Technically it’s for any printer capable of printing a firearm or the components of a firearm, which is…. every printer. What a bafflingly stupid proposal. If you’re in NY, please call your reps and tell them to oppose this bill.
How about one regarding healthcare affordability? We can deal with 3D printed stuff later?
- FOR PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, “THREE-DIMENSIONAL PRINTER” MEANS A COMPUTER OR COMPUTER-DRIVEN MACHINE OR DEVICE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A THREE-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT FROM A DIGITAL MODEL
Well, that’s a broad definition. I guess to whomever wrote that a CNC mill is also a 3d printer.
At least they’re not defining it as a COMPUTER DRIVEN MACHINE THAT HAS LENGTH, WIDTH, AND DEPTH.
It’s not like inkjets produce 2 dimensional ink. I’d love to see someone argue in court that it’s technically impossible to create a non 3d printer
Well achtually…To be pedantic,
A 3D consumer grade printer is not a true 3D tool since it can only move on 2 axis simultaneously. If you watch your printer closely, as it finishes it’s path around the xy plane, there is a tiny halt as it changes active plane from the xy plane to xz plane, lifts the nozzle, then flips the active back to the xy to go along it’s merry way again to lay down the new layer. And no, the hot new scarf joint is still a single plane movement. Sometimes such machines are incorrectly referred to as 2 1/2 axis because they aren’t true 3 axis.
Source: I’m an old retired toolmaker. Trust me Bro.
There is vase mode, which lifts the Z axis gradually while printing. This creates one continuous extrusion for the whole print.
That still isn’t a true 3D move.
How so? It literally moves in 3 dimensions at the same time.
I’m pretty sure there are actual industrial multicolor 3d printers that use an inkjet design
A CNC mill seems much more capable of manufacturing firearms than some 300 buck printer.
Sure if you want a safe, durable, powerful firearm. Problem is, a new 3 axis machining center will cost over $50,000US, requires 3phase power, a large air compressor, specialized knowledge, tools, and skills far beyond a Bambu A1 combo. And running expenses are more than you make in a day. Plus they weight 10,000lbs/4500kg.
It’s not bloody likely you are going to get one into your 3rd floor apartment. Let alone find and outlet to plug into.
Not really.
There are gun parts that just can’t be printed in plastic (reliably. There are proof of concept “all plastic except the firing pin” guns). But… because of how lobbyists tainted what few gun control laws we have, most of what makes a gun a gun CAN be printed and the rest can be bought as after market parts. That is why an incredibly common “ghost gun” is basically “print this and then go buy this replacement barrel and this baggy of parts to repair a glock”.
Whereas a mill is great for those metal parts and you can theoretically mill an entire gun, it isn’t going to be a gun you “want” to use and, odds are, you are going to need a lot more technical skills. And for stuff like “ghost guns” and the bootleg mods used in stuff like The Troubles? A 3d printer is MUCH more accessible and MUCH easier to make.
The reality is that neither is going to be effective in the case of a militia/uprising scenario (yes, you can print an AR-15 and it isn’t THAT hard to reinforce the plastic to handle intermediate rounds. No, you can’t print a hellfire missile or a predator drone or a tank). And for the purposes of a school shooting? Why print a gun when you can just grab daddy’s glock out of his nightstand or junk drawer?
I’ll also add on the reason why additive manufacturing is so loved by Industry. Milling is subtractive. You get a piece of stock and you cut it until it is the part you want. If you can guarantee said piece of stock is approximately the same dimensions every time, you can automate that. But getting a piece to those dimensions has a significant cost. 3d printing? As long as you clear out the build plate and sort of control the environment, it is the same operations every single time.
So to 3d print a glock? You go to one of the naughty sites, get the STL, make a few tweaks to your slicer, and start it (old Vice actually did a really good video on this). After that you wait until it is done, remove the supports, file the ever loving hell out of it, and you are ready to go blasting.
To mill a glock? You go to one of the naught sites and get the gcode. You then adjust that gcode to fit the dimensions of your piece of stock (or put in the time to make your piece of stock the dimensions the gcode is expecting…). You then do one process, stop it, move and remount the part precisely to expose the correct surfaces, and do the next process. And so forth.
“Not really”
Yes, really. If you print something out of plastic and have to go out and buy a barrel and other hardware to put in it, you might as well just mold it out of paper mache.
A CNC can make a gun from start to finish that you wouldn’t be worried about blowing your fingers off when you pulled the trigger, without adding outside hardware to.
You clearly didn’t read anything I said after that first line but this is just too fun:
A CNC can make a gun from start to finish that you wouldn’t be worried about blowing your fingers off when you pulled the trigger, without adding outside hardware to.
Mostly tells me you have no idea what is inside of a firearm outside of “magic”.
Over simplifying, but modern firearms generally consist of
- A frame: This is usually a mix of plastic and metal for comfort, weight, and heat dissipation reasons. But there is nothing saying you can’t have an all metal frame. Some parts will receive load, some parts are purely cosmetic/ergonomic. This is demonstrably not a problem for either 3d printer or mill.
