18 ms·

New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers

• MisterTea 8mo ago
  Why would I bother with an unreliable 3D printed zip gun and 3D printing when I can go and get a real working gun off the street for a few hundred? Edit, reading further it's even more insane: > The New York definitions sweep in not just FDM and resin printers, but also CNC mills and “any machine capable of making three-dimensional modifications to an object from a digital design file using subtractive manufacturing.” That’s a lot of shop & manufacturing equipment! This is the dumbest thing I have ever read.
  • embedding-shape 8mo ago
    Is that true in New York? Maybe it currently requires permits, so at least there is a log and provenance chain someone could use in case it's used for bad stuff? Sounds like if you'd want to avoid that (like if you wanna shot a CEO and get away with it for example), you could use a offline 3D printer.
    • scratchyone 8mo ago
      > Is that true in New York? Maybe it currently requires permits What are you referring to as "it" here? When OP mentioned getting a gun from "off the street", that's referring to obtaining one illegally, without a provenance chain or any permitting. If you want to shoot a CEO, its far easier to buy an untraceable gun on the streets (or obtain a non-serialized 80% lower receiver that you drill yourself) rather than an unreliable fully 3D-printed gun.
      • embedding-shape 8mo ago
        Ah, I wasn't familiar with "off the street" meaning that, I thought they were saying "go to a store and buy a gun". Thanks! Is it that easy to acquire even illegal firearms in the US, that you can just walk around in NYC to the shadier streets and find randoms willing to sell them to you?
        • scratchyone 8mo ago
          I can't directly attest to that (never bought an illegal gun) but from my understanding, yes, people have no challenge obtaining illegal guns. However, you really don't even need to do that. You could just drive across the NY border to a state with looser gun laws, buy one there, shave off the serial number, and bring it back to NY. You could also just steal a gun from one of the many Americans who already own one. You can also legally buy an unfinished lower receiver in many states (the part of a gun that is typically serialized). Since it's technically unfinished, it doesn't require a serial number. Then you drill a few holes into it and assemble it with off the shelf, also un-serialized gun parts.
        • MisterTea 8mo ago
          > that you can just walk around in NYC to the shadier streets and find randoms willing to sell them to you? You know someone who knows someone.
        • jcgrillo 8mo ago
          I'm not sure if it's still this way but when I was a kid you could buy old guns at rural flea markets or antiques shops. I've never attempted to purchase an illicit firearm, but I can't imagine it's any harder than buying illegal drugs.
    • happyopossum 8mo ago
      > Is that true in New York? Maybe it currently requires permits The implication with this type of argument is that if someone is willing to break the law against murder, they'd be willing/able to break the laws around legally purchasing or owning a gun.
    • MisterTea 8mo ago
      > (like if you wanna shot a CEO and get away with it for example) Dude literally sat in a McDonalds with all the evidence on him including the 3D printed gun. The idea of phantom murderers wielding 3D printed weapons is nothing more than a rich guy/CEO anxiety fantasy.
  • RajT88 8mo ago
    Exactly. The zip gun people are mostly just weird nerds, and not professional assassins. The latter seems to be doing it the old fashioned way which leaves no traces - buy cheap gun, file off serials, throw it in the river after. 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.
    • billfor 8mo ago
      Same thing happened to me -- had a large vice grip in the duffel bag. Could have killed somebody over the head with it. They looked at their "regulations" and vice grips weren't on it so they let me through. You know who didn't let it through though - I left it in the bag and the Chinese security confiscated it on the way back. btw don't try that with something that is on their list like ammo, even one bullet. Your life will be ruined.
      • oasisbob 8mo ago
        Traveling with ammo is not wise, but the number of people who accidentally try to fly with firearms is astronomical and penalties are usually light.
      • RajT88 8mo ago
        > btw don't try that with something that is on their list like ammo, even one bullet. Your life will be ruined. I've done that too. You travel so aggressively, eventually you have some oopsies. I went through a stint where I was driving for work, and working with a bunch of people in a woodsy state. A guy would take us shooting, and he asked me to buy a box of ammo to replace what I shot - so 20 bucks for 500 rounds of .22 caliber ammo. Next time I flew was the first time I had actually been selected for TSA precheck - you know, the Trusted Traveler program and you can guess what I left in my carry-on. I was very apologetic and had to talk to a very grumpy city police officer, but it was fine. I paid a fine of $130, and that was it - they offered to let me check my bag to keep the munitions too! It has never even come up with my 3 Global Entry interviews either. And yes - I live in a blue state. Obviously don't do it. It wasn't a problem for me, but very much YMMV. I know someone else who got dinged for having a banana they bought in a foreign airport, and that continues to come up in their Global Entry interviews. Live ammunition < Bananas, apparently.
  • jcgrillo 8mo ago
    If I wanted to make a custom one-off weapon for some reason why would I use CNC? I'd just do it like normal on manual toolmaking machines. CNC is for achieving repeatability with less tooling in a manufacturing pipeline. Nobody is mass producing bootleg guns. Even if you buy the premise that someone might do this (which to your point they won't--getting a real gun isn't hard) it's completely flawed reasoning based in some CSI style TV trope. Next they'll demand CCTV cameras have an "enhance" mode.
  • tastyfreeze 8mo ago
    3D printed guns haven't been zip guns in a long time. That reads as willful ignorance. Only the receiver or frame are controlled. Every other part can be purchased online without any checks. Hoffman Tactical's Orca and a myriad of pistol frame can be used to produce weapons on par with commercial weapons. Many commercial pistols are polymer frames. A good 3d printed pistol frame is no different than a cast nylon polymer frame. 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/@HoffmanTactical https://www.youtube.com/@PrintShootRepeat https://www.youtube.com/@PrintShootRepeat
  • bluGill 8mo ago
    The only time a 3d printed gun is useful is if your country is occupied and you have a chance to secretly shoot one of the occupiers if only you could get a gun past their confiscation. Otherwise it is an interesting toy that you might shoot once to say you did it. I don't know where you get bullets for the gun though.
  • 9cb14c1ec0 8mo ago
    Not is it only dumb, but it is plain unimplementable. Are they saying the HMI interfaces on CNC machines need to be able to parse the GCode generated by any of dozens of CAM software options out there and divine if it might be gun related? That is not possible.
  • bluescrn 8mo ago
    > Why would I bother with an unreliable 3D printed zip gun and 3D printing when I can go and get a real working gun off the street for a few hundred? 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.
    • pjc50 8mo ago
      Reading up on this, the remaining UK incidents seem to involve mostly "converted blank-firing copies", with the NCA describing 3D printed firearms as "low status". And as you say ammo is highly controlled here.
  • observationist 8mo ago
    3d printing ghost guns with a 100% plastic construction is a silly thing only done for clickbait, and probably comprises less than a tenth of a percent of 3d printing gun related activity. Most people are printing frames, parts, flair, accessories, mounts, things like that, and using sensible real metal parts for things involving explosive forces and danger.
  • b00ty4breakfast 8mo ago
    And anyways, you can make a zip gun out of hardware store parts on your kitchen table, no machining or 3d printing required.
• jp191919 8mo ago
  It's not illegal to make your own firearm, you just can't sell it.
  • reactordev 8mo ago
    They want to make it illegal
    • amelius 8mo ago
      Maybe they should look more at how other countries quite successfully banned fire arms. Hint: it wasn't by banning printers.
      • AustinDev 8mo ago
        They could attempt it, but the Second Amendment is quite clear that a constitutional amendment would be necessary to ban firearms and ammunition.
        • Retric 8mo ago
          Forearms yes, percussion caps no. A large fraction of the harm from firearms comes from their ability to fire rapidly which didn’t exist when the constitution was written. As such it was making a very different balance of risk between the general public and individuals.
