The Midtown assassin‘s alleged weapon of choice in the brazen execution of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson is believed to be a 3D-printed ghost gun — a nearly untraceable weapon that has become a major problem for the NYPD in recent years.
When the NYPD first released that grainy image of the assassin taking deadly aim at Thompson outside Hilton hotel on West 54th Street on the morning of Dec. 4, many suggested it looked like a highly-proficient murder weapon used by a professional hitman, equipped with a silencer. Others thought it might have been a gun typically used on farms to euthanize livestock.
However, NYPD Inspector Courtney Nilan of the Intelligence Division said she almost instantly recognized the firearm used in the assassination as a potential ghost gun.
Nilan has made a career out of battling the rising prominence of ghost guns and raising awareness of their danger as technology advances to the point where anyone with a 3D printer can manufacture a deadly weapon. This has given Nilan the unique authority and skillset on ghost guns.
Once she saw a clearer image of the firearm, she said she immediately knew it was 3D-printed and the continuation of a disturbing trend that sees people printing guns in their own homes.
“As soon as we actually saw images of the gun, I knew it was a ghost gun because the lower receiver had a unique design,” Nilan told amNewYork Metro in an interview. “And with 3D printing of firearms, you could print them in basically any type of unique design you wanted. And with ghost guns, what we are seeing in New York City, and as is the rest of the country, is a shift away from the commercially ordered kits and a shift towards 3D printing of firearms.”
Just a few short years ago, according to Nilan, it was only possible to print a small portion of a firearm — but today, illegal gun manufacturers can print 90% of a firearm, along with accessories.
In this incident, it’s believed that the suspect assassin — 26-year-old Luigi Mangione of Maryland — allegedly fixed a 3D-printed suppressor to the 3D-printed gun. Nilan believes the ability to print deadly accessories draws people in even further but, in doing so, the process could have contributed to the gun jamming that fateful morning.
“It could have been that he’s not a frequent gun user, so he didn’t exactly know how to handle it. It could be that by screwing in and adding the suppressor, maybe that changed the calibration of the gun a little bit. There are a lot of different factors,” Nilan explained. “The 3D print malfunction is usually cracking, and that did not happen in this case.”
Nilan says her team could possibly be able to trace the design used to make the gun used in Thompson’s demise.
“I’ve already expressed interest in the Intelligence Division seeing that gun. We cannot, per se, determine if he made it unless he admits it, or if he purchased it from somebody else who made it. But what we can do is try to match it up to the file design,” Nilan said. “Once they (detectives) do subpoenas on all his computers and cell phones, we could potentially help them identify if he did make it himself or not. Like if that design was downloaded onto his computer and whatnot.”
For years, Nilan has been banging the drum on the dangers of 3D printing ghost guns in a way that seems eerily prophetic in light of what took place last week.
Just two or three years prior, a 3D-printed ghost gun would crack and even explode after pulling the trigger just a few times, now though, they can operate akin to a commercially made firearm. Moreover, they can be customized with 3D-printed Glock switches and auto sears with several cheap pieces of plastic.
Another challenge for ghost gun investigators, Nilan said, are that hundreds of thousands of different designs are being passed around online, leaving the NYPD to face a mounting battle against the polymer pipeline.
“We have to keep playing Whack a Mole. Another reason why they have gone towards 3D printing now is because so many states have done civil and criminal litigation against the online kit retailers, all those online websites that have been selling the ghost gun kits for so long there has been state and federal legislation,” Nilan said. “Even two years ago, we saw this growing in popularity in other states, and we saw this as something, we identified this as a potential problem.”
Nilan pointed to the disturbing rise with several large cases this year alone. In 2022, police only recovered four ghost guns, in 2023, they retrieved 42 through their investigations, and in 2024 so far they have acquired 110.
“Our goal, which we did, was to get them before they were able to sell them on the street. Because we have a lot of people that are home manufacturers, but there has been instances this year, you know, of individuals just arrested on the street with a gun, and it happens to be a 3D-printed firearm,” Nilan said.
Nilan hopes that New York will pass legislation making it illegal to download the files to make 3D-printed guns — and help prevent horrific shootings like Thompson’s execution going forward.
