Requires a criminal history background check for the purchase of a three-dimensional printer capable of creating firearms; prohibits sale to a person who would be disqualified on the basis of criminal history from being granted a license to possess a firearm.
Want a 3D printer in New York? Get ready for fingerprinting and a 15 day wait
Assembly Bill A8132 has been assigned a "Same As" bill in the Senate: S8586 [NYSenate.gov] [A8132 - 2023]
I don't own a gun, I never have and I don't plan to at any time in the future. But if these pass in the NYS Senate and Congress, it would be required to submit fingerprints for a background check then wait 15 days, before you could own any "COMPUTER OR COMPUTER-DRIVEN MACHINE OR DEVICE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A
THREE-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT FROM A DIGITAL MODEL."
This isn't even going to stop any crimes from happening, for pity sakes regular guns end up in criminal charges all the time, regardless of background check laws. How about some real change and effective measures, rather then virtue-signaling and theater illusion for a constituency?
As usual, I have to wonder first if anyone actually put any thought into this, and further if anyone thought how the fuck they're going to enforce it. This is just manufacturing one step removed... Anyone willing to make a gun with a 3D printer is certainly capable and willing of building their own 3D printer as well.
Or buying/building a milling machine. Or a lathe. Or a drill, a hacksaw, and some files.
If they cared more about making our society safer, they'd pay teachers more, build more homes, quintuple minimum wage, make education cheaper or free, actually tax the rich, reign in corpos, reform the police, abolish for profit prisons, make healthcare affordable and accessible, remove money from politics, just to start.
But nah, virtue signaling is way easier and is clearly enough to get them re elected, so let's ban 3D printers baby!
Damn it's good to see this list. I've been preaching it for years now. Gun control is virtue signaling bullshit, it will not solve the problem because guns aren't the issue. Our society is deeply troubled and we need to fix the why's, and not the what tool was used.
I'd wager UBI and single payer safety nets alone would have violence over all drop by 50+%
build more homes, quintuple minimum wage, make education cheaper or free, actually tax the rich, reign in corpos, reform the police, abolish for profit prisons, make healthcare affordable and accessible, remove money from politics, just to start.
Even rightwingers here demand more: build homes for everyone, tenfold minimum wage, more funding for universal education, more funding for UHC.
Don't tempt them. New York cops will already pull over cars crossing the bridges and have been known to fine and/or arrest people for bringing in cigarettes bought out of state.
God forbid this passes and then they track you leaving the Microcenter in Paterson, NJ. They'll probably call in a SWAT team and a helicopter.
This is the crap your average gun owners have to deal with all the time. And with similar results for crime prevention, which leads to more and more hoops as legislators try more of the same.
All because they genuinely don't understand the subject matter or don't care but want to appeal to people who also don't know. Remember the "this is a ghost gun" speech?
Welcome to the shitshow, I'm truly sorry you're here. I just want to enjoy 3D printed doodads and neat non-printed range toys in peace.
Not entirely a fair comparison. Gun owners might have to deal with some extra process in the acquisition of a tool explicitly capable of sending projectiles at lethal speeds. There is a good reason why some of those hoops might be tied to "crime prevention". Because it is a tool remarkably well suited for it...
Adding such loops for 3D printers would make as much sense as for a bag of sand, because you could drop it on someone... But that's not what it's used for... and the extra hoops should be in proportion.
edit: Have I stumbled on some gun-loving easily offended part of lemmy? Let's see some congruent argument against anything I wrote. I encourage it. Be a brave snowflake.
3d printed plastic guns are real in a sense but not in any practical way. I am not sure why so many people think this is a concern. If I have a box of ammo, I can probably go into my shop and come up with a way to fire it. I doubt I would use my 3d printer in that project though. There are better ways to makeshift a weapon.
While I majorly disagree with this legislation, its not about plastic guns.
They only regulate the part of a gun that has the serial number, not the other parts. For "repairability." Guess what that one part is easily made of? Yup, plastic.
People are printing the easy part, and buying all the rest in metal. Proper control would be to regulate the sale of commercially manufactured replacement parts, not a tool.
The lower receiver of an AR15 is legally considered the firearm. You can buy all other parts straight up, but you have to go through federal background checks on that one. Even with private sales, at least the first buyer would have to have gone through the process.
On its own, it's just a chunk of plastic or metal. It's not pressure bearing and isn't even all that mechanically stressed in typical use. Therefore, you can print that one part off, buy all other parts, bypass all checks, and have a completely unregistered AR15. It's not especially difficult to do, though it does involve a few specialized tools.
In the UK, regulation tends to be around pressure bearing parts, and this is a lot more sensible.
To drive the point home a little further. No one, at least in this context, is making an all plastic gun with a 3D printer. It simply doesn't happen. Even the memeworthy and incredibly janky Harlot 22LR uses steel barrel liners. It is also difficult (read: impossible) to have strong enough springs to fire a primer without using steel. Plus cartridges and bullets themselves are famously made out of... metals.
