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.
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.
Lol
If they didn’t want people having firearms, by golly there’s some lower hanging fruit.
In New York?
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.
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.
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.
True.
But a milling machine (not even a CNC) costs and weighs more than a car.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is just a way to restrict individual freedom from corporate ownership. It’s the equivalent of “for the children”. If you’re against guns don’t fall for this bait, support some other legislation.
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What brain dead legislation.
A tube capable of firing a projectile isn’t hard to make though. Maybe they should require a criminal history background check to go to the hardware store too.
Sir, do you have a license for that power drill?
Classic pro-gun community, rushing to brigade a gun-related post with pre-prepared talking points.
“Why bother fixing gun laws that clearly fail to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people when you can just 3D print a gun?”
*someone makes a move to stop dangerous people 3D printing guns*
“Why bother preventing dangerous people 3D printing guns when you can just buy a bit of pipe at the hardware store?”
Criminals and domestic terrorists overwhelmingly just go to a store and buy a gun. The pro-gun community is fine with this.
For the minority that can’t, straw purchases, gun show loopholes and poorly secured firearms give them much better access to safer, more reliable guns than 3D printing does. The pro-gun community is fine with this too.
A tiny fraction of crimes involve 3D printed gun parts and I’m not aware of any domestic terrorism to use any. Nevertheless, somebody could in theory print parts for a fully automatic weapon that would potentially be reliable enough for a mass shooting.
So how many crimes are being comitted with a piece of old pipe?
I know self-absorbed, gun-owning, 300lbs men pretending they’d be useful in a militia want to angrily hammer out a comment along the lines of “WHAT ABOUT THAT ASSASSINATION IN JAPAN YOU CUCK”.
But the one example you can cite without googling, from every single country with gun control was clearly dogshit barely worked.
It would be a massive improvement if American criminals were forced to use home made firearms that significantly increased the price, difficulty to obtain and the danger to themselves using it.
But the pro-gun community objects by walking down a list of bullshit excuses because they can’t just say “I’d rather people were shot than I was inconvienced”.
I’m not pro-gun, stupid. I’m pro-thinking which you’re clearly not. Nice troll username btw.
I love when people like the guy you responded to show up, it’s so easy to block them on Lemmy.
You rushed right in with their talking points, so I assumed your goal was to spread them. I don’t want to break your little heart but I respond to the things people say on social media without forming an intimate relationship with them first.
In other words you’re literally a knee jerk. Good to know.
Yes I’m literally a figurative concept.
Understood. Are you for or against the proposed NY legislation?
I’m against it because I know the pro-gun claim of “fixing deeply flawed gun laws is pointless because people will just 3D print guns” is a lie.
Should it one day come true, I’d reconsider my position.
But it hasn’t come true anywhere else in the world, nor have any other pro-gun promises come true in the last 20 years.
The point of a fully printed gun would be a zip gun mostly. One shot up close to steal a real gun from a better equipped force. Same with a pipe gun. They’re for upgrading.
Okay, so you should be able to provide plenty of examples of this happening then right?
Why would I? If you knew what a zip gun was for you’d realize how ignorant that question is.
Regardless, here’s a historical zip.
I think Japan had a recent situation with a hand made firearm as well.
Okay, so not how criminals and terrorists get their guns, because they just walk into a shop and buy them.
Sure, especially considering they said fully printed – no pre-made firearm components.
The FP-45 Liberator pistol and the CIA’s Deer Gun are “real” guns designed for that exact purpose: to kill someone at close range to steal their gun. The first “successful” 3d printed gun was the Defense Distributed Liberator, followed by a plethora of single shot “zip guns” of the same type.
So … a bunch of 3d printed guns specifically copied from the concept of the FP-45 and Deer Gun.
I fixed your link. I wouldn’t want people missing out on that “Usage” section.
Thanks though, I’ve bookmarked it for when people claim that gun restrictions are pointless because of 3D printers.
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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
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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That’s incredibly stupid. Good Lord.
What’s next? CNC machines? Silicone/resin casting supplies? Steel pipes?