          • ndriscoll 8mo ago
            The Girardoni repeating air rifle predates the ratification of the constitution by ~11 years and was taken on the Lewis and Clark expedition ~13 years later. Really the whole discussion around 2A is usually nonsense because it ignores the context that the entire Bill of Rights had a completely different meaning prior to the 14th amendment leading to incorporation over the last century (and other expansions of federal power via commerce clause); that is, the Bill of Rights originally did not apply to the states. Very obviously individuals were expected to be part of the militia, which was the military at the time (c.f. the Militia Acts 2 years after ratification requiring individual gun ownership and very clearly laying out that all able-bodied white male citizens aged 18-45 were part of the militia), but also states could regulate weapons if they wanted.
• andrewmcwatters 8mo ago
  I wonder if legislation like this will bisect 3D printers before and after in the same way that ink printers use printer tracking dot steganography. Or maybe 3D printers already do this in a way we don't see.
• crazygringo 8mo ago
  I don't think they know what Ctrl+Alt+Delete means. They want to restart it? They want to go to the screen where you can switch users or sign out? Do they think it's just a fancier way of saying delete?
  • jasonjayr 8mo ago
    The folks at adafruit probably do know, but it does make sense if you expand the words: "Control, Alter, and Delete"
    • crazygringo 8mo ago
      That's more charitable. Alt is still short for Alternate though, not Alter.
      • zoky 8mo ago
        I mean, technically it’s short for alter on the way to being short for alternate
      • YeGoblynQueenne 8mo ago
        I thought "Alt" in the title is meant in the sense of "stop", as in "halt", but on second thoughts maybe that only works in French (where h is always silent)?
        • viccis 8mo ago
          It's clearly meant to be part of the Ctrl-Alt-Del key sequence that interrupts Windows computers to bring up the task manager.
          • crazygringo 8mo ago
            But doesn't Ctrl+Alt+Del bring up the screen to switch users or sign out? "Task Manager" is one item in the list of options you get, but it's not the main one or anything, in fact it's the last: https://www.lifewire.com/thmb/hzx6btMYEqZJfSAL3WVxXuW3-jw=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/windows-10-ctrl-alt-del-5b475456c9e77c0037e730b3.png https://www.lifewire.com/thmb/hzx6btMYEqZJfSAL3WVxXuW3-jw=/1...
• bitwize 8mo ago
  Gun nut Eric Raymond was cheering when the first printable guns came out. Checkmate gun grabbers, you'll never prevent us from having our shooty-shootys now! Haha! I thought, well the answer to that is simple: simply declare 3D printers to be weapons. You know, like how the Feds declared encryption to be "munitions".
  • 1-more 8mo ago
    They also declared that a shoelace is a machine gun until they declared that it's not https://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/ctdm3/oldie_but_goody_a_shoelace_can_be_a_machine_gun/ https://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/ctdm3/oldie_but_goody... https://imgur.com/7N6zc https://imgur.com/7N6zc
• SirMaster 8mo ago
  But not CNC machines?
  • andy_ppp 8mo ago
    Yeah they should also ban metal working in New York... 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?
    • blehn 8mo ago
      Obviously to have an unregistered gun?
    • dylan604 8mo ago
      Is this a real question? Legally buying guns in the US come with registration of serial numbers, names, and addresses. Printing a gun does not. Printing a gun also does not need to wait for a multi-day delay from a background check. Depending on the printer, it could just take multiple days to print. Asking why someone would want to do this is just not trying very hard in the conversation is actually pretty myopic.
      • tastyfreeze 8mo ago
        > Legally buying guns in the US come with registration of serial numbers, names, and addresses. It is illegal for the government to make a registry of gun owners. There is an electronic check to clear you as a legal gun owner but there is no registry.
        • rangestransform 8mo ago
          It’s only theoretically non searchable, IIRC each submitted document has to be OCRed every time a search is ran on the documents, and this is enough of a legal fig leaf to qualify it as not a registry. A sizeable GPU farm would make this basically a moot point.
• SilverElfin 8mo ago
  Weird how this is happening simultaneously in many states. Washington is considering a vague 3d printer and CNC law to address ghost guns. Gun crimes are mostly committed with regular pistols but that isn’t stopping politicians from passing all sorts of restrictions under the guise of keeping people safe. Meanwhile these states have serious budget problems that go unaddressed …
  • jerf 8mo ago
    It is not weird in the slightest. These things are coordinated at the state level all the time. 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code and see the organization running this' home page at https://www.uniformlaws.org/acts/ucc 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.
• AnotherGoodName 8mo ago
  This will cause 3D printer usability to go down massively. A bit like the multicolored tracking dots - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots that causes the driver to tell you "you can't print black and white as you're out of yellow".
  • dylan604 8mo ago
    It made me think of the tracking dots as well, but this is more like every time you hit print, it submits a copy of your document to the cloud for approval. With time, they could use AI to silently update the document to alter the offending portions and continue printing. They would then notify the authorities of the breach and decision could be made if further action is necessary
    • slowmovintarget 8mo ago
      "The government has been notified that you are attempting to 3D print a copyrighted Door Wedge™ without a license. Local law enforcement has been notified, please prepare to be arrested." or worse... "You are trying to print a design that is 87% similar to Egg Cup™. Acquire a limited run license for $3000 for ten runs which expires in six months? Y/N"
  • deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  • digiown 8mo ago
    As far as I know, the tracking dots aren't even a legal requirement. Nothing stops you from making a printer without it, unlike is the case here.
    • wmf 8mo ago
      To mandate tracking dots they would first have to admit they exist.
    • ls612 8mo ago
• Simulacra 8mo ago
  If you haven't bought a 3D printer yet then I think it's a good time to invest in one. This is going to be one of those technologies that slowly the government will erode our access to, so getting on board now is the best course of action.
• 3x35r22m4u 8mo ago
  I can more or less understand where the legislator might be coming from: laser printers and copiers are already mandated to include fingerprinting in the output and disrupt any attempt of copying money.
  • Glyptodon 8mo ago
    That's more so another example of a law that shouldn't exist.
• rdiddly 8mo ago
  4th Amendment, unreasonable search. And of course the 2nd, but the former is more worrying. Also if printing is speech, then you can add the 1st to the list as well.
  • MostlyStable 8mo ago
    The 4th amendment has probably been the most eroded of all the major private liberty amendments, in my opinion. It is, at this point, a pretty worn fig leaf.
    • rdiddly 8mo ago
      Eyes on the prize, friend, and don't capitulate prematurely.
  • ActorNightly 8mo ago
    The problem is, nobody is willing to use 2nd amendment rights to defend other amendments.
  • hahahahhaah 8mo ago
    Right, so they can't use the blocked print as cause to get other evidence. Or if they do it is excluded.
• pjc50 8mo ago
  This is insanely stupid stuff. Even the UK with our weird panic over Incredibly Specific Knives hasn't tried to do this kind of technical restriction to prevent people printing guns. Why not? Because nobody is printing guns! It's an infeasible solution to a non-problem! Someone should dig into who this is coming from and why. The answers are usually either (a) they got paid to do it by a company selling the tech, which appears not to be the case here, or (b) they went insane on social media. (can't confirm this personally, but it seems from other comments that it's perfectly feasible to just drive out of New York State and buy a gun somewhere else in the gun-owning US? And this is quite likely where all the guns used in existing NY crime come from?) I would also note that the Shinzo Abe doohickey wasn't 3D-printed.
  • tcdent 8mo ago
    Is this even a problem that needs to be solved? How many people have 3d printed guns and used them? Preemptive regulation is absurd.
    • dghlsakjg 8mo ago
      Quite famously, Luigi Mangione. (allegedly) Of course, this is silliness since it is very easy to just buy a gun in the US, and it is also legal to make one in your garage.