The notion of a 3D printed plastic gun sailing through a metal detector are pure fantasy. Completely fictional. Bogus, bunk, absolute bullshit.
But legislators believe it, because politicians are not actually experts in anything except playing politics. Which in general does not equip you with knowledge or experience from the real world.
This bill would require literally every single commercial machinist in the state to also register as they qualify under such broad wording. That's fucking retarded and every single manufacturing company left (what few there may be) will fight this tooth and nail.
Why bother with that they can just forfully take over any online account and do whatever they want. I dont think they even need a warrant to do so either.
Neither will 99% of 3D printed guns. Most 3D printed guns use metal parts, and ammo will likely be detected as well.
Only single shot, entirely 3D printed guns with plastic ammo have any chance.
ITT: Many people make the incorrect assumption that, aside from some specific state- and city-level ordinances, there is such a thing as "firearm registration" in the US.
This is a myth largely promulgated by TV shows about cops. There is no nationwide firearms registry in the United States.
Regulation != Registration.
What does happen is that when a firearm is legally purchased from a dealer (FFL), the buyer must submit to and pass a federal background check. Records of these are not retained centrally, but each FFL dealer must maintain their own records of their own sales, indefinitely, as long as they remain in business. Ready to be reviewed at any time by the cops or ATF. Failure to do so can land the dealer in very deep shit. Centralized collection of firearm transaction records is prohibited by federal law, under the assumption that such a central record would be used to target, harass, and confiscate arms from their owners whenever the government felt like it (which is probably about a 50/50 mix of paranoia and accurate prediction).
Some states also require their own more strict background checks. States also vary in how strict or lax they are in requiring background checks for transfers between private individuals, and not a dealer. There is no federal requirement for private sellers to conduct a background check to transfer ownership of a firearm except across state lines, but many states themselves do have such a requirement. Further, transfers and sales of handguns often have stricter state level requirements vs. long guns (rifles and shotguns).
3D printing a firearm (receiver) does not allow any individual to "evade" any type of mythical "registration," which by and large does not exist -- as above. It does, however, allow a suitably motivated individual who could not pass a federal or state background check to get their hands on a presumably functional firearm.
It is perfectly legal for a person who is not prohibited from possessing a firearm to begin with to manufacture their own firearm, via 3D printer or otherwise, on a federal level. Some states have already enacted restrictions on this, however.
It is already illegal for a person prohibited from possessing a firearm to A) manufacture a firearm, B) possess any firearm (duh), or C) possess ammunition for any firearm, whether they are found to have a firearm to put it in or not.
It is already illegal for a person to manufacture firearm(s) for the purposes of selling, trading, giving away, or otherwise putting into the possession of others, if they are not a federally licensed firearms manufacturer.
It is already illegal to provide access to a firearm to a person prohibited.
It is already illegal to use any manufacturing method (even a 3D printer) to produce a firearm or component that is otherwise illegal or restricted NFA item such as a machine gun, suppressor, short barreled rifle, etc., etc.
I think the reason is because legislators are looking for gun restrictions that can pass, and the combination of legislative obstruction and the Supreme Courts recent ruling against pretty much any gun law written after 1860 or something has basically made it impossible to regulate the purchase of actual guns. So now they're looking for whatever law they can pass regardless of whether it makes sense.
Illinois has the foid system. You get a card that basically says that you're legally allowed to own a gun. You need this card to buy ammunition and guns and to possess a gun. It's not a bad system, problem is that Indiana and Wisconsin are so close to Chicago.
It is federally illegal to buy a handgun outside your home state, and many states include rifles in this. They can be purchased technically, but they have to be shipped to an FFL dealer in your state for the NICs check. Even in states that will sell rifles to out of state IDs, the rifle still has to be legal in their home state and they have to follow all the laws of that state. IL specifically, if you go into any FFL in the country, you'll be told "we're sorry, can't help you" because of their laws.
I know the news pretends that none of that is true, but it is. Not likely people will know that though unless they have either tried it as a customer or worked in an FFL, I'm just informing not talking shit (sometimes intent gets lost through text, just clarifying.)
Just to clarify, the FOID approval process is effectively performed in every state for any gun purchase. It's not like the FOID background check carries more scrutiny or anything. If a Texan resident can buy guns in Texas, they could get a FOID card if they lived in Illinois.
And it's federally illegal to sell guns to non-residents of the state the sale is made in, so Chicago residents can't buy guns in neighboring states. Indiana and Wisconsin residents could bring guns into Chicago, but that alone is highly illegal too.
basically made it impossible to regulate the purchase of actual guns.
Currently, the purchase of actual guns is still federally regulated, so it seems possible. What they keep striking down is meaningless feature bans and the states that want to lock carrying only to the rich and famous, which imo is also fucked up.
What I'm talking about specifically is NY v. Bruen. The supreme Court ruled that states can't pass gun restrictions that aren't reflective of historical tradition.
