New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers (opens in new tab)

Printing barrels and FCUs -- the fire control unit, which is the only thing tracked and serialized in a gun at least in the US -- is more difficult but not impossible. Actually, building a functional FCU that can strike a bullet primer, or a barrel that can be used once is not difficult at all and if you look around you can find videos of people that have tested that with a mixture of 3d printing and rudimentary metal working skills. The major issues on designing those parts are reliability and safety. In the Philippines there is a full bootleg gunsmith industry dedicated to build illegal guns that match commercial ones in those aspects too.

Sadly, instead of having better laws we get fallacy rhetoric by people who probably have never touched, much less fired a gun in their lives.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygxGrxCEOp0

[2] https://odysee.com/@TheGatalog-Guides_Tutorials:b/BWA-Ammo-V...

Absolutely ridiculous.

They haven't done this specific restriction, but there is a movement to make it illegal to possess the CAD files: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3877

https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf

People are printing guns. They're printing guns right here in the UK.

Then they're taking them out to the firing range, setting them up on a test stand, firing them by remote control, and filming the ensuing carnage with high frame rate cameras.

If you make a really really good 3D printed gun, it'll last at least two shots before it explodes into about a trillion razor-sharp fragments expanding rapidly outwards from where your hand used to be. The way you tell it's a really really good one is it didn't explode into a trillion fragments on the first shot.

We've seen enough Terrifying Public Information Films about the dangers of fireworks to mess with that shit.

Also atleast in America there is a very large 3d printed gun community lots of people are doing it I suggest checking out the PSR YouTube channel it’s a guy who is basically a real life dead pool who’s 3d printed every gun you can think of his videos are very entertaining and while you won’t learn much since YouTube restricts any teaching of gun manufacturing you may be surprised at how far 3d printed guns have come. His plastikov v4 video is good and pretty funny if I remember.

This is demonstrably untrue: https://gnet-research.org/2025/01/08/beyond-the-fgc-9-how-th...

Why would you waste everyone's time posting such nonsense? It's not that I support this legislation, but arguing against with counterfactual statements is unhelpful noise.

I would suspect it is at least partly because the gun that killed the United Healthcare CEO was partly 3D printed.

Preemptive regulation is absurd.

This is at least true for some specific rifles, where there’s a whole industry around selling unfinished receivers that are relatively easy to mill down with common machining tools to be able to assemble unregistered rifles.

My guess, is that these bills are a knee jerk reaction to constituents who’ve seen some tik toks talking about this. Though the conspiracist in me thinks that it’s mostly an excuse for control. This means, this bill is also coming for the UK too…

Because it is possible to print molds for cast iron, I wonder what else you need beyond that (although, don't indulge me if the topic is going in the illegal direction).

Also, I find it unconscionable to suggest we should allow home manufacturing of automatic weapons without even engaging with possible ways to stem that tide.

Cory talked about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39jsstmmUUs

At least 25 years. That's the time passed since the first introduction of Eurion marks on banknotes. As far as I know, noone has used it to block reproduction of anything other than money.

I was assured by the internet, I was paranoid, blah blah safety...

Then a few weeks ago something about Minnesota and ICE making drones illegal to fly or something...

The weird part is that, in that 15 years, I've become more moderate and pro-democratic rule of law... but I was right about my previous concerns. Not that I believe in the Justice behind them anymore.

If they cared even a little bit about gun violence, they’d focus on mental health and other preventive measures.

If they just wanted to provide the illusion that they cared about gun violence, they’d go after high-volume manufacturers first.

This reminds me of Trump’s Venezuela coup. I’m offended they aren’t even bothering to properly lie about their motives.

The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, 1776

https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/consu...

I.e don't buy your printer in New York. Pick it up out of state. Problem solved.

Yes, this is rent seeking, and yes New York is gonna New York, but not a big deal.

the adafruit blog is not trying to block you my dude(s). we are under constant automated scraping and ddos, largely from ai crawlers, and we use cloudflare to keep the site online at all. the nature of of these things will cause false positives depending on browser, extensions, network, or referrer.

the site publishs full-text rss feeds with no blockers here, no ads: https://blog.adafruit.com/rss

the site respects do not track, privacy badger, and similar tools. the site will probably never pass the purity tests for everyone, the goal is to stay independent, publishing, without selling readers or folding into a mega-platform. we're open source and vc free, chill out about us, ok?

if you still can’t get an article and want it in html, markdown, text, or pdf, email me and i’ll send it directly, i will read it on the phone to you, i am not kidding.

we’re trying, and we’ll keep trying. you gotta meet somewhere.

God forbid whatever library they use to make their website "easy" and detract less labor from their endeavors not have default settings in perfect accordance with their politics.

I bet they don't compile their OS from source either.

I think it's because most people associate Ctrl-Alt-Del with the process of terminating a process, so they use the key sequence itself to refer to the act of terminating something.