  • mothballed 8mo ago
    The 3d-printed hybrid FGC-9 is readily and commonly made all over Europe[0]. Most notoriously exhibit by 'jstark' in Germany[1]. Ammo is no problem, as can be made with off the shelf components available in EU[2]. And fairly reliable, if not oversized, 9mm pistol, primarily printed except with an ECM machined barrel that is easily DIY'd by 3d printing a mandrel for the rifling electrode and a simple bolt. A really nice gun all things considered for people with no other options, that can be built quickly using simple instructions. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygxGrxCEOp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygxGrxCEOp0 [2] https://odysee.com/@TheGatalog-Guides_Tutorials:b/BWA-Ammo-V1.0:b https://odysee.com/@TheGatalog-Guides_Tutorials:b/BWA-Ammo-V...
• scratchyone 8mo ago
  Second half of this article has signs of AI slop, as confirmed by Pangram: https://i.imgur.com/gGIAApA.png https://i.imgur.com/gGIAApA.png Hard to trust an article like this when the legal analysis and suggestions are being outsourced to an LLM.
  • frenchtoast8 8mo ago
    Not all AI assisted writing is "slop," especially if, as your screenshot shows, significant portions of the article were written by a human. Drawing attention to any and all hints of AI assisted writing is not the public service announcement you think it is. Are there specific parts of the article which are inaccurate or misleading? If so please say, it would be very interesting and add to the discussion.
    • scratchyone 8mo ago
      I actually think AI-human collaboration is quite beneficial. I have a more fundamental issue that it's just bad writing when you use pure LLM generated text. My general feeling is "why should you expect me to spend my time reading something that you didn't care enough to spend your time writing?" Also, most of the suggestions provided in the AI generated section are just useless. While I think this law is terrible, the suggestions provided completely contradict what the lawmakers are intending. I'll explain what I mean with some of the suggestions provided. > Narrow the Scope to Intent, Not the Tool This is essentially a suggestion to throw out the entire law as written. Sure, but this is meaningless advice to lawmakers. > Drop Mandatory File Scanning This is the same suggestion as before but rephrased. > Exempt Open-Source and Offline Toolchains This is asking them to create a massive loophole in their own law making it useless. Once again, essentially just asking them to throw out the entire law. > Add safe harbor for sellers and educators who don’t modify equipment or participate in unlawful manufacture. Two fundamentally different concepts here jammed into one idea. Do you want to add safe harbor for sellers who don't modify equipment or do you want to throw out the entire law and have it not apply to anybody who doesn't participate in unlawful manufacture? These are very different ideas, it makes no sense to treat them as one cohesive concept. All of these are signals that not much thought went into this. If a human had used AI for ideas and writing assistance, but participated in the writing process as an active contributor, I think they would have caught things like this. I don't think they would have chosen to make multiple bullet points semantically identical. I think they would have chosen to actually cite specific aspects of the law and propose concrete solutions. Another example, one of their suggestions is to improve the working groups to add specific members. Genuinely a fairly good idea. Having actually read the law, I would have cited the specific passage, which requires that the working group "SHALL INCLUDE EXPERTS IN ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DIGITAL SECURITY, FIREARMS REGULATION, PUBLIC SAFETY, CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY, AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DISCIPLINES DETERMINED BY THE DIVISION TO BE NECESSARY TO PERFORM THE FUNCTIONS PRESCRIBED HEREIN." I would question, who do they consider to be experts in additive manufacturing? Why does it seem that the working group will be far more heavily weighed towards policy experts as opposed to 3D printing experts? The article suggests that "standards will default to large vendors" yet there is no evidence here that vendors will be included at all.
• ortusdux 8mo ago
  Seems like a boon for small batch 3d printing companies.
• dangus 8mo ago
  I really dislike this whole debate because I never wanted to be lumped in with 3D gun printing weirdos. When I first told my very non-technical somewhat new friend about my 3D printer, they looked really concerned and told me they weren’t comfortable with it because of how people make weapons with them. I’ve had to spend a lot of time building trust and showing that I’m not one of those weirdos. Ultimately I don’t think any kind of printed gun banning law has a tangible impact (it’s not like guns with serial numbers aren’t regularly getting away with murder), but what I don’t like is that the law and discussion around it validates this stupidity and continues to lump me in with gun weirdos. It’s weird to own a gun. It’s weird to print a gun. I don’t even think the 2nd amendment is very necessary and is clearly not capable of stopping tyranny (and the amendment itself says that’s not its purpose anyway). At this point we could probably get a coalition of Trump cult members who have no consistent ideology (Trump doesn’t like guns) and “liberal pansies” to just repeal the 2nd amendment and become a normal country.
  • BanazirGalbasi 8mo ago
    This seems like a problem with your friend moreso than with 3D printing in general. Most people I know who hear about 3D printing don't immediately think of making weapons. Toys and weird gadgets tend to come to mind first, or maybe an office accessory like my laptop stands. The fact that your friend immediately jumped to the conclusion that it's for making weapons says a lot about the way they think about the world. I agree that the law seems to validate the viewpoint, but I disagree that it's a common one, nor that you should have had to spend time building that trust.
    • deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
  • tastyfreeze 8mo ago
    A normal country? Like Iran that just slaughters or imprisons anybody that speaks or acts against the government. 2A is to stop that situation from ever happening. Is the government starts shooting we will shoot back. Before then we would prefer to resolve our grievances peacefully in court.
• 0_____0 8mo ago
  Policy in the pursuit of easy political narrative wins looks like this. US gun crime is a national issue, and therefore unsolvable in the current political climate, so useless posturing like this is what we're left with. The real fix is something like a nationwide licensing system like for cars, with auditing of weapons and weapon storage.
  • jp191919 8mo ago
    Meanwhile gun crime is near record lows, but it's still a "gun violence epidemic"
    • kevin_thibedeau 8mo ago
      Insincere actors like to lump in suicides by firearm.
  • hypeatei 8mo ago
    The real fix is to leave it alone. You're wasting political capital by pushing for gun control yet again. You'd want the Trump administration to have access to a database of gun owners like the Black Panthers? Seriously?
  • nradov 8mo ago
    No thanks. We don't need law enforcement checking weapon storage in private homes. And there's already a national background check system for most legal firearm transfers.
    • 0_____0 8mo ago
      I didn't say it was politically feasible. I'm just saying that's how you control gun crime. It's mostly handguns, and about half of firearm homicides are with illegally trafficked arms. They can be trafficked because there's no way to account for the guns. All this rests on the assumption that anyone actually wants to solve gun homicide. A lot of people SAY they do, and that's how you get shit like 3D printer bans.
• uzish 8mo ago
  Hmmm... this is literally the intro of the narrative arc in the game that I'm making. Governments confiscating 3D Printers, powerful GPUs, robotic parts to prevent "simple people" the access to "dangerous technologies". For their own good of course.
  • Neeek 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    • HNisCIS 8mo ago
      Don't conflate "populace" with "lobbying groups". The populace wants health care and this ain't it.
      • Neeek 8mo ago
        [flagged]
      • wtcactus 8mo ago
        [flagged]
        • KingMob 8mo ago
          Who, Mamdani? He's a democratic socialist, not a communist. It's like you just confused RAM with SSD because they both involve gigabytes.
          • wtcactus 8mo ago
            "If there was any system that could guarantee each person housing, whether you call it the abolition of private property or you call it, you know, just a statewide housing guarantee, it is preferable to what is going on right now.", Mamdani, 2020 "We have to ensure we are unapologetic about our socialism", Mamdani, 2021 "There are also other issues we firmly believe in [...] weather is the end goal of seizing the means of production", Mamdani, 2021 "We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.", Mamdani, 2026 It's funny. You people go up in arms calling Elon Musk a fascist because he made a suspicious gesture with his right hand. But, then you have a guy outright telling you he wants to "seize the means of production" and you make excuses on why he is not actually a communist.
• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• hypeatei 8mo ago
  Any state laws trying to restrict the 2nd amendment are always going to be useless. You're not going to stop someone who's determined at causing harm with firearms in a country where firearms outnumber people. All these little "bandaid" solutions do is allow for fishing expeditions by police and prosecutors. On a related point, trying to implement more gun control after seeing how this federal government is deploying the three letter agencies is pretty fucking stupid.
• kogasa240p 8mo ago
  > The New York definitions sweep in not just FDM and resin printers, but also CNC mills and “any machine capable of making three-dimensional modifications to an object from a digital design file using subtractive manufacturing.” ...what? This some of the stupidest, most out of touch garbage I've ever read and clearly made by uneducated lawmakers being out of their depth.
• delichon 8mo ago
  > The obvious problem: you cannot reliably detect firearms from geometry alone. The obvious problem with this argument is that in just the medium term, world-model style AI will get good at this task, but having big brother pre-approve every print will still be bad.
  • everyday7732 8mo ago
    I think it's still not a viable problem to solve. 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.
  • gmueckl 8mo ago
    How? The printer only ever retrieves G code for individual parts without any knowledge of what they are going to be assembled into. There is no viable way to solve this classification problem on this kind of incomplete data, is there?
    • le-mark 8mo ago
      It’s not nearly that hard of a problem. There are n gun files on internet, so validate the hash of those n files (g code whatever). These people aren’t cadding their own designs.
      • mediaman 8mo ago
        Seems trivial to create an infinite number of inconsequentially (but hash defeating) different variants.
      • snailmailman 8mo ago
        One big part of this is that gcode isnt really a 3d model its a set of instructions on how to move the printhead around. You don't download the gcode directly, because that varies by printer. You download a model, and then a slicing program turns that into a set of printer-specific gcode. Any subtle settings changes would change the hash of this gcode. And the printer doesn't really know what the model is. It would have to reverse the gcode instructions back into a model somehow. The printer isn't really the place to detect and prevent this sort of thing imo. Especially with how cheap some 3d printers are getting, they often don't really have much compute power in them. They just move things around as instructed by the g-code. If the g-code is malformed it can even break the printer in some instances, or at least really screw up your print. There are even scripts that modify the gcode to do weird things the printer really isn't designed for, like print something and then have the printer move in such a way to crash into and push the printed object off the plate, and then start over and print another print. The printer will just follow these instructions blindly.
• krunck 8mo ago
  For hundreds of years people have been making guns without 3D printers and CNC mills. All that is needed is some metal machining skills, a lathe, and some other tools.
  • thatguy0900 8mo ago
    If you want to be really simple you can make a slam fire shotgun with two pipes and a nail, no machining skills required
  • maxlybbert 8mo ago
    I have a copy of https://archive.org/details/gerard-metral-gun/ https://archive.org/details/gerard-metral-gun/ on my bookshelf (by a European, too!).
• talkinghead 8mo ago
  perhaps people printing their own guns at home is actually quite bad and in fact should be controlled in some way without it being seen as a fundamental incursion on your rights. just a thought from across the pond.
  • bluescrn 8mo ago
    Should people be allowed to own basic metalworking tools, or is that something else that would be OK to be 'controlled in some way'? Maybe we shouldn't let people write their own software either, as there's all sorts of crime they could get up to...
  • cucumber3732842 8mo ago
    The idea that we should let government software run on our printers to prevent the rate case where someone both wants to print a gun and do some crime with it is absurd. There are more important 1st and 4th amendment considerations here NYC doesn't have a gun problem. They regulate the shit out of guns to no effect. They should regress closer to the national mean and spend the resources on stuff that matters more. And even if they do want to regulate it, micromanaging everyone's 3d printers is not the way to do it both because of bad efficacy and bad precedent. I'm glad there's an ocean between us.
  • groundzeros2015 8mo ago
    Do you support gun ownership absent of this idea? Or is your actual concern with guns?
  • sb057 8mo ago
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/23/ban-sales-pointed-kitchen-knives-no-reason-modern-world-says/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/23/ban-sales-po...
  • int_19h 8mo ago
    You know, putting people in a straightjacket with feeding tubes as soon as they are born would reduce crime by 100% basically, so... why not?
  • 8mo ago
• bieganski 8mo ago
  "preventing firearms printing", aka "securing big companies' income from spare parts selling with 500% margin"
• harrisi 8mo ago
  Should flour, yeast, water, and ovens be banned, and only commercial bakeries be allowed to make bread? I know guns are different. There are also an enormous amount of ways to cause harm. I personally think that, ideally, nobody should have guns. That's not the world we live in, though. A political government body should not infringe on privacy of individuals because some small percentage may cause harm. I can make a sword, grow poisonous plants, isolate toxins, or stab someone with a pencil. I do not. I shouldn't be punished for the idea that other people may.
  • kps 8mo ago
    You can buy a thing for your fingernails, a thing for your hair, and a thing for your drains, and put them together to hurt a lot of people (though likely and ideally only yourself), but those things are not banned.
    • ReptileMan 8mo ago
      Since when peroxiacetone requires NAOH?
      • kps 8mo ago
        The other kind of drain opener.
• Hizonner 8mo ago
  Wait, so this is in the budget bill proposed by the supposed adults in the room, not from the usual types in the peanut gallery of the legislature?
• qwlefkjlk 8mo ago
  And not for the first time: 2025: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A2228 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A2228 2023 (before Mangione): https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/A8132 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/A8132 Maybe there are others.
  • nebula8804 8mo ago
    Really garbage administration they have in NY. Hochul and a lot of her ilk have done things like block right to repair after years of activists trying to get it passed. 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 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.
• pragma_x 8mo ago
  I wrote as good an opposition as I could. Basically, I opposed it on multiple principles. From the top, I absolutely detest this kind of censorship. But the bill states that the implementation will be defined (or rendered infeasible - yeah right) AFTER the bill passes. Said decision will be punted to a "working group" of industry folks. That alone stinks, since it places a lot of abuse potential outside of duly elected representation.
• OutOfHere 8mo ago
  Just reject printing everything or nearly everything :) Inform users where this censorship filter is implemented, so users can go change the source file value from 1 to 0 :) Malicious compliance is highly appropriate for a malicious law.
• hazmazlaz 8mo ago
  The most insane thing about this is that it is not illegal to manufacture firearms in the United States. Providing that you do not sell or distribute the firearm, it is entirely legal to manufacture a firearm in the USA for personal use only. Laws vary state by state, of course, and it may be different in the state of New York, but assuming that this federal law has not been overridden by some state law in New York, then this proposed regulation is 100% nonsensical.
  • kart23 8mo ago
    it’s illegal to make a gun for personal use without a serial number in ny and ca. https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/consumer-alert.pdf https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/consu...
    • groundzeros2015 8mo ago
      NY and CA have the most strict gun regulations
      • namlem 8mo ago
        NJ and CA. You can't make guns at all in NJ, and you need a firearm permit to buy an airgun or bb gun.
      • brewdad 8mo ago
        Combined they are home to 1 in 6 Americans so it's important info that applies to a lot of us.
    • RevEng 8mo ago
      So it's okay to 3D print a gun as long as you have a serial number? That seems to reinforce that 3D printing shouldn't be banned, especially by blanket technical means.
