Welcome to Homebuild History, the part of 3D Gun Builder’s website where we focus on the history of some of the most iconic homebuilt firearms, their contributions to the world, and most importantly, how YOU AT HOME can get your hands on these classic arms and armaments!
What’s the Story?
This week, we’ll be talking about how a little gun made a big impact on the guncad community despite not being particularly innovative. The real-world impact it had was by far more significant than any developments in design. It was also responsible for putting the Black Lotus Coalition on that map.
That gun is none other than the Harlot.
Involved in the Trade
The Black Lotus Coalition is a comparatively new group in the world of guncad. Unlike Deterrence Dispensed or the groups that splintered from it, much of its growth was indigenous. There was very little in the way of taking on designers who’d splintered off from other projects.
A problem arose off the bat, however. Most if not all major innovations in the world of guncad had already been done. There were enough PCCs, pistols, and innovative other weapons to fill a museum gallery, and very little existed in the way of “new and innovative.” As such, BLC went back to basics.
Whether there was direct inspiration from the earlier Reppringers on the early Harlot designs is unclear. Certainly they were almost the same in function. But while the Reppringer was intended to innovate, the Harlot was intended to, like its namesake, be widely available to anyone and everyone.
Little did anyone expect how the design would take off.
Cheap as Chicken
An issue with the world of guncad often brought up by naysayers is the price. For a number of prominent designs, especially parts kit builds, building your own gun is almost as expensive as just buying one from your local FFL. This has the downside of discouraging participation in betas and slowing development.
Not so for the Harlot. The design itself was and is a sub-$100 weapon, exceedingly cheap and affordable. Public interest piped up as practically anyone could afford to make one of these, significantly opening the base of participants. The Harlot’s release skyrocketed the reputation of BLC, making it a major player in the guncad world today.
The cheapness of the design, however, had one other advantage that wouldn’t become prominent until sometime after release.
Pimping Ain’t Easy
One of the banes of modern society is the idea of the gun buyback. The belief that a street thug will turn in his fully auto Glock, worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars, for a Visa gift card. Valuable historic artifacts have been turned in at buybacks, from registered machine guns to World War 2 relics. Yes, stupidity knows no bounds.
In 2022, an unnamed hero finally had enough of his local buyback in Houston. At $3 a pop, the man prolifically printed dozens of guns, mostly Harlots, and turned them in for over $3,000 in gift cards. This legend, this titan of the war against anti-gunners, inspired countless others to follow his example, and a movement was born.
The Harlot and its variants became the weapon of choice in a war on gun buybacks. Around the country, they were mass-produced in home workshops and brought to buybacks by the bucketload, figuratively and sometimes literally. Tens if not hundreds of thousands in buyback money went to people far less useful than the idiots anti-gun movements tried to exploit.
While BLC has moved on to other designs, and gun buybacks have been aggressively seeking to change their policies to minimize righteous exploitation, the Harlot’s real-world impact has been tremendous. More and more people have worked tirelessly to bilk the system, and by God, I hope they succeed.
How do I make it?
Check the Black Lotus Coalition repo on Odysee, or check with the print2a repo among other places. The writer of this article HIGHLY recommends that you check for gun buybacks in your area, find out if you can make a buck off printed guns, and build* them in bulk. Don’t test them, don’t tinker with them, just turn them in and profit.
A reminder: the people behind these gun buybacks know they don’t work. They gain a certain sadistic pleasure in exploiting people’s guilt and abusing their emotional state to cause them to lose money. If they wanted guns out of people’s hands, they could work with FFLs and get them actual retail value. They don’t do this for a reason.
Should you go to a gun buyback, treat the people behind it with the most contempt you feel they publicly deserve. Exploit them, grift them, make them lose money, and do anything and everything in your power to walk out with more than you came in with. To paraphrase a popular YouTube video, “they don’t deserve [your] kindness.”
As always, tune in next week for more Homebuild History! Stay safe and build on!
*Legally, of course. Laws don’t stop you from building this, but we at 3DGunBuilder encourage readers to follow all legal guidelines. If you can’t make this in your state or country, please don’t try to. Just remember that this is here for educational and research purposes only.
