons, or serialization laws analogous to registration and marking laws.^[18]

The American gunmaking tradition began in the 1600s, with the charters of the Virginia and New England colonies permitting the colonists to import firearms, bullets, and gunpowder.^[19] After this, Greenlee notes, a tradition of American gunsmithing exploded. Uniquely, the Plymouth Colony formally hired a gunsmith for their colony in 1621; other colonies similarly became home to gunsmiths.^[20] Many port towns and major cities had commercialized, large-scale shops, while the American frontier became home to “cottage industry” gunsmiths who worked out of their own homes.^[21] By 1725, colonial America may have been home to as many as 4,000 gunsmiths.^[22]

However, Ambrose argues that there must be an important distinction between gunsmithing, and gunmaking. Ambrose notes that gunsmithing could refer to both the act of manufacturing a firearm in its entirety (i.e. actual, complete gunmaking), or “more commonly,” to the act of repairing a firearm, and manufacturing a limited amount of parts to accomplish this repair.^[23] This distinction is important for examining whether gunmaking specifically was part of the American tradition, and thus under the protection of the Second Amendment, or if the practice was limited to only repairing firearms-and largely irrelevant to the manufacture and assembly of 3-D printed firearms. If American gunsmiths merely repaired firearms, not made them wholesale in their homes, then gunmaking was not truly common or intertwined with the bearing of arms, and thus under the protection of the Second Amendment.

Greenlee does not address this distinction, but Ambrose does. Ambrose noted that the historical record would at best be ambiguous: many American gunsmiths were secretive, rarely preserved their records, and following historians would similarly fail to distinguish between a gun-repairer, and a gunmaker who manufactured firearms almost entirely on their own.^[24]

Ambrose notes that colonial laws heavily regulated the practice of gunsmithing. While most English traditions were abandoned by the American gunsmithing industry, they inherited the practice of apprenticeships.^[25] Ambrose describes a “regulatory thicket” that strictly regulated conduct that was permissible, impermissible, or even mandated from an apprentice and his master.^[26] With state sanction, for example, the master could control what the apprentice ate or drank, and even his romantic life.^[27] However, while important in establishing that, concurrent with the practice of gunsmithing was the practice of complex and even intrusive regulation, this is largely irrelevant to the history and tradition of gunmaking. This establishes that there was regulation of gunmaking-mainly of the economic practice of apprenticeships, but not whether the making of firearms was a right or tradition.

Much more relevant were other colonial laws: these assumed that colonial firearms would almost entirely be imported, rather than made at home. Ambrose noted that one Virginian law required that if a member of the militia was unable to afford a rifle, the colony would purchase and import a rifle for him, rather than have an American gunsmith create one for him.^[28] This is certainly a compelling argument that gunmaking was outside the history and tradition of American firearms use, as the Virginian government preferred to import firearms for those who could not afford them, rather than pursue domestic manufacture, which would not be complicated by shipping it overseas.^[29] However, the Virginians likely did this because gunmaking was impractical, not because it posed a danger to the peace—as 3-D printedregulations intend to. Nevertheless, Ambrose notes this provides a compelling example of how colonial gunmaking was “limited and low volume.”^[30]

Both Greenlee and Ambrose note the unique example of the Kentucky long rifle, made of parts sourced primarily from the colonies, and assembled there. While Greenlee uses this as evidence of the American tradition of gunmaking, this argument is actually a misinterpretation of his sources. Greenlee states that the gunmakers making Kentucky rifles “were capable of producing the whole gun”; that guns could be “made by a number of craftsmen” or “made by [just] one man”; and that in “small shops[,] one tradesman performed all operations required to make a gun.”^[31] 

While Greenlee’s sources appear compelling on their face, they once again fail to distinguish between assembling a gun (including out of imported parts), and manufacturing one almost entirely wholesale, as with a 3-D printed firearm. Indeed, Ambrose questions this, noting that the Kentucky rifle was created not just from parts sourced domestically, but vital parts of the Kentucky rifle were sourced from Europe instead, like the flint needed to ignite gunpowder, and thus allow the Kentucky rifle to actually function as a firearm.^[32]

Ambrose further noted that even when war came to the American colonies, reliance on or encouragement of the American gunmaking industry was scarcely considered by the Founding Fathers. During the Seven Years War, arms imports skyrocketed, but gunmaking stagnated.^[33] The Revolutionary War would cause a paradigm shift in American gunmaking, but not a vast increase.

