NY bill would require a criminal history background check for the purchase of a 3D printer::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.
Idiots.
Requires a criminal history background check for the purchase of a three-dimensional printer capable of creating firearms
How do you even begin to prove a 3D printer isn’t capable of producing a firearm? Oh, never mind. the law is even worse than I thought.
ANY RETAILER OF A THREE-DIMENSIONAL PRINTER SOLD IN THIS STATE WHICH IS CAPABLE OF PRINTING A FIREARM, OR ANY COMPONENTS OF A FIREARM
Yeah, you can make a firearm with a piece of bamboo (this is basically what the first firearms were). To think you can restrict anyone from making a firearm is insane. You literally wouldn’t be allowed to own anything if the capability of it making parts of a firearm is restricted. Drill press, lathe, and just about any tool should be restricted if that’s the requirement.
Don’t give them any fucking ideas
the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a printer is a good guy with a printer
It seems pretty clear that this is trying to target the production of switch devices that turn firearms fully automatic, to which I would recommend going after the social media companies that allow these devices to be sold openly on their platforms. That’s where these devices are coming from. Sure, plenty of them came out of a 3D printer, but most people on the street with them bought them from somebody else, no matter how they were manufactured.
Just enforce existing laws against switches, ghost guns, and automatic firearms, and go after any company that enables or profits from their sale. Regulating 3D printer sales won’t solve the issue, because 3D printers are actually somewhat trivial to build, and you don’t have to print these things in New York to sell them in New York.
These types of gun control laws seem like they are less about guns and more about control. I don’t like it.
With all the wonderful things 3d printers can do they chose to focus on one thing. Effectively removing rights from people who never got to exercise them.
There’s a certain section of Democrats for whom as soon as you say “guns” they turn off their brains and vote for whatever they’re told to.
Much like “immigrants” or any number of right wing triggers. There’s fewer of them on the left but they work the same way.
I just wanna say, agreed. But also if you go far enough left you get your guns back.
There’s not that many people that far left, and no one in power.
lol wasn’t the first gun law in America enacted to keep Black Americans from buying or possessing firearms?
Yup. In California, in fact. By a Republican governor named Ronald Reagan.
It seems pretty clear that this is trying to target the production of switch devices that turn firearms fully automatic
Then they’re even dumber than I thought, since those can be made with a coat hanger and a set of needle nose pliers.
He was talking about glock switches.
Reason #56,273 not to live in NY.
In Soviet Russia, access to photocopiers, mimeographs, etc. was restricted to prevent the dissemination of samizdat.
How do they plan to run a background check before I click the “buy” button?
You can easily create a firearm with a short length of steel pipe and a nail. I don’t know how this will do anything. Plus people can just drive to another state.
Well then you’ll know what to do when your guns are taken away won’t you?
When you’ve finished building it (and the home made ammo to go in it), don’t forget to post a picture of your new baby to all the pro-gun communities.
I’m sure they’ll all be very jealous of your dogshit “pipe and nail” gun.
Username checks out.
I can tell ya havent interacted with the firearms communited too much. Its a lot like the car communited, sure there are quite a few folks who are overcompensating dickbags but there are just as many folks who just like em in generally which means the weirder the more interesting.
If someone could get a steel pipe and a nail to work as a functional firearm that can fire once theyd be respected, if they could get it to fire more than once and consistently there a solid chance theyd become a saint of the firearms community.
A slam fire only needs to fire once.
Making it absolute dogshit for criminals and domestic terrorists.
Exactly. It has one use.
That will never happen in the lifetime of anyone who can read these comments. Our gun rights are set in stone and there’s nothing you can ever do about it.
Tell that to your slaves.
It will be effective in 3d printers gaining attention for having the ability to print firearms
Obviously no respectable criminal would use a pipe gun without a 3d-printed ergonomic handle.
Can anyone name one crime that has been committed with a 3d printed gun from the last 3 years that hasn’t been committed 100x more often in the last week with a stolen or illegally obtained gun.
Or by legal gun owners, who are responsible for a massive percentage of gun violence, (for example, 80% of all mass shootings).
You know, the same legal gun owners who let their guns get stolen or staunchly oppose closing gun show loopholes or making straw-purchasing more difficult.