      • y-curious 8mo ago
        That is the essence of the weird gun laws. Take a Glock pistol as an example. The only part that has a serial number and is legally “the gun” is the thing you hold in your hand: the frame. It’s plastic and has the trigger and some parts to hold the magazine. The rest of the stuff? You can buy and overnight ship it to yourself legally with almost no regulation (as of 2026 CA requires more gun-like treatment for those parts).
• loeg 8mo ago
  Washington state is pursuing a similar law at a similar time. Presumably pushed by the same advocacy organization, whichever one it is. The Washington one seems impossible to actually comply with -- how the hell is the computer in a CNC machine going to figure out what geometries are gun-like? A de facto ban on additive or subtractive manufacturing is pretty dumb.
• iamnothere 8mo ago
  I will just continue to use my non-regulated printer and open source slicer. Fortunately I have a copy of the source. If anyone needs help printing parts for a Voron just let me know. (Not a real offer for the public, but for friends absolutely.)
• iancmceachern 8mo ago
  Yeah but what about CNC milling machines? Way more guns are made on those every day than 3d printers. There is even one you can buy that is specifically for making "ghost guns"
  • alexford1987 8mo ago
    Mentioned in TFA
  • echelon 8mo ago
    I'm way more worried about drones, self-driving cars, and humanoid robots than "ghost guns". 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.
    • iancmceachern 8mo ago
      Good point, as a further example see all the "luck" countries like Ukraine have been having with even slightly modified "consumer" drone stuff applied to this kind of application
• rickcarlino 8mo ago
  Yet another case of lawmakers proliferating the “you should not have root access” meme. This is one of the most dangerous ideas in the modern political landscape and a backdoor to much less well intentioned actions (intentional and unintended).
• like_any_other 8mo ago
  It tells you all you need to know about their honesty, that such a dramatic expansion of government power into our private lives and property, was put into a "budget bill".
• EarlKing 8mo ago
  They can require whatever the want. Good luck stopping people from just building their own printers without such "blocking technology".
  • arealaccount 8mo ago
    0. We will have to enforce blocking technology against printing printer components to bypass blocking technology Goto 0
• slg 8mo ago
  I think it's interesting to note that not only is there precedent for this type of "blocking technology that prevents the printing of certain things"[1], but it's also inconsequential and uncontroversial enough that most of the people here obviously have never even heard of it. We lost the ability to print $50 bills with our HPs[2] and it had no noticeable negative impact on society. I'm not sure why losing the ability to print a gun with our Prusas will be any different. [1] - https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/cant-photocopy-scan-currency-notes.html https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/cant-photocopy-scan-cu... [2] - https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printers-Archive-Read-Only/Won-t-print-image-of-money/td-p/2801849 https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printers-Archive-Read-Only/Won...
  • antonymoose 8mo ago
    I was bounced out of a Kinkos circa 2000 with my grandparents for attempt to counterfeit Pokémon cards on the photocopier. Mind you I didn’t seek to make illegal copies. I just wanted to photocopy and color in and draw on my own artistic creations. Fun times learning about copyright mechanisms and fraud as a kindergartner.
  • tantalor 8mo ago
    Images of authentic $50 bills are pretty easily detected. They are designed that way. It's not technically possible to detect "gun geometry". The only way to comply with this law is to ban 3d printers entirely.
    • slg 8mo ago
      Good news, as the article notes, the proposed regulation creates a working group to determine of it is feasible and won't require any further regulation if it is found nonfeasible. If you're right and this does prove to be "not technically possible", then nothing will actually change.
      • deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
      • 8mo ago
• robflynn 8mo ago
  My main concern is, how long is it before you can't print a replacement part for something you bought because it looks too similar to an OEM part and the manufacturer doesn't think you should be able to do that so they throw a little money to the right politician.
  • PlatoIsADisease 8mo ago
    I remember ~10 or 15 years ago, I had concerns about drones becoming illegal due to FAA. 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.
    • nemomarx 8mo ago
      I guess it was a predictable outreach from the Patriot act - the new justification is flying drones "over a mission" from the border people, and they claim a lot of territory for their missions, right?
      • butvacuum 8mo ago
        they also don't publish the NOTAMs ahead of time. So, they're effectively allowing ICE to retroactively make flying a drone illegal if an agent takes issue with the color of your cheesburger bun.
      • bluescrn 8mo ago
        More likely the videos of FPV drones from Ukraine showing that an inexpensive quadcopter can be a very effective weapon of war. And that radio jamming no longer neutralizes that threat.
        • crote 8mo ago
          That could be used to justify banning drones in general, or banning all drones which aren't radio controlled (not that those are being used domestically). And "it can be used for war" is a bit silly in a country where you can buy guns at the grocery store. Not to mention that cars can be very effective weapons as well, and those haven't been banned yet. The far more likely explanation is that they just don't want people filming them. They can't legally stop someone with a cellphone from filming them, but that hasn't stopped them from using up-to-lethal force against observers. On the other hand, you can't exactly beat a flying drone into submission, so the obvious move is to observe using drones instead. Luckily for ICE the FAA already has the mechanics in place to criminalize flying drones in certain places, so with their magic "no drones anywhere we operate" NOTAM they can now punish observers with a year of jail time.
• assaddayinh 8mo ago
  Just another example of more lid than pots. Instead of containing the anger of the public by doing good politics and thus reduce radicalizations and peace by plenty of filled pots, its surveilance, panopticons, terror and ever more laws sas lids. If you can't atand the heat get out of the kitchen.
• tamimio 8mo ago
  Year 2027: beep boop beep boop, scan your implanted rfid digital ID chip to authenticate: - your social media consumption and any post you make - your app installations - registering a new account or keeping an already existing one - driving your car - 3D printing something - watching a YouTube video - buying anything online - receive any gov support or healthcare - any transaction including cash ones And all of that is synced with your digital wallet (TM) for convenience, internet is not needed!! I am so glad we are protecting the 16yo from accessing tiktok, or something something deportations if you are the other team!!
  • ActorNightly 8mo ago
    Lol no. 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.
• CamperBob2 8mo ago
  Note that Washington's similar HB 2321 defines a "3D printer" as any additive or subtractive manufacturing machine. So these idiots want to regulate CNC machines too. Public comments can (and should!) be submitted here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/bill/2321 https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/bill/2321 Keep them polite and respectful; insults and threats won't help.
• arnonejoe 8mo ago
  Also, manufacturers that make 3d printers simply wont sell in NY. They’ve solved nothing with this.
• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• IFC_LLC 8mo ago
  So what's next? People will re-flash their printers with an open-source firmware that won't do the checks? Who's liable in this case?
  • tombert 8mo ago
    Also, if I wanted to print a gun, there are thousands upon thousands of older Creality and Prusa printers that I could buy used. My CR-10 isn't connected to the internet, it's running a FOSS Marlin release. 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.
  • brewdad 8mo ago
    There would be a presumption of intent. Probably an "aggravated" add-on to whatever charges you might be facing. 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.
    • IFC_LLC 8mo ago
      That proves only one thing. We just have nothing to do in our lives. The tenacity of government that invents useless laws directly proportional to nothingness to do that it provides to its citizens
  • cge 8mo ago
    > People will re-flash their printers with an open-source firmware that won't do the checks? 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.
• androiddrew 8mo ago
  I think a lot of people don’t realize that in the US we have the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which gives you the right to manufacture a fire arm. There are still requirements like it must be for personal use, cannot be transferred, must have a serial number, etc.
  • sb057 8mo ago
    None of what you said is true. > 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.234171/gov.uscourts.wvsd.234171.48.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wvsd.23...
• SanjayMehta 8mo ago
  Why is it in a budget bill?
• le-mark 8mo ago
  The irony is it’s really easy and cheap to get a type 7 ffl, basically a background check and $150. Legally manufacture and sell all the guns you want. The reality is no one would buy your 3d printed junk anyway.
