Channel 11 Chief Investigative Reporter Rick Earle met with ATF agents in November 2022 at the ATF office in Pittsburgh, and they showed him a 3D printer that was confiscated as part of a criminal investigation in Western Pennsylvania.
Agents tell Earle it had been used to make illegal Glock switches that convert a handgun in to an automatic weapon, like a machine gun.
The ATF has seen more and more of these illegal switches used in crimes in the Pittsburgh area.
The 3D printers can also be used to make handguns, known as ghost guns, that can’t be traced.
Joe Price from the ATF says all of it is illegal. Owning the printer is not illegal, but what they are using it for is illegal, so they took a perfectly good tool and turned it into a crime.
When police took Luigi Mangione into custody Monday morning at a McDonald’s in Altoona. They say he had a ghost gun consistent to the one used in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Officials believe it was made using a 3D printer.
We are also learning more about Mangione and his ties to Pennsylvania.
While he was born and raised in Towson, Maryland, and last lived in Hawaii. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2020.
Mangione earned both a Bachelor and Master’s degree in engineering with a focus on computer science and math.
He was also the valedictorian of his high school class at a private school in Baltimore.
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