80% of mass shootings isn’t a “Massive percentage”, it’s quite small actually
I know you’re trying to say “the people killed by domestic terrorists in America are statistically insignificant” but awkwardly shoehorning it in like that just makes it sound like you don’t understand percentages.
I agree with all of your points but have a small nitpick that I really wish people would stop calling it the gun show loophole
The loophole is that private sales (depending on state laws) don’t require a background check (which, to be clear, I disagree with)
But all of those guys with tables set up at the gun show are FFL dealers, buying from them is just like buying from any regular gun shop with all of the normal background checks and other requirements you’d expect in your state.
Now any of the random folks wandering around the show, in theory, could sell you a gun without any background check, but that’s not unique to them being at a gun show, they could do the same from their garage, a Walmart parking lot, a random street corner, a TGI Fridays, etc.
I’m also pretty sure that most, if not all gun shows specifically prohibit those private sales from happening at their events.
Again, I’d like to see the loophole closed, but calling it a gun show loophole just leaves the door open for gun nuts to say “lol, there is no gun show loophole, see you don’t even know what you’re talking about” because there’s really nothing unique about gun shows as it pertains to the law.
Instead i’d say we should refer to it as the private sale loophole or the Brady bill loophole.
The loophole thing really turned into a talking point, didn’t it? Whenever someone uses that word, I automatically assume they’ve never been to a gun show.
I tend to make the same assumption, not that I think it’s important for people saying these things and crafting these laws to have ever been to a gun show, but they should at least understand what it is they want to regulate.
I am by no means anti gun, I like guns, enjoy shooting, I don’t currently own any because I have other priorities for my money, but if I suddenly found myself with a lot more disposable income I’d probably own a couple. That said, I do support a lot of gun control measures that would make the average Republican voter call me a crazy gun grabbing communist.
Mostly though, I hate seeing people pushing for laws and regulations when they clearly don’t understand what it is they’re trying to regulate. You see a lot of liberals get up in arms (and rightfully so) about shitty Internet laws crafted by geriatric politicians who can barely manage to check their own emails, but then go and make the same kind of mistakes with gun laws
To name one particularly egregious example, McCarthy describing a barrel shroud as “a shoulder thing that goes up” had similar energy no Stevens describing the internet as “a series of tubes” except the tubes analogy could actually kind of work for some internet issues (though not the specific one he was complaining about) whereas I can’t think of any way to twist the shoulder thing comment to make it apply to a barrel shroud.
That’s all fair, but it remains the most widely accepted term for the issue, complete with its own Wikipedia page.
leaves the door open for gun nuts to say “lol, there is no gun show loophole, see you don’t even know what you’re talking about”
It doesn’t matter what it’s called, they’ll continue to oppose addressing it because their strategy is to only take, never give.
It doesn’t matter what it’s called, they’ll continue to oppose addressing it
That doesn’t mean we need to make it easy for them to oppose it. Don’t give them a stupid way to dismiss the conversation before it even gets off the ground, make them actually defend their position that private sales shouldnt need background checks.
IMO, getting stuck calling it the gun show loophole when there are better things to call it because that’s what everyone has always called it has the same kind of energy as conservative assholes who refuse to learn a person’s pronouns or old people who never bothered to scrub things like “colored” or “oriental” from their vocabulary. Language can, does, and should change with the times, and we need to keep up with it.
Sounds like bikeshedding to me.
Them getting caught up on you calling it the gun show loophole is bikeshedding, and you can solve it by the simple action of calling it something else.
Again, there is no possible combination of words that will make the pro-gun community support its closure and you’re doing them a massive favor by implying they have a role in the conversation at all.
With Google searches for “private sale loophole” returning results for “gun show loophole” (as well as information about the origin of the term), it could just as easily be argued that you’re muddying the waters for semantics.
So I’ll just keep using whatever phrase gets my point across and you can use whatever words you want in the gun-control comments you don’t seem to be making, to placate people who don’t seem to exist, so they don’t use a talking point that’s trivial to address.
Call it a “private sales loophole”. It’s more accurate, and covers what you would actually want covered.
A big issue with gun control, outside of the NRA being a huge grift, is that gun control advocates have no idea how guns work and what current laws actually do. They often confuse things that are truly dangerous with purely cosmetic features.