• pigpop 8mo ago
  Once again another proposed law that would just make normal people's lives more difficult while doing nothing to prevent individuals who are motivated to do the illegal thing from doing it. Offline 3D printers are really not difficult to build, there are many open source plans and all of the hardware is available to order from AliExpress making it simple to do. Somewhat more technically capable people can cobble them together from alternative sources if they don't want to purchase things online. But the bar is even lower than that since you can simply buy a gun much more easily than you could 3D print parts for one.
• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• Centigonal 8mo ago
  People regularly circumvent "blocking technology" (i.e. DRM) because they want to watch a TV show on a plane with no wi-fi, or because they want to save $20 on a cartridge of printer ink. If someone wants to kill another human being and evade detection, I'm sure they'll find a way to print their part.
  • mghackerlady 8mo ago
    I would say it's not a crime to circumvent DRM or whatever, but then I remember the DMCA exists
• kittikitti 8mo ago
  My HP printer already does this. It blocks random prints on paper. I once tried to print a target practice thing for snowballs and it would always fail. There were other cases too. My very expensive printer has some other very sketchy issues with it. It's easily the least secure device I have connected to my network. This surveillance state has gone too far and I'm so sick of it.
  • ReptileMan 8mo ago
    Why have you allowed a printer access to the network? You should tell the router to drop every packet that is going outside of the lan from this mac address.
• m4rtink 8mo ago
  Yet another reason why fully open hardware and open software is so important + of course a fully open source slicing pipeline. It might be a bit less convenient than a shiny vendor locked Bamboolab closed machine but it is perfectly doable. A filament 3D printer is basically just a control board, firmware (like Marlin), bunch of off the shelf steppers, two thermistors, heatbed and nozzle heater. If you have modern stepper drivers you don't even need end stop switches. Put this together and you have a machine you fully own and control and can easily repair or upgrade. Then just feed it GCODE generated by something like Prusa Slic3r from STL/obj/step files and that's it. Avoids any shenanigans like forcing you to use only blessed consumables or trying to dictate what you can print.
• eggy 8mo ago
  I built an 8'x4' CNC router table in 2004. I bought rack and pinion, steppers, drives, aluminum extrusion, and I had it built in one week. What would stop someone from building their own printer and building and selling printers to others who don't have the skill set? They would make it illegal to make 3D printers or CNC machinery without a license, and if you are caught it is tantamount to making guns.
  • ehnto 8mo ago
    It wouldn't be that far-fetched I suppose, if some large equipment manufacturer has been lobbying to get DIY and even smaller scale 3D printers and CNC banned, to force small businesses back into the Old World of large equipment sales. 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.
  • krater23 8mo ago
    > What would stop someone from building their own printer and building and selling printers to others who don't have the skill set? That it's easier with this skillset to build guns and sell them to criminals when the penalty is the same.
    • eggy 8mo ago
      Except selling the printers as plain printers without any restrictive AI firmware or other has a thorny abstraction layer in between that and convicting someone of actually making firearms and selling direct. The printers are universal machines within the parameters of additive processes. Silly proposal this "blocking technology" written by people with no analytical thinking skills.
  • ssl-3 8mo ago
    2004! You were way ahead of most of us on that game. 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.
• bandrami 8mo ago
  Stuff like this used to make me incandescently angry but as I've gotten older I've come to understand that honestly we just can't have nice things
• rpcope1 8mo ago
  I can't believe they haven't tried banning anyone from having a knee mill if they don't have an FFL yet (or just banned it entirely). It's not hard to convert an old inexpensive Bridgeport to CNC or just mill the parts by hand. Pandora's box is already open, and all this is is just useless flailing.
• m463 8mo ago
  just sell almost-3d-printers. All it is missing is a screw with a serial number on it.
  • pawelduda 8mo ago
    "This printer is for collecting and research purposes only. Note that certain 3D-printed objects are forbidden by the law. If you notice any of these objects growing inside your 3D printer, power it off IMMEDIATELY"
    • mghackerlady 8mo ago
      Reminds me of those prohibition era alcohol kits that basically came down to "whatever you do, do not put this yeast in that mixture" and "should that happen, under no circumstances should you let it sit in a dark cabinet"
• nayuki 8mo ago
  This is a frustrating replay of the DRM (digital rights management) / copy protection debate from about 20 years ago. That time, it was about restricting fully general-purpose computers and storage devices from copying or displaying certain bit patterns in the hopes of stopping media piracy. The pro-restriction side spent enormous amounts of money, engineering talent, and legal firepower, yet hackers have defeated every copy-protection system ever devised. This time, it's about restricting fully general-purpose 3D printers (and perhaps CNC machines) from following instructions according to certain bit patterns in the hopes of stopping the manufacture of firearms. I have a feeling it's going to play out in the same way, leading to an long and expensive intellectual war that accomplishes nothing. Fighting a war against general-purpose tools is as futile as making water not wet. When will legislators learn this and give up?
  • shiroiuma 8mo ago
    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
• blinded 8mo ago
  I could understand these laws more if the majority of gun related deaths were from ghost guns. But they simply aren't.
  • beeflet 8mo ago
    If anything, ghost guns should be decriminalized to protect people from the rising danger of ghost-related deaths in NYC. Now that is a startup idea I can get behind.
• bhawks 8mo ago
  The only logical end of this is that they should ban 3d printers and cnc mills to unlicensed individuals. Which, is probably the goal. Things like 3d printers, drones, GPUs, general purpose computers, vpns, encryption, talking to people in private and the like are far too dangerous for the citizenry to be allowed to do without appropriate oversight and approval.
  • tigrezno 8mo ago
    you can buy every individual component and build it yourself, it's absurd (I did some years ago)
    • qiine 8mo ago
      maybe amazon/aliexpress is also too powerful for you own good then ;p
  • Kerrick 8mo ago
    > To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, 1776
  • __turbobrew__ 8mo ago
    OI WHERE IS YOUR GPU LOISENCE!?!?
• ob102 8mo ago
  make sure to collect a bunch of stl, gcode, etc files that you have questions about and email them to the NY and WA legislators seeking clarification. if it’s possession and not intent, maybe they need have skin in the game to understand.
  • direwolf20 8mo ago
    Legislators will never be prosecuted for receiving an illegal file by email
• jurschreuder 8mo ago
  The USA has these type of rules. Similar with cars that have to have self-stopping when they almost run into another car (for example on your phone and person in front breaks). I always think it's strategy to block Chinese manufacturers with super difficult to implement technology being a hard requirement. Specially the selling face-to-face requirement here.
  • Aurornis 8mo ago
    > Similar with cars that have to have self-stopping when they almost run into another car (for example on your phone and person in front breaks). 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.
• everyone 8mo ago
  I think this would be even harder than the penis detection in Lego Universe.
• Jean-Papoulos 8mo ago
  I wonder if this could fall under the 1st amendement. In any case it is stupid, won't work and has nothing to do in a budget bill. Someone's getting paid
• teaearlgraycold 8mo ago
  Is this a real issue? Guns are not hard to get in the US.
• Buttons840 8mo ago
  We look the other way for so many actual gun tradgedies. "What more can we do?" But when it comes to a theoretical problem we must take action even if it takes freedoms and opportunities away from normal people.
• p0w3n3d 8mo ago
  New York should introduce a technology that can detect politicians and law makers who are not the sharpest tool in the shed, and let them go
  • WillAdams 8mo ago
    That exists, it's a functioning education system and electorate aware of current events, past history and able to reason logically and impartially, and a viable fourth estate. 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).
