For those cities around the country that have suffered in the wake of deindustrialization over the last few decades, the proliferation of 3D printing holds a lot of promise.

Though the practice has been around in various forms since the mid-1980s, only in recent years has the ability to digitally craft and then produce real, tangible objects taken off as a viable replacement for old-school manufacturing.

Today you can buy a 3D printer for personal use (this website sells them starting at $1,300), making them ideal for small or mid-sized manufacturing operations that need to fit into tight workspaces. With manufacturing start-ups setting up shop in repurposed warehouses and coworking spaces, bringing a maker economy to cities years after outsourcing depleted their industrial bases, it’s easy to see why businesses and city leaders have latched on to the technology that makes this possible.

President Obama even name-dropped one 3D printing lab, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Youngstown, Ohio, in his State of the Union Speech this year. Calling it “a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything,” Obama seemed to imply that the practice will help restore manufacturing as a viable industry in the U.S.

But one self-described crypto-anarchist in Austin, Texas has seen a different kind of potential in 3D printing.

As Forbes reported this past weekend, 25-year-old Cody Wilson and his 9-month-old non-profit company, Defense Distributed, successfully test fired the world’s first 3D printed gun on May 2.

Though the printer Wilson used reportedly cost $8,000, his gun — which he dubbed the “Liberator” — requires only 15 pieces of plastic and one small metal pin to build (or, more accurately, print). It can shoot a .380-caliber bullet without suffering any damage. (A higher-caliber rifle cartridge, however, did destroy the gun, which was test fired at a distance.) Despite warnings from experts that a plastic gun would explode in the shooter’s hand, Wilson seems confident that his creation will soon be put to practical use.

The onset of print-it-yourself guns, combined with citizen-led efforts like that of one Houston man’s wish to arm people in high-crime neighborhoods, has many gun control advocates worried.

Already, urban leaders nationwide have moved to ban 3D printed firearms in their cities. On Wednesday, one such bill appeared before city councilmembers in Washington, D.C., which saw 88 homicides and whose authorities seized more than 2,000 guns last year.

“An undetectable firearm constructed on your computer may sound like science fiction, but unfortunately, it’s already here and our laws have never contemplated this scenario,” D.C. City Councilmember Tommy Wells, who introduced the legislation, said in a press release. “These weapons create a significant and immediate threat to public safety.”

California State Sen. Leland Yee, whose district includes San Francisco, has said that he will propose regulations that would track 3D printers to make sure criminals don’t have the ability to use them to make homemade guns. Yee said that these regulations might include background checks on the purchase of the printers themselves.

(Next City has emailed the organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns for comment, and will update if we hear back.)

Additionally, two congressmen from New York have indicated that they might seek a national ban. U.S. Rep. Steve Israel and Sen. Charles Schumer have both condemned 3D printed guns as posing a significant public safety risk. On Sunday Schumer announced that he and Israel will introduce a bill called the Undetectable Firearms Modernization Act to make these kinds of DIY printed weapons illegal.

These preliminary moves against 3D printing in general — as opposed to targeting 3D printed guns specifically, which would presumably be difficult to monitor and enforce — mark a district turnaround in political sentiment regarding the practice. What was only weeks ago embraced as a key economic antidote for former industrial cities has become a sort of cyberpunk nightmare, with visions of terrorists and criminals creating arsenals straight from their computers.

Wlison, meanwhile, has made the blueprint for Defense Distributed’s 3D printed gun available online. According to the BBC, it has gotten some 100,000 downloads so far.