Well even the most profoundly stupid person can see the most important thing American gun laws do; fail on a daily basis.
Great! Then you can run off and ban collapsible stocks again. That will surely help.
Hey if you want us to ban things that actually help, I’m all for it. Should we start with semi-automatic weapons or handguns?
Are these lawmakers aware of the fact you can 3d print a 3d printer? Or at least, about 80% of its parts, and the remaining parts are indistinguishable from the random stuff youd buy at the hardware store? (Aluminum extrusion mostly, some gears, etc)
The only part they could theoretically hope to control worth a damn would be the printing nozzles, which are so incredibly cheap to buy bulk and nearly impossible to specialize.
Also you could take this to court and point out that you would need to also include CNC machines, Laser Cutters, lathes, and any of the other variations of tools that can be used to manufacture a DIY gun.
This isnt a problem specific to 3d printers, a CNC mill that can cut aluminum is also just as capable of producing the jigs needed to manufacture gun parts.
You can make a fireable shotgun out of like 15$ of pipe fittings
This is typical of politicians making laws about shit they don’t understand. At all.
I’d argue a cnc mill makes a hell of a better gun than a 3d printer
It would, but it would also require more expense and skill and the “gun control is pointless because people will just make their own guns” lie works best when you can imply there is minimal cost, experience, effort and risk.
since a cnc is computer controlled it should be about as hard to learn to use a 3d printer
making the model and instructions for the cnc may be more complicated, but you can share those
Your gut feelings are not facts. CNC machining – especially of hard metals and complex shapes – is significantly more complicated and expensive than desktop 3D printers.
You can’t just buy a $200 CNC frame, stick a palm router in it and come back an hour later to an AR-15.
Not that you’re saying otherwise, but it’s not anywhere that simple to make a gun on a 3d printer either. It’s at least not considerably easier than making one clandestinely using any of the myriad options that have existed without 3d printing.
There are companies that sell small CNC machines marketed for the purpose of producing firearms. At that point all you need is the gcode and the stock.
Sounds like you shouldn’t have any problem answering these questions then:
- What does the machine itself cost?
- What grades of metal is the spindle able to cut and what is suitable for a safe and reliable firearm?
- What tool heads are needed to manufacture each part of a gun?
- For each of those tools, cutting that material, what is a good RPM and feed rate?
- Do any parts require precise realignment as part of a tool change or when changing the orientation of a part?
- How much stock is required for a semi-automatic rifle and what does it cost?
- What have you personally manufactured and on what machines? Regular old mills and lathes are fine.
Alternatively, you could go on record saying that absolutely none of those things matter for gun manufacturing.
All of the answers to these questions are easy, and they all begin with a G.
G-code answers most of your technical concerns.
Google could have helped you find your other answers.
And the Ghost Gunner is what I found:
https://ghostgunner.net/product/ghost-gunner-3-deposit/
Why so incredulous about something that is obviously possible?
I’d fire a 3D printed gun with a string from about 20’ away.
So the big thing people, including lawmakers, whiff on this is you dont actually 3d print guns. You can 3d print superficial parts like the grip and whatnot, but the actual firing part of the gun is largely not 3d printable.
You can print it, and people have tried, but it usually only lasts 1-2 rounds before it breaks.
However, what you can print that is a huge deal, is the very precise jigs necessary to very easily manufacture the firing mechanisms of the gun, to quite a degree of precision. Then you use a drill or whatever to actually make those metal parts.
Basically, you can easily 3d print a gun maker, and then 3d print all the “extra” parts like grip and whatnot that attach to what you have created, in order to improve it.
Thats the actually serious part, because normally these sorts of jigs need to be extremely precise and are quite difficult to get ahold of. You need a fairly high end CNC machine to make one, or you have to buy it.
But 3d printers, even fairly affordable ones, when fine tuned by hand, do have the necessary precision to print such jigs, which makes them much more accessible for quite cheap… And once you print the jig, it becomes pretty easy to mass produce DIY guns.
This doesn’t track. You can do way better with a manual mill and, as the other poster mentioned, a 2d paper template with some spray glue will do fine in a pinch. Drilling steel will heat the bit up enough to melt plastic anyway. You could set drill bushings but they won’t be perfect and will drift a bit once they heat up.