Iron ore and carbon
Background checks to buy scrap aluminum or lol… beer?
Screwdrivers, hammers, and automobiles will need a background check and a 30 Day cooling off period.
Lawmakers never cease to amaze me
Silly. Why can’t we just regulated the sale of ammunition and gunpowder?
Why? It’s not guns and bullets killing people, it’s 3D printing 🙃
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Cool. I didn’t know that.
We do actually. Just last year new york passed the Concealed Carry Improvement act imposing a background check on ammunition purchases. This bill is completely redundant and unnecessary.
Why can’t we just regulated the sale of ammunition and gunpowder?
Or at least the gun parts needed to make a “3d printed” gun actually function as a firearm.
Wow, this makes my country’s nonsense gun laws look sane.
They do know that even children from 70 years ago where making firearms right? https://newyorkcitygangs.com/?page_id=1708
The first weapons that would be visibly identified as rifles are about 500 years old.
Firearms you can hold and point, are how old now?
From Wikipedia
Around the late 14th century in Europe, smaller and portable hand-held cannons were developed, creating in effect the first smooth-bore personal firearm.
Over 500 years old.
Democrats have no sense of history otherwise they would have to cancel themselves
This is just “New Media is scary and I’m old!” Fear Mongering
Yeah, we have this little thing called a Constitution, might just get in the way
You have a constitutional right to bear 3-D printers?
Yes, and don’t you forget that
The Founding Fathers really thought of everything.
It would probably be argued under free speech oddly enough.
Not even ‘oddly enough.’
While you can’t own a bomb factory without proper authorization (because its only purpose is building bombs), something as general-purpose as a 3D printer would absolutely enjoy first amendment protections.
Interesting tidbit: it’s not illegal to make your own guns in the US. You don’t even need a license.
I mean, imagine telling someone who was once convicted of a crime “no sorry, you can’t buy a 3D printer to make things around the house, you could make a gun as well!”
If the only thing a 3D printer could do is print a gun, then there’d be an argument. This is like banning callipers from convicted criminals because they could be used to measure ammunition. If this law somehow sticks, I will be very disappointed in the shortsighted thinking that led to such a law passing.
The logic of this is nonexistent. An argument could be made very convincingly that cars are dangerous to allow in the hands of criminals. 2 tons of metal, well known for and capable of ending a life, with the ability to aid criminal enterprises and avoidance of law enforcement. So should car sales now require a criminal background check? All this would do is further disenfranchise convicted felons, regardless of the actual crime committed, and create new difficulties for a group that includes a very high percentage of people already proven to give no shits about the law who will find and exploit ways to continue activities despite any laws attempting to restrict them.
You can’t buy a car in most states without insurance. You can’t get insurance without a license. You cannot get a license… and so on. So that’s not a good example.
I’m not the person you replied to, but it’s an okay comparison. It’s not perfect - 3D printers are way less dangerous than cars - but it conveys the same point.
Like cars and unlike guns, 3D printers are tools. The federal government prevents a convicted felon from owning a gun, but not from driving; generally speaking, states only prohibit this if you were convicted of reckless driving or some other vehicle related offense.
Also, once I have a license I can walk into any car dealer and drive out with a car a couple hours later. This law has an up-to-15 day turn around for the background check and no means of attesting that you are licensed and permitted to purchase a 3D printer without waiting. That’s gonna be a pain for everyone who’s interested in a 3D printer. If my car is taken out of service and I need it to get to work, I can buy another. I don’t have to wait 15 days. If my business involves 3D printing and one of my printers breaks down and needs replaced, having to wait an extra 15 days for a replacement is ridiculous.
If the law said “Felons who were convicted of crimes involving 3D printers may not purchase or own a 3D printer” then that would be more appropriate and closer to how cars are handled.
IMO a more apt comparison would be to other consumer grade tools, like drills, circular saws, etc… Just because I can theoretically make something dangerous with such a tool doesn’t mean the tool needs to be restricted.
