Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg says New York’s 3D-printed gun proposal should be a model for the nation.
It would require 3D printers sold in New York to include technology that blocks the unlicensed production of firearms and gun parts. It would also make it a crime to possess, sell or distribute digital blueprints for printing illegal guns.
This is an attack on my property rights as a 3D printer owner, never mind the Second Amendment (or First Amendment, for that matter). In practice, this would essentially require all 3D printers to have closed-source, DRM’d firmware and almost certainly spy on you. It is way, way more authoritarian than people only thinking in terms of “gun violence” likely give it credit for.
Also never mind that “is this 3D model a gun?” is an absurd thing to have a computer try to figure out, even with the recent advances in machine learning. That goes double if you care about things like distinguishing a gun that would actually shoot bullets from a water gun, nerf gun, or other vaguely gun-shaped nonfunctional object (which any frothing-at-the-mouth jackbooted thug who would stoop to supporting this clearly wouldn’t). And even then, guns are fundamentally simple devices made from multiple parts – is it going to SWAT you for printing a cylinder because it might be a gun barrel?!
This proposal is dangerously insane in every conceivable way, and probably several other ways I haven’t even thought of yet.
If it uses the police algorithm to determine gunness it’ll just refuse to print anything.
If it just stops things that “look” like a gun then printable guns will evolve in shape to conceal their properties making them potentially even more dangerous because people won’t be able to recognize them for what they are.
Where will this logic live? On the main board? What if I swap my main board out for some random SBC with code I wrote myself? On the motor driver? I don’t pass G-Code to the motor driver you really gonna inspect the momentary electric pulses for a series of motors to determine if the result is vaguely gun shaped? What if I print in parts?
Considering the massive modding community around Nerf guns in 3D printing circles I wouldn’t be surprised if any of the safety monitoring for guns goes off and potentially reports people for fucking with toy guns
Anyone who comes up with a proposal like this is declaring to the world that they are a fundamentally stupid and evil person. Make note.
Good luck with nailing jello to a tree…
Hey anyone who wanted to get into 3d printed guns but hasn’t gotten into it, DM me and I’ll give you links.
Pants-on-head idiocy by the DA.
It is 100% legal in the US to build your own gun for personal use, and has been for the entire existence of the country.
Just because it can now be done with custom plastic parts instead of wooden or hardware store parts, changes nothing.
Plus there is no way to validate when 3D printed guns were created, because they aren’t required to be serialized unless they are made by a dealer for resale. So they’d have to ban ALL pre-existing 3D printed guns of any kind, regardless of manufacture date, since you’re not going to be able to distinguish preban guns.
Putting spyware into every 3D printer or slicer software, because of what people “might do”, is also ridiculous and scummy.
TL; DR- This DA needs to fuck off and just use normal constitutional methods to enforce laws.
I live in MA. They’re mandating serialization for these too, and you have to either register the serial number if you’ve already engraved one or request that the state assign you a serial number if you haven’t. Both of those are dated to ensure compliance.
Which creates a gun registry, which has been fought pretty hard in the past. I don’t know if this has been challenged yet.
I don’t want a gun in my house, however I may need one soon. Fuck you Alvin Bragg.
The US is awash with guns. 3D printing a gun is more expensive and time consuming than just buying one illegally.
A 3D printer can mainly make things like frames. The one part that’s actually hard to make is the barrel. That one isn’t made in a 3D printer.
Lots of 3D printers have open source firmware. There are several designs you can build yourself from easily available parts. So it would be easy to patch out the detection.
Even if this was implemented, it would have negligible impact on gun related crime in the USA. It also would make 3D printing guns only marginally more difficult.
This is just attention seeking populism and might even get enough attention so lawmakers will try and implement it.
Watch this fear mongering video by wired on it and read the comments.
Not just the barrel but the slide, bolt, or upper receiver. Those are the parts that take the explosive force and they can’t be made of plastic.
Well, they can, but it’s pretty much single use.
Quick pat on the back for solving absolutely nothing except furthering the surveillance state
You cant stop people from making guns without outlawing hardware stores too. Home made electrolysis can even be used to create rifiling on pipes to turn them into barrels, if you want a crude shotgun you need even less parts and work. I know people who used to build hardware store guns to make a profit off of gun buybacks, it’s not hard.