Sensing potential unrest in the colonies, Britain had banned the importation of firearms to America in 1774, causing panic among the colonists. Ambrose noted that even with the new demand for firearms, the colonists did not attempt to encourage gunmaking; leaders such as George Washington were well aware that the practice of American gunmaking was too small to arm the colonies.^[34] By contrast, however, John Hancock noted the “great number of gunsmiths”, and John Adams expressed his belief that domestic gunmakers were skilled enough to support the colonies’ sudden need for firearms.^[35] It is possible that Hancock and Adams’ confidence may have been the mere perception that domestic gunmaking would meet the needs of the colonies; Washington, actually aware of colonial firearms stocks given his military role.

The practical result of the embargo was government gunsmithing: the Continental Congress created the position of Public Armorer to repair the colonists’ firearms, and colonies and towns did the same.^[36] Maryland created their first arms factory, ran by the government.^[37]

Notably, however, encouraging the private practice of gunmaking was largely dismissed. A North Carolina official requested the Continental Congress encourage “the Making of Arms”, but the Congress noted that the few gunmakers that did exist could not keep up with this demand.^[38] Instead, the colonists relied, once again, on imports from Europe to arm themselves: France imported as many as 200,000 muskets to the colonies; so great was the need for imports that some states exempted arms importers from taxation.^[39]

That being said, Ambrose also notes that private gunmaking was indeed encouraged, or outright coerced, by the colonial authorities. For example, Pennsylvania warned gunmakers who did not focus on manufacturing arms that they would be declared “enemies to their country”, their tools taken from them, and be banned from working unless to create firearms for the Revolution.^[40]

However, after the war, gunmaking was still scarce. Many public arms factories closed without the need for new firearms.^[41] Gunsmiths were distrusted by some of the Founding Fathers-not for committing violent crime with their firearms, but because they committed fraud, or simply could not keep up with demand. Benjamin Franklin bemoaned that colonial officials “put faith in every adventurer who pretended to have influence” as a gunmaker.^[42] In a post-war report, General Timothy Pickering informed George Washington he recommended against relying on private gunmaking, as “this war has afforded too many expensive proofs of its inexpediency.”^[43]

However, while illuminating in what the Founding Fathers thought of private gunmaking, the Revolutionary War is still somewhat indecisive to a Bruen analysis. It does prove that cottage gunmaking was indeed limited, but permissible, making it ambiguous as to whether it would be sufficiently part of America’s history or its tradition due to its small scope. The historical record shows that the Founding Fathers were mainly concerned with the impracticality of American gunmaking, and the potential for fraud if gunmakers were granted government contracts–but not the possibility of private gunmaking as a method of enabling firearms crime.

Greenlee argues that there was indeed a lack of large-scale gunmaking, but such a lack is evident of an American tradition of gunmaking. Greenlee noted that Britain had intentionally banned large-scale gun manufacturing in the colonies for decades before the Revolutionary War, with only one large-scale source of gunpowder available domestically.^[44] Instead, during the war, Americans relied on domestic manufacturing for both firearms themselves, and especially gunpowder.^[45] However, much like the important distinction between gunsmithing and the more specific gunmaking, Greenlee often fails to distinguish between self-manufacturing gunpowder, and the much more relevant act of manufacturing firearms.

