A search warrant executed at an apartment in the 200 block of Middle Street in Fall River turned up a large quantity of firearms, 3D-printed firearm components and accessories, high-capacity magazines, and ammunition, resulting in the arrest of two residents. Police did not identify the two people taken into custody, who were booked at SP-Dartmouth before being transported to Fall River District Court for arraignment.
The warrant was carried out Tuesday morning by the Fall River Police Department's Community Action & Suppression Team, known as C.A.S.T., with assistance from Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Bristol County District Attorney's Office and the MSP STOP Team, according to Fall River Reporter. C.A.S.T., created in late 2024, focuses on neighborhood enforcement, illegal weapons, and gang activity. The Massachusetts State Police Special Tactical Operations, or STOP, Team serves as the state police's tactical SWAT unit equipped to handle high-risk search warrants and armed barricaded suspects.
Why 3D-Printed Guns Are Now Explicitly Illegal
The Middle Street seizure lands squarely within Massachusetts' newly updated firearm regulations. Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024, known as An Act Modernizing Firearms Laws, took effect on October 2, 2024, and expanded the Commonwealth's legal definition of a firearm to explicitly include 3D-printed weapons, unfinished frames, receivers and assembly kits, while requiring serial numbers on frames and receivers.
Massachusetts' updated firearm law also addresses 3D-printed firearms.
Other Ghost-Gun Cases
In August, a shooting on Birch Street led police to execute a search warrant and make arrests at a Sunset Hill residence, where three adults and a 16-year-old juvenile were present, in a Fall River case. Investigators found a .22-caliber semiautomatic firearm beneath a couch; a young child was also present at the home. Just this month, Dennis Police on Cape Cod executed a search warrant that uncovered a 3D printer, filament rolls, tools and partially assembled ghost gun components at a residential home following a juvenile handgun investigation.
Nationally, the trend lines back up what local police are seeing on the ground. ATF crime-gun trace data compiled by Everytown Research & Policy shows law enforcement recoveries of untraceable ghost guns escalated from 1,758 weapons in 2016 to 25,785 in 2022, with an increasing share involving 3D-printed frames and receivers. Federal regulations issued in 2022 targeted commercial kits but did not fully restrict home 3D printing, leaving states like Massachusetts to fill the gap with their own statutes.