As you can imagine, that makes drafting gun restrictions that are permitted under this reading of the construction nearly impossible.
This kind of ban on 3d printers is an terrible but not unsurprising consequence of this really batshit ruling.
Don’t 3d printed guns crack after like 2 shots? Next they’re going to require ID to buy pipe and nails in order to guard everyone from modern improvised muskets.
depends on the design, as well as the capability of the printer.
DMLS is capable of producing basically anything you can think of in metal. FDM or resin, or whatever... you're printing the frame.
the DEFCAD design, specifically, you're printing the AR lower receiver- which for some stupid reasons is designated as the "firearm" as far as laws and regulations go. So you can print the lower and buy the rest in cash as parts.that said, the only real function the lower serves in an AR is holding the magazine in place, so it's not really subjected to anything that's going to break it.
Incidentally, $40 at a big box store and a lot of TLC with a dremmel can produce a passable SMG. in fact... many of the ww2 era machine guns were designed to be made in factories that used to turn out plumbing parts. (because this reduced the amount of time and materials spent on retooling the production lines.)
Fully 3d printed ones, yes. But you can print all the plastic parts of a Glock, buy a kit of parts that don't require any verification at all and assemble a fully working one that is about as good as a genuine glock.
Or go a bit further with the FGC-9 or countless other similar things. The fewest actual gun parts used in successful firearms are in .22lr pepperboxes which use only barrel liners.
Here in Finland, I couldn't do any of that, because barrels, liners, trigger assemblies, magazines, ammo, they all require a background check and having a license to own a firearm. As would those printed Glock upper/lower parts, if I had access to the kits making them illegal to own.
Instead of, you know, the 3d printer?
Hypothetically you could 3d sinter print a chamber but I doubt it would survive more than 3 shots, and would more likely just become high velocity shrapnel through your hand.
Even in one shot the 3d printed gun will explode. The cartridge is just a container for the gun powder, not the explosion. Real guns have a chamber that contains this explosive pressure.
3d printed guns are nowhere near strong enough to contain this pressure and when the gun fires the bullet is flung harmlessly in some random direction. Since there is almost no energy imparted into the bullet it doesn't have any power or lethality, heck the shrapnel from the casing is literally more deadly for the shooter than any bullet towards the shootee.
Heck a 3d printed gun can even fire a bullet at all. Plastic is not rigid enough to detonate the primer and set the round off. You can literally fry bullets in a cheap metal pot and when they explode they won't even go through the pot.
The only way you could make a 3d printed gun work is by incorporating tons of other metal parts, at which point it isn't a "3d printed gun". Search up pipe shotguns. They can be made with a handful parts from home Depot and only require 1 or 2 tools at home (only 1 if you get them cut at home Depot). Far more effective and actually deadly, even used by guerilla forces against imperial Japan in the Philippines.
embedded spark plug fragments, the ceramic, at least that's what I overheard while minding my own law abiding business having breakfast at Shoney's.
The real difficult part, or so I overheard, is the spring needed to generate the force needed to set off the primer, I did not hear of the other obviously dastardly people who were not related to me in any way by blood or association, apart from sharing the same species you see, had come up with a metal detector evading solution.
What people are doing with "3D printed" guns is printing the receiver or frame components that are otherwise serial numbered and federally regulated, and populating those with metal barrels, slides, upper receivers, trigger assemblies, pins, springs, etc., as appropriate from the genuine item. These can be quite functional and durable, because the majority of the gun is, in fact, still made from "real" gun parts.
Clever individuals have gotten quite far in managing to print most of the required components, but several critical parts simply can't be made with consumer level printing technology. At present it is impossible to fully print a gun out of plastic and actually have it work.
The way federal law works, the ATF has identified and decided what constitutes the minimum identifiable major "gun part" of a given model of firearm, which is the part that must bear the serial number and is the component that cannot be sold without a background check through an FFL. For the Armalite platform, for instance, it is the lower receiver which is a component that can be 3D printed. The upper receiver is not a regulated part. For many polymer framed pistols like Glocks, the grip housing and frame is the FFL component. These can typically be 3D printed as well. But some guns, like the PTR/HK 91 and Sig P250 it's not the frame, it's the trigger assembly that's the FFL item. You can't effectively 3D print one of those -- although you could probably manufacture one with a milling machine pretty easily.
There are probably makerspaces in NY where people can drop in and print stuff. No waiting or fingerprinting there, even when you want to print gun parts
"Any 3d printer capable of printing a gun" seems pretty broad but wouldn't 3d print kits get around this easily. Like if I buy a prusa MK4 it can print gun parts out of the box but a pile of prusa mk4 parts ain't printing shit.
I don't really think anyone expects this political theater law to be effective in anything except suppressing the growing 3d printing community in one of the world's largest tech centers.
Shooting themselves in the foot with a good old fashioned normal gun, it seems.