In modern Windows, the three-key salute is a way to lock your session securely. Maybe that's what they mean: locking it up?

https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/ctrl-alt-del...

Play me online? Well, you know that I'll beat you

If I ever meet you I'll control-alt-delete you

Perhaps if it was literally as simple as downloading a model and pressing print, then in 20 minutes you had a fully working automatic rifle this would be an issue, but that technology simply doesn't exist today.

In reality if your goal is to acquire a weapon which can do lethal harm to someone you just wouldn't print a gun. Even if you wanted to kill multiple people in a place like the UK where guns are illegal you still wouldn't print a gun because you'd probably be better off just getting knife than printing a crappy gun and trying to source an effective propellant, etc.

The truth is just that we don't have actual user manuals anymore. Either the things that went into the manual are now built into software, or they expect you to look it up on the internet. So the only things that remain are legal disclaimers and very basic instructions, like how to turn on the thing so that the software can tell you what to do next.

So they don't tell you how to tune your carburetor because you don't need to do that anymore, it is all injection and the ECU software does the tuning, but the lawyers insist that it should be mentioned to not drink the battery acid should an idiot decide to try it and sue the company.

What happens if you print the handle on a different printer, and print it with an attachment which works as an ice-cream scoop?

Or how about you actually print an ice-cream scoop, and then stop the print halfway to just take the handle, and do the same for several other innocent looking parts which are carefully modelled to fit together after printing individually. There are just so many ways to get around any measures they could put in place.

> the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which gives you the right to manufacture a fire arm

There has been a right to manufacture firearms since before the Revolutionary War, and which has remained a right continually since.

> it must be for personal use

Not necessarily; though you can't conduct business without a federal license, you can, for example, manufacture a firearm to be given as a gift.

> cannot be transferred

See above.

>must have a serial number

Not only is that not true, a federal judge struck down the prohibition on defacing serial numbers in United States v. Randy Price (2022):

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wvsd.23...

Also in NY it's illegal to make an unserialized firearm. I have no idea what the serialization requirements are there, but what California did was require you report them to DROS.

Also, federally, not legal advice -- but I'm not aware there's any law against selling it. You just can't manufacture it for the purpose of sale or transfer. If it is incidentally sold later it's just like any other firearm without a serial number that's also legal (namely those manufactured commercially before the GCA, or those manufactured non-commercially by private persons after the GCA). I've seen the claim "can't transfer or sell it" over and over on all kind of gun forums etc but no one has ever been able to point where that is blanket illegal.

[] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Taylor

For example[0]:

> Filburn was penalized under the Act. He argued that the extra wheat that he had produced in violation of the law had been used for his own use and thus had no effect on interstate commerce, since it never had been on the market. In his view, this meant that he had not violated the law because the additional wheat was not subject to regulation under the Commerce Clause.

…

> The Court reasoned that Congress could regulate activity within a single state under the Commerce Clause, even if each individual activity had a trivial effect on interstate commerce, as long as the intrastate activity viewed in the aggregate would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.

So don’t assume that just because it never crosses state lines that it escapes federal law, however utterly freaking ridiculous that may be.

0: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111

Since, the BATF decided to interpret the prohibition as a thought-crime, enforcing a prohibition making such sales illegal, since like The Shadow, they know what lurks in the hearts of men.

The one transfer which has not yet been tested in the courts to my knowledge is an individual having made firearms, passing away, then leaving them in their will to their heirs....

For every constraint I see them creating in the law, I can instantly create a simple workaround, and also see multiple ways it will impair or destroy the ability to create 100% legitimate parts/components/products.

This is an unfortunate example of a too-common political solution:

A new industry arises that unintentionally creates a new capability that some can use to create problems.

So, "let's just create a mandate on the industry that will destroy it or contort it beyond recognition, and provide no funding to support this new requirement!".

I fully understand and fundamentally support the need for government to regulate markets, pollution, product & food safety, and much more, but this simplistic approach is a net negative for society and the economy.

They need to focus on the actual act of "3D printing firearms" not on the precursors.

Custom CNC stuff is tremendously rewarding and fun to work with. I haven't built a 4x8 table (yet), but I've made some smaller stuff. I credit the introduction of these machines into my life with bringing me out of the deepest and longest-lasting period of mental unwellness I've ever experienced, and it'll be a real shame if this kind of hobby becomes hobbled by legislation.

But anyway, to address your question: Unless the fine state of New York decides to close their borders, nothing stops a person from building their own dangerously-unregulated 3D printing machine.

Just as nothing stops a person from taking a drive over the Hudson and buying one already-assembled from the Microcenter in Patterson, NJ. New Jersey isn't beholden to the laws of New York, and they won't care at all where the buyer is from.