The jigs in question are a lot more complicated than I think what you are imagining. If you look up on the topic (and possibly get added to a watchlist), it’s fairly sophisticated equipment being created to handle a lot more of the finesse work required to produce a ghost gun that can actually reliably hit targets its aimed at.
Thats what separates this sort of work out from your run of the mill DIY handcrafted stuff, the guns in question actually have a lot of accuracy as 3d printed rigs can have very high precision once they have been fine tuned, and unlike stuff like paper they can be produced in 3 dimensions, which means you’re working with a lot more than just following lines.
Think more like extremely augmented drill presses and routers and shit that can produce a lot of the parts you normally cant make yourself and have to buy.
I may be underestimating it since I’m a jig builder.
We’re talking about different things I think.
People have been making paper templates for a long time, I can’t see how plastic would have any real advantage. A plastic guide isn’t going to constrain a metal cutting tool, at best it just shows you where you need to drill the same as a paper template. If you wander outside the lines you’ll just mess up both the part and the jig.
If I were to set up a clandestine gun manufacurer I would try and design a product that could be made using mostly aluminum extrutions and paper jigs. That way it’s easy to compartmentalize each step, harder for one guy to flip on you, and fast/cheap. Plus if you get raided you don’t have a bunch of incriminating files cached on your CNC machine from previous runs.
A plastic guide isn’t going to constrain a metal cutting tool,
It’s a lot more complicated than that. We are talking a lot more than just “guides” when it comes to these types of jigs. Adapters and entire jigs that require a bunch of common parts you can by at the hardware store + the plastic parts to assemble.
Think more like creating bespoke fairly precise CNC stuff to adapt a drill or router. It’s a lot more advanced than just paper guides, because 3d printers are for all intents and purposes CNC machines themselves.
And once you print the jig, it becomes pretty easy to mass produce DIY guns.
Sure, but you still need to buy the actual firing mechanism parts of real guns in order to manufacture “3d printed guns”.
And you can also make those same jigs and fixtures out of wood or any other raw material.
but you still need to buy the actual firing mechanism parts of real guns in order to manufacture
Nah thats the parts the jigs make, as well as a couple other key pieces that require higher than usual precision. At least, if you want to actually make a gun that can reasonably hit a target.
And you can also make those same jigs and fixtures out of wood or any other raw material.
Not by hand with the precision needed, not for the parts in question. Unless you want to risk a misfire and losing a finger.
Lol more regulation for 3d printers than guns themselves
They’ve just got to figure out a way to twist one of the amendments into a shield.
How in the hell are they gonna enforce this? Is every kid who baight a 3d printer of ebay now committing a crime?
LOL
Has anybody actually successfully produced a proper firearm with a 3D printer? Like, one that doesn’t melt after firing a shot? Who are these people who’ve created this nonsensical panic?
Yes… they’ve been doing it for years.
Cody Wilson.
That was ages ago. I lurked in some related subreddits before the api fiasco. They were constantly improving designs and processes.
Still a ridiculous law though. Should we do background checks for lathes too?
It’s a legitimate waste of time. We have government officials being paid to draft this and vote on this.
On firearms in the US, the receiver (usually) is legally “the gun”. Everything else is parts. In a gun store you sign a 4473 federal form for a gun. You can walk out paying cash for parts with no papers. Mailing a gun requires numerous special procedures. Mailing parts is as simple as mailing anything else.
There have been a lot of 3D printed receivers, aka “the gun” made, and then all the relevant parts added. I don’t know how many, because by its nature the numbers aren’t really tracked, but there is an active hobbiest community for the practice.
This is a modernization of the older practice of building guns at home. Using traditional methods, guns including AR-15s (easy) to AKs (hard) have been built at home from non-gun materials for receivers, and then fitted with parts.
Not that I agree with the panic. It’s silly. As above mentioned, 3D printing is an evolution of the practice not a revolutionary new way to access guns.
They have advanced the production technique enough to make full auto guns that shoot pistol calibers.
Also 3D printing in metal is a thing, I do believe it requires finish machining for the majority of consumer grade units.
Your average consumer grade 3d printer cannot print in metal. I looked into this at one point for jewelry, and you need commercial printers that cost thousands upon thousands of dollars for most metals.