Greenlee does offer evidence specifically about gunmaking and its recognition by the colonies:  John Adams had expressed his belief that domestic American gunmaking was possible; in particular, in 1774, after the British embargo, Massachusetts noted that gunmaking was common in the state, and would need to be encouraged.^[46] Similarly, Maryland, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania encouraged gunmakers or even laymen to take up the craft to arm the colonies in their fight against Britain.^[47] Importantly, these encouragements often solicited current or willing gunmakers to attempt to meet the colonies’ requirements-implying the existence of gunmaking as a cottage tradition.^[48] Crucially, however, Greenlee offers multiple instances of gunpowder manufacturing, but only includes Pennsylvania’s Committee of Safety^[49] commissioning instructions for gunmaking specifically.^[50]

But so crucial was domestic gunsmithing, Greenlee noted, that gunsmiths would be exempt from service in the militia.^[51]

Greenlee notes that these preparations for war alarmed the English Parliament, enough for them to note that American armscraft had become widespread.^[52] Former Pennsylvania Governor Richard Penn informed the House of Commons that the colonists were manufacturing gunpowder, cannons, and firearms in “great numbers”.^[53] However, Penn’s testimony did not distinguish between centralized arms factories, and domestic gunmakers; indeed, British strategic planning in the event of their victory focused mainly on banning factories for gunpowder and arms, not suppressing cottage gunmaking.^[54]

The historical record offered by these two sources is often conflicting-enough to be inconclusive for the purposes of a Bruen analysis. As Ambrose noted, establishing a historical record of gunmaking is marred by a purposeful lack of records by secretive gunsmiths, and the ambiguity of whether those records properly distinguish between gunmaking and gunsmithing.^[55] Greenlee similarly notes that collecting statistical information on who made what firearm is nigh impossible-colonial gunsmiths stopped branding their firearms to prevent retribution by the British, and firearms made for personal use, not sale, would have no need for marking.^[56]

The result is that the historical record of colonial gunmaking is based upon hearsay-scattered statements often made by political figures rather than proper statistical examination of how widespread the practice was by figures more closely involved with gunmaking. While Heller and Bruen indeed require that the Founding Fathers’ thoughts on these practices are paramount for history and tradition inquiries, just how widespread the practice of cottage gunmaking is important as well. The cottage industry nature of gunmaking means that it will be difficult for courts to ascertain how widespread gunmaking was-and whether it was a right the Founding Fathers believed would be under the protection of the Constitution.

While plaintiffs may find it difficult to establish the right of gunmaking given the murky historical record, firearms regulations are much more definite. The colonial and Founding era of America had several firearms stamping laws, the best analogue to modern-day serialization. Many gunmakers stamped or engraved a mark into the firearms they produced to identify both the manufacturer and the owner of the firearm.^[57] Indeed, when purchasing arms for the Revolutionary War, many states legally required firearms bought under contract to be stamped with letters indicating the manufacturer, and/or the name of the state purchasing it.^[58]

The most compelling stampage laws come from New England during and shortly after the Founding. Connecticut ordered that firearms confiscated from British loyalists have their owner recorded, and their names stamped on the firearm as a method of identification and to ensure their return to their owners.^[59] In 1805, Massachusetts passed a law prohibiting the sale of muskets without a stamp, as well as prohibiting striking the stamp from firearms.^[60] These customs and laws provide the best historical analogue for serialization laws, with the Connecticut law providing the strongest. That being said, these analogues still have flaws that may make them subject to scrutiny.

Connecticut’s law provides the strongest analogy for serialization requirements, as it most directly addressed the public safety issue that serialization of 3-D printed firearm parts kits is meant to address. The law disarmed dangerous persons-English loyalists-for the safety of the public, and required that their arms be, in effect, serialized. That being said, it appears the intent of the law was to serialize the firearm not for the purpose of protecting the public against untraceable firearms, but to ensure that once English loyalists were no longer a threat, their weapons could be returned to them. Similarly, other colonial stamping laws were a similar attempt to ensure lost or stolen firearms could be returned to their owners rather than preventing crime or other danger. Accordingly, this analogue is similar in fact, but not in intent, damaging its ability to conclusively survive a Bruen historical analysis.

While the intent of Massachusetts’ law is unclear, an intent to prevent the untraceability of firearms is demonstrated in the law’s attempts to ban the sale of firearms with altered or removed stamps.^[61] The Massachusetts law is perhaps best at providing a sufficient analogue for the means of firearms regulations, with similar, but not the exact same intent.