It's the same thing folks in Ohio do to buy cheap weed: We drive up to Monroe, Michigan, where there's a veritable cornucopia of places dedicated to selling that devil's lettuce. It's against Ohio law to bring it back into Ohio (as of 2026), but there's a constant churn anyway. In the parking lots, Ohio license plates often outnumber the Michigan plates. Michigan doesn't care about this; they're not responsible for the problems that Ohio creates for itself.

Many small businesses don't need to buy their $100k+ machines anymore, since you can build or buy much more affordable machines in the mid to small ranges.

That it's easier with this skillset to build guns and sell them to criminals when the penalty is the same.

realistically, if it fails now due to public outrage, they will try to sneak it again in the future.

This is probably one of those good tests of "is your 'conspiracy theory' meter properly calibrated", because if it's going off right now and you are in disbelief, you've got it calibrated incorrectly. This is so completely routine that there's an entire branch of law codified in this way called the "Uniform Commercial Code": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code and see the organization running this' home page at https://www.uniformlaws.org/acts/ucc .

And that's just a particular set of laws with an organization dedicated to harmonizing all the various states laws for their particular use cases. It's not the one and only gateway to such laws, it's just an example of a cross-state law coordination so established that it has an entire organization dedicated to it. Plenty of other stuff is coordinated at the state level across multiple states all the time.

The text of the bill suggests that it would make printers capable of being reflashed with an open source firmware illegal to sell, as the legal requirements for the blocking would include preventing it from being circumvented. The law would also make having a printer sold mail-order into the state illegal entirely. It’s not clear how parts-built machines like Vorons would be handled.

It appears to only cover sales, however. Possession of files for firearm components would be made illegal, but seemingly not a printer without the restrictions.

It will be very strange and funny if there is a registry of 3D printers before there's a registry of guns, and for that matter, it will be very funny if it becomes easier to buy a gun than a 3D printer, with the reasoning being that 3D printers can print guns.

I highly doubt we would send goon squads door to door to check your firmware. Then again, given today's situation in MN, I wouldn't rule it out either.

Trump is gonna cancel or fuck with elections in 2026 like he has said multiple times he will, and by 2027 and 2028, he will likely install himself as 3d term president.

Its gonna be an era of economic decline and social dirtiness as shit gets worse and worse and eventually things like crime is gonna rise up again as the lower income sector transitions into the "nothing to lose" crowd.

The way it worked was as follows:

1. Local groups push to get right to repair passed

2. Fails repeatedly for years

3. They finally get it past the houses and onto the governor's desk

4. Governor gets a visit from a 'unknown' (hint likely Apple) lobbyist, refuses to sign even though they have to

5. They wait until the very last second and then adds last minute 'amendments' neutering the bill.

6. Their sycophants then try to shut down any discussion on Reddit/other social platforms from anyone who criticizes the bill.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Fair_Repair_Act

They are going to keep doing this crap, the government needs to be voted out but just like NJ, NY is captured by really corrupt 'neoliberal' Democrats so its an uphill battle to get someone better in there. The incentives are not there: In NJ and most of NY the economic base is the wealthy suburbanites who like the way things are and will fight efforts to make radical change. That results in a lot of 'think of the children' type people who would welcome any and all bans on things like 3D printing of guns.

https://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/ctdm3/oldie_but_goody...

https://imgur.com/7N6zc

Zip guns may get past a metal detector, but not the standard x-ray luggage scan. To the extent it'll make it past the x-ray screeners, it's because they let all kinds of stuff through, because it's a poor way to screen for dangerous things, and they are not high-skill employees, they are relatively cheap labor.

Source: I used to travel every week flying home Friday, cycle clothes out of my travel bags, and be on the road again on Sunday night. I learned to my horror I'd been flying with a pair of scissors for at least 5 weeks - during which, TSA forced me to open a Christmas present for my sister and throw away some hand lotion which was in too big of a bottle.

There's a reason they call it security theater. This is just more of it.

If you want to see what is possible with 3d printed guns now I recommend Hoffman Tactical and PSR on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/@HoffmanTactical

https://www.youtube.com/@PrintShootRepeat

Even in countries with strict gun control, like the UK, the most serious criminals can get hold of guns. And if lesser criminals 3D printed a gun, they'd struggle to get hold of ammo for it. So they stick to knives.

I don't know where you get bullets for the gun though.

It's not technically possible to detect "gun geometry".

The only way to comply with this law is to ban 3d printers entirely.