Having said that, yes, 3d printing guns has reached a point where people can make 100% 3d printed full auto guns in pistol calibers. In fact, that’s exactly what the Burmese resistance groups are using to fight back against the genocidal regime in their country. Because nobody in the international community cares enough to support them with military arms, but they can get 3d printers to print enough guns that they can kill and loot soldiers for better guns.
You don’t need to print in metal to make a functional 3D printed gun.
VICE did a video on it. I recommend checking it out.
I meant to put it in my second paragraph, but I meant 100% printed PLA full auto guns chambered in pistol calibers (with maybe some basic metal parts inside). I’m not really into the gun part of 3d printing, but I keep an eye on it because there’s been a lot of innovation there that has changed manufacturing ideas in the rest of the 3d printing world. They figured out how to rifle a metal barrel with nothing more than a bucket of saltwater and an electric current, no milling machines or anything required! We definitely aren’t in the world of one-shot pistols using rubber bands in the trigger anymore.
There used to be a fantastic documentary on the history of 3d printed guns I would recommend people watch by a channel on YouTube called 3d Print General, which mostly does 3d printer reviews and stuff, but the video recently got deleted by YouTube, despite some of the VICE videos showing more about how to actually make 3d printed guns than his documentary.
But the thing I always want to make clear to people is that the vast majority of people printing guns are the equivalent of the guys making kit cars in their garage - hobbyists, not criminals. Because you can buy a $200+ printer and spend the time learning how to use it, or you can go to a state with no gun laws and buy a cheap pistol for $150 from a gun shop.
But the thing I always want to make clear to people is that the vast majority of people printing guns are the equivalent of the guys making kit cars in their garage - hobbyists, not criminals.
Yes, you want to make this clear because you’re concerned about regulation. This is a political issue that you’re mentioning, nothing more.
I was merely stating that you don’t need to print in metal to make a functional 3D printed gun.
The VICE video I mentioned has everyone who is printing 3D guns eager to specify their stance on the political talking point, just as you did.
Yes, this is a political issue, and yes, I’m concerned about regulation, because of laws like this that will potentially hurt unrelated people like myself in the process because people who have little understanding of the subject already have an opinion on it. Simply stating the facts can drive somebody who has already formed an opinion based on their immediate emotional response even deeper into their stance without being concerned about how that stance affects others (or they might just jam their fingers in their ears and ignore any facts that don’t align with their worldview, like anti-vaxers).
I’m a trans woman who runs a business on Etsy selling 3d printed earrings. If I had a criminal record and lived in New York, this law could potentially put my ability to put food on the table at risk as collateral damage in the name of fighting ghost guns. Obviously, I have a strong opinion on the matter, as it could directly affect me.
My entire life is a “political issue.” In the first 6 months of this year, Republicans tried to pass at least 235 anti-trans laws. That’s more than 1 law per day, attempting to regulate me out of daily life, with the support of a voting populace with little understanding of the subject who have already formed an opinion on it. Like this law, those laws don’t affect me, but they’re still “political issues” that could put my rights at risk, just like laws like this one.
Obviously, I don’t know your opinion on the matter of 3d printed guns (or if you even have one), but the people who get upset at people who “always make things political” are the people who have never had their rights at risk of being revoked.
Is this what the democrats think is important legislation right now?
You can make a firearm in a shitty garage shop way cheaper than the both monetary investment and time investment that comes with using a 3D printer.
People in fuckinh prisons make improvised firearms
This is a waste of time.
It’s not about making firearms. It’s about being able to make literally anything else, the ability to do so being something that would liberate individuals, to some extent, from the capitalist system. That’s what they really don’t want.
Uh, I’m pretty sure this is about firearms.
Yes and voter literacy tests were about making sure people were smart enough to vote. /s
You’re right. This is definitely about protecting the US service economy from people manufacturing their own plastic trinkets. /s Just to be clear: I think this is a stupid bill, but it absolutely tracks with concern/hysteria around ‘ghost guns’. No need to consult the tea leaves to figure this one out.
If they didn’t want people having firearms, by golly there’s some lower hanging fruit.
In New York?
Lol
This is correct. Although I’m not sure what the actual viability of using a 3d printer for cutting the costs of living in society is. From my understanding you can only kind of recycle proper 3d printer grade PLA plastic and you definitely can’t make 3d printer plastic out of trash. Machine tools on the other hand can accomplish many of the same things and a greater percentage of the stuff that goes with them can be made out of trash or scrap.