    • p0w3n3d 8mo ago
      So the existing system has flaws. Maybe for every stupid thing a politician said there should be a penalty point assigned? Like in driving: in my country 20 penalty points makes you lose the driving license
• Kim_Bruning 8mo ago
  I'm very confused by this. 3D printers seem to have become a critical part of many european manufacturing workflows. Is this not the case in the usa? If -say- Province Noord-Brabant were to adopt a similar law, the western IT industry would crash.
• hahahahhaah 8mo ago
  Gotta do something ism. Making things shit. Just do gun control, America.
• suprjami 8mo ago
  New York are going to be very angry when they discover that pipes and hammers exist.
• vincnetas 8mo ago
  What if i want to print a nerf gun for my kid? They have clearly not thought this through. I thik they should gather experts BEFORE signing this in to law : Feasibility escape hatch: If the working group determines it’s “not technologically feasible,” no regulations are required… until the group decides it is feasible. This is good, but weak sauce: the working group could be stuffed with non-experts who just say what the legislators want.
• nicewood 8mo ago
  Over here in Europe, it's pretty laborious to get a firearm legally and yet 3D prints for that are not discussed at all. It's surprising to see discussions and bills like these, when there is the second amendment in place. What is fueling this discussion?
  • SiempreViernes 8mo ago
    What do you mean? The police shut down 3d gun factories every now and then, and here's a EP briefing about it https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/775889/EPRS_BRI(2025)775889_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/7758...
    • alkonaut 8mo ago
      That seems like the way to go about it. Address when people are _selling_ guns. The fact that they were printed and not imported from Yugoslavia in 1990 doesn't really matter. Trying to stop people with 3D printers (Or metal tubes) from creating guns seems almost impossible.
  • Ylpertnodi 8mo ago
    ? Inherit gun Request the form Fill in the form Background check Visit from plod All good Export form Customs were a pain, but carnet protected Import form Store gun at plods Fill in form Visit from plod Secure gun ok Two different EU countries Time taken is the most 'labourious' part And grandad's funeral
• alkonaut 8mo ago
  I could see why "people are making guns" would be at the top of the list of politicians' worries in places where there are almost no guns, and people want to keep it that way. But in the US?
  • jeppester 8mo ago
    The gun industry does not earn anything from 3D-printed guns, so those kinds of guns are "free game" for the law makers.
    • fendy3002 8mo ago
      > The gun industry does not earn anything from 3D-printed guns, so those kinds of guns are reducing the profit ftfy
  • charcircuit 8mo ago
    Exactly. In the US you don't even need a license if you want to manufacture a gun for yourself. The idea of it being made illegal is far from reality.
  • mavamaarten 8mo ago
    Indeed. Don't want people making guns? Ban the making of guns. Banning the production of guns using a 3D printer makes zero sense, should ban CNC machines too then.
    • St4rBr1ght 8mo ago
      Subtractive mfg is included in the scope of the Washington bill...
    • alt227 8mo ago
      Just ban guns, simple! /s
  • kypro 8mo ago
    Even then it makes little sense... 3d printers are just tools. They can be used to print dangerous items, or parts of dangerous items in the same way a saw or hammer could be used to make something dangerous. To some degree this is just a problem with human nature – some people are going to want to harm people and will create or acquire items which do that. 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.
• 1e1a 8mo ago
  How's this supposed to work for all the printers running tiny AVRs?
• direwolf20 8mo ago
  I can't read this because adafruit.com uses blocking technology on the website
  • defrost 8mo ago
    It's the same "blocking technology" JWZ uses on his sites. Easily sidestepped, it's there to make a point I guess: https://www.jwz.org/blog/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/
    • direwolf20 8mo ago
      No, it isn't.
      • defrost 8mo ago
        Hmm, having double checked, I can read it if referred via HN, I can read it direct via my ISP, and I can read it direct via a VPN in a couple of global geolocations. That doesn't help you directly, but perhaps that might help tracing your issue. Unless you were running a Ceci n'est pas une pipebomb bit that flew over my addled head ...
  • ptorrone 8mo ago
    i am the author of the article. 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 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.
• anovikov 8mo ago
  This is batshit crazy leftist authoritarianism. And because it's so silly, it will achieve nothing but expose its peddlers as morons and give more votes to Republicans just by making them appear saner in comparison. BAD.
• haritha-j 8mo ago
  Oh no, now New Yokers will have to get their 3D printers the same way they currently get their guns: bring it in from another state.
• qmr 8mo ago
  Fuck all the way off.
• xbmcuser 8mo ago
  I thought all printers had in place block to stop printing of money so something like that to stop printing and making of firearms etc is not unrealistic
  • cbdevidal 8mo ago
    It’s more complicated than that. A 2D rectangle with certain graphics is entirely different than a single part of a gun which may really look like anything. Would you recognize a trigger sear if I showed you one? And if 3DP gun designers get blocked, they just have to alter the design slightly. Vs counterfeit currency which always and forever must look the same. If the 3DP database detection is loosened to catch lookalikes, then you have false positives for the guy making a desk lamp whose part just kinda sorta looks like a trigger sear. Also, I am not aware of any open source 2D printers built from the ground up, but 3DP got started that way. So bypassing this would be insanely easy. It’s political theater.
• xinayder 8mo ago
  This is ridiculous. As WIRED has shown [0], the only 3D printed part of most "3D printed" guns is the frame. You can do only so much with the frame alone. All the other parts are sourced online and much easier to get, other than getting a 3D printer and finding the frame of the gun you want to print it for. Maybe these advocating for gun control laws for 3D printers should first advocate for stricter control on selling spare repair parts for guns and the websites selling them with no sort of background check. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/luigi-mangione-ghost-gun-built-tested/ https://www.wired.com/story/luigi-mangione-ghost-gun-built-t...
  • vidarh 8mo ago
    It'll also just drive people to refactor designs into parts that pass individually.
• hshdhdhj4444 8mo ago
  We’re soon gonna realize that we will need manual kill switches for all tech in case it goes rogue or allows an AI installed somewhere else to go rogue.
  • y0eswddl 8mo ago
    only if by "soon" you mean "decades away" at minimum
• Jemm 8mo ago
  No! Just No!
• clash 8mo ago
  This is an easy one: bool isRestricted(uint8_t* /* data */) { return true; } // Might catch a few false positives and popup("This is a restricted model. If you are not in the state of New York, please flash the international firmware ([link]) to print restricted parts."); It can also handle STL, step and all kinds of other formats.
• jongjong 8mo ago
  Clearly, if politicians are afraid of the people, it's a sign that the people aren't happy with the work they're doing. Maybe the solution is to start delivering the results that people want.
• thegreatpeter 8mo ago
  All government regulation is good regulation.
• ulrikrasmussen 8mo ago
  This is another example of either stupid or malicious politicians thinking that it is possible to implement mandatory scanning on devices owned and operated by people and somehow get a meaningful true match rate without false positives. Of course this is not possible! But the negative consequences are immense. It is exactly the same kind of stupid thinking driving ideas such as Chat Control in the EU. In the end, no child will be safer, but we will end up having a world where no-one has the right to control what software can run on their own hardware devices and where no-one has legal access to end-to-end encrypted communication.
• meindnoch 8mo ago
  We need blocking technology on CNC lathes and mills too!
• dogtimeimmortal 8mo ago
  > blog.adafruit.com Your browser is out of date. Update your browser to view this site properly. Click here for more information if you care about right to repair and the ability of regular people to make a living and choose their own destiny(i.e. live independently of a mega-corp), this type of error message should bother you. HTML is a mature tech. There is no reason for this type of error
  • cucumber3732842 8mo ago
    Webdev new hotness monkey poo flinging software development is not these people's schtick. Hardware is. 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.
    • pclmulqdq 8mo ago
      The "new hotness" in webdev is what causes these errors. Plain old HTML pretty much never has these issues. Clearly they are into the new hotness in webdev.