Your implication makes me think that you assume that this useful-yet-not-overreaching detection tech is possible. Do you have any ideas for how this would be implemented? Because in my mind, the only way to ensure compliance would be either a manual check (uplink to the manufacturer or relevant government authority, where an employee or a model trained on known gun models tries to estimate the probability of a print being part of a gun) or a deterministic algorithm that makes blanket bans on anything remotely gun-like (pipe-like parts, parts where any mechanical action is similar to anything that could be in a gun). These scenarios seem to be both a lot more annoying and a lot more invasive. There's no negative consequences for tuning detection to always err on the side of caution and flood the user with false-positive refusals to print. Both scenarios are obviously a lot more involved and complicated than a basic algorithm checking if you're trying to print an image of a US dollar. Therefore I don't see a reason why drawing this comparison is useful. The only thing these implementations have in common is that they're detecting something.

https://xkcd.com/1425/

I doubt there is a weapons expert that could look at a given STL file and unambiguously tell you whether something was “part of a gun” or not. If these laws pass, they will be either unenforceable, effectively ban all 3D printer sales due to the immense difficulty of compliance, or worse, be another avenue for selective enforcement.

Furthermore, the whole “ghost guns” thing is entirely overblown and misunderstood by people who have never seen or used a 3D printer except in the movies, where Hollywood has latched onto the idea that they are designed primarily for making guns. A consumer grade 3D printer is going to print a gun that will explode in your hands the first time you try to use it, if any of the meaningful parts of the gun are printed. And nothing is stopping people from say, fabricating gun stocks with a table saw and router, or building a gun out of hardware store parts. Why aren’t we also banning mills and lathes while we’re at it? There are also chemicals at a hardware store that could be used to make explosives. If the concern was really “making guns at home”, we’d outlaw Ace Hardware and Home Depot.

Manufacturing firearms is not unlawful in the State of New York, nor is it unlawful federally.

As far as I can tell, there is no federal or state law that compels any company to add features like the ones HP has added to their products. I have not spent a large amount of time researching. Just browsed a few articles like this one https://www.itestcash.com/blogs/news/your-guide-to-federal-c....

There are plenty of people who change their behavior because that tracking is in place, regardless of if what they are doing (or would be doing) is in any way illegal.

Terrible example IMO.

So while the legislation, and implementation can be deemed problematic, the political desire to prevent counterfeit is not actually unreasonable.

Having particular objects be banned that aren't under the exclusive control of a government actually creates new precedent. Regardless of the technical feasibility that you keep bringing up, this legislation is undesirable because of what could come after.

The problem is, as Rousseau warned us, elections only function for so long as the voters are able to see and identify efforts to bribe them with their own money (paraphrased).

The US regulations on Automatic Emergency Braking systems requirements for new cars are actually several years behind many other markets like the EU and Japan.

This isn’t really an American thing and it’s not for blocking Chinese manufacturers. Chinese automakers can make AEBs too.

Two different EU countries Time taken is the most 'labourious' part And grandad's funeral

In contrast, a pretty good 3d printer costs $500, can sit on a table, and the inevitable mistakes you will make while learning how to use it are comparatively cheap.

Once these things can move around us, far away from their owner, there is enormous potential for societal harm.

Someone could buy a $10k Figure robot, strap a bomb or nerve agent to it, then have it walk into a public place.

If we just accept these robots as normal everyday things (it seems like we will), we wouldn't even blink or think twice that a robot was walking up to us.

I hate monitoring and tracking and surveillance. I'm a freedom and personal liberty absolutist for most things without negative externalities. But as I put this new AI tech through thought experiments, I don't know how we'll survive in a normal world anymore when agency is cheap and not tied to mortality.

Society, even one with guns, relied on the fact that people are afraid of the consequences of their actions. If there's no ability to trace a drone or robot, god only knows what could happen.

Kidnappings, murders, terrorism. It seems like this might become "easy".

How hard is it going to be to kill off political opponents in the future? Putin, for instance, enjoys relative freedom of movement because it's hard to get close to him.

Once you can throw a drone into a field or rooftop and have it "sleep" for months until some "awake" command, then it operates entirely autonomously - that's cheap, easy to plan, and potentially impossible to track.

Some disgruntled guy buys some fertilizer, a used van, and comma.ai?

We potentially have a very, very different world coming soon.

The stupidest thing is you can go to another state and buy a gun in Walmart, why even bother to build a plastic gun in the US?

Easily sidestepped, it's there to make a point I guess: https://www.jwz.org/blog/

the adafruit blog is not trying to block you my dude(s). we are under constant automated scraping and ddos, largely from ai crawlers, and we use cloudflare to keep the site online at all. the nature of of these things will cause false positives depending on browser, extensions, network, or referrer.

the site publishs full-text rss feeds with no blockers here, no ads: https://blog.adafruit.com/rss

the site respects do not track, privacy badger, and similar tools. the site will probably never pass the purity tests for everyone, the goal is to stay independent, publishing, without selling readers or folding into a mega-platform. we're open source and vc free, chill out about us, ok?

if you still can’t get an article and want it in html, markdown, text, or pdf, email me and i’ll send it directly, i will read it on the phone to you, i am not kidding.

we’re trying, and we’ll keep trying. you gotta meet somewhere.