The clearer history of serialization requirements compared to the historical record of gunmaking means plaintiffs may struggle with making Bruen claims against 3-D printed firearms regulations given the muddled historical record of gunmaking, but government defendants will have a significantly easier burden in defending firearms regulations with historical analogues. Importantly, as can be seen here, the complexity and lack of easy answers that a Bruen analysis produces may provoke the downfall of the precedent itself.

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^[1] Andy Greenberg, Meet the ‘Liberator’: Test-Firing the World’s First Fully 3D-Printed Gun, Forbes, (May 6th, 2013, 05:30 PM), https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/05/meet-the-liberator-test-firing-the-worlds-first-fully-3d-printed-gun/#76acbd3b52d7.

^[2] Id.

^[3] Id.

^[4] New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 11-12 (2022).

^[5]  Id. at 19, 20.

^[6] Id. at 28-29.

^[7] See Atkinson v. Garland, 70 F.4th 1018 (7th Cir. 2023); United States v. Brunner, 728 F.Supp.3d 935 (S.D. Ill 2024).

^[8] Andy Greenberg, Meet the ‘Liberator’: Test-Firing the World’s First Fully 3D-Printed Gun, FORBES, (May 6th, 2013, 05:30 PM), https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/05/meet-the-liberator-test-firing-the-worlds-first-fully-3d-printed-gun/#76acbd3b52d7.

^[9] Def. Distributed v. United States Dep't of State, 838 F.3d 451, 461 (5th Cir. 2016).

^[10] 18 U.S.C 922(k); 27 C.F.R. § 478.92.

^[11] Joseph G.S. Greenlee, The American Tradition of Selfmade Arms, 54 St. Mary’s L.J. 35 (2023). Notably, this source was cited by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals when conducting a Bruen test. VanDerStok v. Garland, 86 F.4th 179, 185, 194 (5th. Cir. 2023).

^[12] Graham Ambrose, Gunmaking at the Founding, 77 Stan L. Rev. 235 (2025).

^[13] Greenlee supra note 11, at 36, 37.

^[14] Ambrose, supra note 12, at 240.

^[15] Id.

^[16] Id.

^[17] Id. at 241.

^[18] Id. at 241, 242.

^[19] Greenlee, supra note 11, at 46.

^[20] Id.

^[21] Id. at 47.

^[22] Id. at 48.

^[23] Ambrose, supra note 12 at 243, 249.

^[24] Id. at 242-243.

^[25] Id. at 245.

^[26] Id. at 245-247.

^[27] Id. at 246.

^[28] Id. at 251.

^[29] Id.

^[30] Id.

^[31] Greenlee, supra note 11, at 47.

^[32] Ambrose, supra note 12, at 247, 248.

^[33] Id. at 290.

^[34] Id. at 252, 253.

^[35] Greenlee, supra note 11, at 54.

^[36] Ambrose, supra note 12, at 254.

^[37] Greenlee, supra note 11, at 56.

^[38] Ambrose, supra note 12, at 252.

^[39] Id. at 254, 255.

^[40] Id. at 274.

^[41] Id. at 255.

^[42] Id.

^[43] Id. at 256.

^[44] Greenlee, supra note 11, at 48.

^[45] Id. at 51.

^[46] Id. at 55.

^[47] Id. at 54-58.

^[48] Id.

^[49] The Committee included multiple Founding Fathers and signatories to the Constitution-Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, Robert Morris, and John Dickinson.

^[50] Greenlee, supra note 11, at 59, 60 (The Committee specifically published instructions on the publication of firearm barrels, not the entire firearm).

^[51] Id. at 60-61.

^[52] Id. at 60.

^[53] Id.

^[54] Id. at 60, 61.

^[55] Ambrose, supra note 12, at 242-243.

^[56] Greenlee, supra note 11, at 60.

^[57] Ambrose, supra note 12, at 271-272.

^[58] Id. at 272.

^[59] Id.

^[60] United States v. Patton, No. 4:21-CR-3084, 2023 WL 6230413, at *3 (D. Neb. Sept. 26, 2023).

^[61] Id.