Afaik NY doesn’t prohibit felons from buying an “80 percent” Glock frame, a Glock slide, and a Dremel, nor does it prevent them from buying a CNC that can mill a full metal gun. (NJ prohibits the first of those (for everyone) and it’s illegal there to construct a gun at home if you aren’t legally permitted to own one, but that’s harder to enforce.) Either of those legal purchase sets enable you to create a gun at home that’s a much more effective firearm than can be 3D printed. Prohibiting them from buying a 3D printer (when technically even an Ender 3 can print a “gun”) is just silly.
Some stats: in the USA, there were:
- 1.2 guns per capita in 2017.
- 333 million residents in 2022
- estimating 400 million guns in 2022
- 20k deaths by gun violence in 2022 (and slightly more deaths by suicide involving a gun)
- 422k or so 3d printers in the US (according to this site in 2020); this number is probably triple or more now, though
- 0 people killed with guns verified to have been created by 3d printers ever in the US (I found one unverified account)
- 264 million registered vehicles in 2015
- 35,485 deaths due to motor vehicle collisions in 2015
this works out to:
- 1 homicide per 20k guns in 2022
- 2.7 deaths per 20k cars in 2015
- 0 deaths per 20k 3D printers in every year
I disagree that it conveys the same point unless your point is that criminals don’t follow laws, so why have laws. Cars are very regulated. You also can’t sneak a car through a metal detector in your pocket and run individuals over indoors. Completely different threats, with completely different availability.
This bill was just introduced, there’s little detail yet on how this could be accomplished.
Is that really the point that you took away from my comment? Let me simplify it for you:
- The law cannot possibly have a positive effect. It cannot reduce deaths no matter how effective it is because there have been no deaths.
- The law will have an outsized negative effect. It prevents and delays access to tools that are used by businesses, schools, and hobbyists. That’s not even accounting for the cost to review the background checks.
This bill was just introduced, there’s little detail yet on how this could be accomplished.
Did you follow the link and read the bill? It lays it all out.
1 Section 1. The general business law is amended by adding a new section 2 398-g to read as follows: 3 § 398-g. Sale of certain three-dimensional printers. 1. Any retailer 4 of a three-dimensional printer sold in this state which is capable of 5 printing a firearm, or any components of a firearm, is required and 6 authorized to request and receive criminal history information concern- 7 ing such purchaser from the division of criminal justice services in 8 accordance with the provisions of section eight hundred forty-five-b of 9 the executive law. Access to and the use of such information shall be 10 governed by the provisions of such section. The division of criminal 11 justice services is authorized to submit fingerprints to the federal 12 bureau of investigation for a national criminal history record check. 13 2. Within fifteen business days after receiving a request for criminal 14 history information pursuant to this section, the commissioner of the 15 division of criminal justice services shall review such criminal history 16 information and determine whether such purchaser has been convicted 17 anywhere of a felony or a serious offense or who is not the subject of 18 an outstanding warrant of arrest issued upon the alleged commission of a 19 felony or serious offense which would disqualify such individual from 20 being licensed to carry or possess a firearm under section 400.00 of the 21 penal law. Such commissioner shall promptly notify the seller of his or 22 her determination in this regard. No retailer shall sell any three-di- 23 mensional printer capable of printing a firearm unless the division of NEXT PAGE IN PDF 1 criminal justice services provides written notification of the determi- 2 nation under this subdivision. 3 3. For purposes of this section, "three-dimensional printer" means a 4 computer or computer-driven machine or device capable of producing a 5 three-dimensional object from a digital model.- Lines 3-9 - Any retailer of a 3d printer must request and receive a criminal background history for the purchaser from NY criminal justice services.
- Lines 13-22 - it will take up to 15 business days to review and provide a response.
In this case a neutral effect is better than a negative one. Preventative legislation on something that is a foregone conclusion is relevant. These guns already exist, and printers are getting better. At some point someone will use one to kill someone. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to get out ahead of it. Is this bill it? I don’t know.
Those Negative effects are not large burdens.
Yes I read it. It’s not gone through any review yet and is simply written to piggy back on an existing system. The Drone community went through the same thing worth FAA licensing.
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?
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.
Yes… they’ve been doing it for years.
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.
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.
dumb and pointless