True.
But a milling machine (not even a CNC) costs and weighs more than a car.
Meh. 3D printer plastic goes for like $24 a pound on Amazon whereas almost everything you buy costs hundreds and is disposable largely because their cheap, shitty plastic frames aren’t repairable. Being able to 3D print your own frames for electronics or tools or machines would save you so much money in the long run.
But the powers that be don’t want that. That’s the real reason why they’ve had it out for 3D printers. Printing guns is just an excuse.
You can recycle PET bottles, you probably don’t use enough PLA packing to be effectively able to recycle it even if it weren’t degraded.
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Eh. With how tribalist American politics has become, it’s usually only a matter of throwing shit to the wall to see what sticks.
This may not stick, but if it does you can bet your sweet ass it will be a primary issue for democrats.
I’m a leftist, I don’t support laws like this cause they don’t actually do anything. Dems fr have been supporting initivies to fork over more and more data.
Here’s a fun fact, hobby machinists have been making guns in their garages for as long as machining has been a career.
You can, right now, buy a drill press for a few hundred bucks and finish 80% lowers in an apartment if you want. If you have a lot of money to spend you could buy a mini mill and make the job a lot easier.
These are completely unregulated and arguably much more dangerous.
Have fun with that knowledge.
And I can’t even remember the last time a crime was committed with a made-at-home gun. We’re really going after the people that commit all the violence. 🙄
It’s such an easy window into the fact that it’s about cutting the access to weapons of the population who might use them to fight back against government action. They dgaf if we murder each other, they just don’t want us murdering them.
Same principle applies to the frequent attempts to ban semi-auto rifles, when rifles account for 3% or less of all homicides annually.
Those kind of weapons are effective for defending / attacking a moderate sized area, unlike pistols and bolt-action rifles. Pistols are short range and bolt-action rifles are slow. It’s obviously about the power that they don’t want the people to have.
I think it’s stupider than that. They have no idea how a handmade gun could be built without a 3d printer. They probably have zero clue what a 3d printer actually can and cannot do, and I’d bet most politicians have never seen one or bothered to understand it before regulating it. Their sole exposure is a few loud people who also do not understand anything about guns or 3d printers, and confuse that lack of understanding with definitive proof that it is evil and should be banned.
Hell, you can make a basic pipe shotgun with a $5 hacksaw and some steel pipe. Not only that, but you can pretty convert tons of guns to full auto with basically no effort. Sometimes literally a piece of coat hanger bent with pliers. The Lightning Link, which can convert a majority of modern ARs to full auto has been around for decades and can be made with about $1 worth of steel, a piece of paper with the design printed on it, and that hacksaw you used earlier. Even some guy in his garage could easily make hundreds a year without a single power tool.
All of this is to say, you know what we don’t see? Millions of illegal full-auto firearms being used to re-enact the minigun scene from Terminator 2. Much to the shock of our government, the vast majority of citizens are law-abiding, and stupid shit like this once again only harms normal people while criminals will just continue to break the law as usual.
There is a decent community of 3d printed firearms, but they’re not printing pressure chambers or barrels. These things can be and frequently are regulated. These guys are printing crazy looking guns for fun. They still have to go buy the important bits and even then they still fail pretty regularly.
This is some real brain dead legislation
Oh, I’m well aware and I’m part of that community, which is what makes this so hilarious. US gun legislation hasn’t ever really been based on reality, and always amazes me that in a country where guns are such an integral part of its history and culture, we have people who seemingly know less than nothing about anything firearms related effectively making legislation based on something they saw in a movie that one time.
So what will the state of NY do if I buy an Ender-3 in Vermont and then bring it home?
It will also be illegal to transport a 3D printer across state lines.
“Printer? No, this is just some aluminum parts and stepper motors”
Ask Kyle Printtenhouse.
You see they have the fact that the only places you can get a 3d printer in Vermont is through Amazon as the only places you can get anything remotely techy is at the only Best buy in the state or some auto shop and from my experience I’ve never seen a 3d printer there
Vermont was used as an example because I remembered it bordered NY, not because it’s the only state in the union where 3D printers are sold.