      • cucumber3732842 8mo ago
        Exactly. Unless they want to make a project out of their website they're at the mercy of the packages and frameworks they depend upon, who are run by people who generally like webdev stuff and have no qualms about the new hotness.
  • theyregr8 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    • rafaelmn 8mo ago
      Oh look - HN fortune cookies
• uriahlight 8mo ago
  You get what you vote for.
• stackedinserter 8mo ago
  Time to save firmwares for popular printers, and probably disable their firmware updates.
• dv_dt 8mo ago
  What a great way to inhibit a path for a nation to advance it's manufacturing capabilities - putting roadblocks in the way of individuals learning how to manufacture things.
  • pocksuppet 8mo ago
    It's clear for all to say: The US is no longer a serious country.
    • nvahalik 8mo ago
      This is New York. Not the US as a whole.
• stackedinserter 8mo ago
  This provision has first, last name and an address of a person who pushed it to the budget bill.
• anta40 8mo ago
  For some unknown reasons, the PDF page: https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2025/S9005 https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2025/S9005 stuck on loading (tested on both latest Firefox and Chrome on macOS). I'm on Indonesia, BTW. Could someone upload the PDF?
• idiotsecant 8mo ago
  Oh, ok. I guess I'll just build a printer from parts, then.
• fortran77 8mo ago
  The voters of NYC got _exactly_ what they wanted and deserve. They voted to “seize the means of production.” This was one of the few promises delivered. May they enjoy it! I made a choice, too. I cancelled my annual NYC trip in January to see friends and went to Miami instead.
  • Ylpertnodi 8mo ago
    Miami? Miami? Man, you should try the EU. They'd love you over there.
• christkv 8mo ago
  Meanwhile anyone with a CNC machine can make actual weapons.
• randusername 8mo ago
  I saw a shirt one time that said something like "in just one generation user manuals went from showing you how to tune your carburetor to warning you not to drink the battery acid" Stupidity or nefariousness? Probably both. I don't feel like I can fix either.
  • GuB-42 8mo ago
    > in just one generation user manuals went from showing you how to tune your carburetor to warning you not to drink the battery acid 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.
    • alt227 8mo ago
      Manuals still exist, but they are relegated to: 1. Quick setup guides. 2. Warranty information. 3. Warnings of not trying to fix yourself.
• greenavocado 8mo ago
  Washington state lawmakers, led by Democrats, have introduced bills like HB 2320 and HB 2321. HB 2320 is sponsored solely by Rep. Osman Salahuddin (D-48th District), focusing on prohibiting 3D printers and CNC machines for untraceable firearms. HB 2321, pushing printer DRM requirements, similarly lacks Republican co-sponsors based on available details. In Washington where this is going on in the state House Democrats hold 59 seats, Republicans hold 39 seats and in the state Senate Democrats hold 30 seats, Republicans hold 19 seats. These Democrat-sponsored bills passed initial House committees along party lines, with no Republican co-sponsors or primary support Virginia Democrats are advancing multiple gun ban bills in the 2026 session, including assault weapon sales bans and magazine capacity limits, primarily through Democrat-controlled committees. Virginia's General Assembly has a slim Democratic majority sponsoring and pushing these measures without Republican support. In VA, bills like house SB 217 (assault weapon ban) and HB 271 (semi-auto ban) were approved in the Democrat-led Senate Courts of Justice Committee strictly along party lines. Sponsors such as Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim (D) lead these efforts, facing opposition from Republicans like Del. Terry Kilgore (R). They await full Assembly votes and signature from Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger. In NY State, Democrats, holding supermajorities in the Assembly (103-47) and Senate (42-20), champion Governor Hochul's 2026 State of the State proposals. These include criminalizing unlicensed possession/sale of CAD files for 3D-printed guns (via Penal Law amendments), mandating 3D printer safety standards to block firearm production, and requiring recovery reports to state police. Key bills like S.227A (Sen. Hoylman-Sigal, active in 2025 session) target 3D-printed ghost guns/silencers as felonies; related A2228 pushes printer background checks. Republicans offer no sponsorship or support, labeling Hochul's agenda and bills like S.227A "anti-gun, anti-speech" infringements on Second Amendment rights and innovation for non-gun printing. NRA-ILA criticizes them as futile against criminals while burdening hobbyists In my opinion the ICE unrest is a smoke screen. During Obama's presidency (roughly 2009-2017), 56 people died in ICE custody, averaging about 7 per year. There were no major protests over the 56 deaths under Obama because the current situation is a psychological influence operation led by the same criminals who seek to exterminate the rights of ordinary Americans (showcased above). There is a separate fully frontal assault on personal liberties impacting normal American citizens happening right now and it is happening while all the attention is on Minneapolis! https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=2320&Year=2025 https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=2320&Year=202... https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=2321&Year=2025 https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=2321&Year=202... https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260127/virginia-gun-control-hearings-continue https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260127/virginia-gun-contro... https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S227/amendment/A https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S227/amendme... https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A2228 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A2228
• 1970-01-01 8mo ago
  Good luck reverse engineering Gcode files to weapons. The infeasible clause rules this law and it's actually funny how they even tried to pass it inside of a budget.
• 1970-01-01 8mo ago
  The law says nothing about flashing firmware, just point of sale delivery. The first thing you do after buying a new printer is update the firmware. As is, this law is a joke written by someone who has never setup their own printer.
• fusspawn_ 8mo ago
  How's does this apply to non lethal weapons (airsoft for instance) there isn't an algorithm in the world that can tell me if the identical handguard is ment for a gun or an airsoft toy.
• giantg2 8mo ago
  "This is defined as software or firmware that scans every print file through a “firearms blueprint detection algorithm” and refuses to print anything it flags as a potential firearm or firearm component." I'm sure this won't inadvertently flag nerf/band guns, models, tubes/pipes, etc... Until metal 3D printing becomes common for consumers, this isn't really a big deal. Plastic components have limited lifespan and even questionable safety. It's pretty much always been legal to create your own firearms. Blocking some 3D printers isn't going to stop that. If nothing else, the criminal enterprises will just use out of date software from before the ban and even create their own 3D printers. 3D printing companies need to simply exit the NY market, including the industrial sector. Once you start inspecting businesses, education, and enough individuals, they will cave.
• jeegsy 8mo ago
  As you might expect on a tech website, folks in the comments have immediately jumped to workarounds for this. Before we do that, spare a thought for whether our government should be allowed to conceive of something like this in the first place.
  • kobalsky 8mo ago
    ideally, it should be political suicide to attempt to push something like this. realistically, if it fails now due to public outrage, they will try to sneak it again in the future.
• wcunning 8mo ago
  The much much much more concerning part of this bill in my opinion is the part that applies this expectation to CNC machining equipment. This means that there will be some ugly consequences to running real industry out of New York state. Probably heavy import and cross shipping delays (lots of German machining equipment passes through the port at NY/NJ, so could theoretically be subject to this, even if eventual delivery is to Texas, for instance). The reasoning behind things like the old "receiver is the only part of the gun to be serialized and tracked" and "80% AR Lower Receiver" were to prevent impact to non-gun industries. Block of steel with random holes is not a gun is an important concept. My only conclusions are: 1) very glad I don't live in New York, 2) buy my used VMC sooner rather than later to avoid this stupidity. Much like continuing to drive my 2010 Miata a lot longer since it doesn't have all this terrible new technology that prevents maintenance (VIN locked modules, no home programming software to replace things, etc etc).
  • toss1 8mo ago
    YUP 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.
• davidguetta 8mo ago
  wild that the country with the biggest gun proponents and number of gun stores is the one proposing this bill. the irony
• exabrial 8mo ago
  Democrats hard at work, making the country better.