From Liberators to Lutys: homemade firearms, right-wing extremism, and the challenge to policing

Homemade firearms have posed a notable challenge for police in recent years. Around the world, policing bodies are uncovering larger and more sophisticated caches of homemade firearms, some of which are possessed by violent extremists. In Australia, this possession has been associated with alleged right wing extremists. Extreme right-wing documents sometimes provide instructions about the manufacture and use of such firearms in technical detail. This study assesses the instructions for homemade firearms found in right-wing extremist documents to calibrate their accuracy and better understand the challenges posed by these documents. We then consider this in light of recent cases in Australia, with possession of homemade firearms and extreme rightwing ideology have been noted factors in the courts, in order to develop insight into the challenges this presents to contemporary policing. We found that the extreme right instructions for building homemade firearms to be mostly accurate, albeit with crude and limited production. This production is also influenced by the availability of materials, firearm popularity, and lethality across jurisdictional contexts, which further poses a threat to the wider community. With the increasing instances of homemade firearms in Australia possessed by alleged extremists, we argue that a tangible threat is presented to police, who are tasked with interacting with these individuals. This is not simply because police are often first responders, but also because police are considered attractive, high-value targets in extreme rightwing targeting logic.