- Lots of pins and levers: These are the mechanisms that actually make the gun go bang when you pull the trigger. And, depending on how spicy you want to get, continue to go bang while you hold down the trigger. Again, some parts are stressed, some aren’t. There are ways to do all plastic that should last at least a few hundred rounds. The issue is more one of tolerances. Getting a 3d printer to be able to print with that level of precision is more work than people want to put in. Similarly, getting a mill capable of that level of precision is also a mother (Adam Savage of Will Smith’s Tested fame has a lot of videos where he is basically tackling this challenge for different projects). But also? These are the parts that “wear out” and are completely uncontrolled and can be bought online trivially. So why manufacture this yourself in the first place?
- Springs. Good fricking luck milling your own springs with the required properties. Also good fricking luck printing your own springs. That said, I actually watched a REALLY cool video where someone proof of concept made a gun out of 3d printable leaf springs and while the guy doing it was a complete and utter dipshit, it was a work of engineering beauty that you couldn’t pay me enough to hold in my hand… But, again, these are trivially easy to buy online so why bother?
- The last major part in this oversimplified breakdown is the barrel (and how you seal it but I am just going to include that here). These are the parts that experience the most forces and heat when the gun is fired since that is the part where the bang happens. Everything else you can probably get away with some cheap mild steel. That? You need some good stuff otherwise you are going to learn just how weak that cheap stock was. You CAN mill chrome moly and the like but that is a much bigger challenge than cutting through cheap steel like it is butter and amplifies all of the above tolerance issues. I will outright say that you can’t print this in plastic even though I have seen in person demonstrations of proof of concepts of that.
And the cheap steel problem? Go look up pictures of the “custom” guns used in conflicts like The Troubles. A lot have cracked or split barrels and the like because of that exact issue.
Which, like I said in the comment you refused to read, is why you just buy the hard parts online or in cash at your local gun store (… might need to go to a specialty shop instead of a Walmart). Because they are not controlled since they generally need to get replaced eventually anyway.
At which point? Mills and Printers both work great. It is just that the former needs a lot more machinist skill to be done. Whereas the latter is just downloading an STL.
I do some amateur gunsmithing. The insides of a bog standard, single-shot 12-gauge blow my mind. As to how the internals work on my S&W Ez? No clue and I wouldn’t dare try a full tear down.
Do you know how many hours I’ve spent hunting springs in my carpet?!
You’ve got it exactly right. If you can print the receiver, you can get every tiny part off eBay.
Pipe guns exist, you can build a device that fires a 12-gauge shell in a decent garage workshop. The fancy bits, like a break action that closes properly or a spring to eject spent shells/cartridges, are where the fiddly springs and such come into play. (Of course you know this, but for the sake of conversation.)
Those homemade submachine guns are properly crazy though.
What a foolish bill.
WTF?
What’s next a background check for breathing? Because, you know breathing is a clear and obvious pre-cursor to criming of all kinds.
Checks out, seeing as breathing is a precursor in blowguns.
Oh my god it’s back? I was hoping we’d seen the last of it back in 2023.
Some actual gun control laws would be better, not to mention universal health care. What’s next on the list? Kitchen knives? Pans, pots? ;)
I grew up in NY. The gun control laws were draconian 45 years ago. I can’t imagine they have become more lax since I departed the state 30 years ago.
Doesn’t really matter if you can buy a gun in another state.
Thos is Canada’s and Mexico’s problem
What I mean is a bordering US state, not another country. I don’t think Canada has the same problem with guns as you guys do.
Have you ever tried? You can’t. FFL dealers cannot sell to residents of another state. If you want to buy out of state, they have to ship the firearm to an FFL dealer in your state to perform the sale. They can’t give it to you or ship it to you.
If they are licensed in your state and another state, and you purchase the gun in the other state, they have to follow the rules of your state.
How much harder would it be than getting an actual gun?
Road trip to Georgia and back, basically.
Just FYI, you can’t buy a firearm at a dealer outside of your home state without having it shipped to an FFL holder in your home state. E.g., I can’t drive to Family Firearms in Alabama from Georgia–where i live–to buy a gun. I have to order from them, and then have it shipped to an FFL near me, and then fill out the paperwork in my own state. In states that allow private, p2p sales (which is most of them), you could buy a firearm with cash from an individual, and they’d never do a background check or fill out a 4473.
Thank you for the information. My (incorrect) assumption was the oft-paraded “gun show” loophole.
I think consistent effort is required to erase any misconception about the availability of firearms.
Makes total sense
my granny got one in a Walmart parking lot so it can’t be that hard.
Still don’t know how that even happens.Well, maybe that’s your (US&A) problem, not 3d printers ;)
Awful. Literally banning science, because it can be misused.
We’d better go the full mile. Here’s my list of things to be banned, For Our SafetyTM:
- 3/4" and 1" galvanized steel pipe and endcaps
- Cases of matches
- Acetone
- Stump killer
- Milling machines
- Lathes
- Drill presses
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Salt, Sodium Chloride
- Stainless steel bolts
- Benchtop power supplies
- Sulfur
- Carbon
- Water
- Aluminum foil
I’m sure I can think of others if you give me a minute or two.
Can’t you make a pipe bomb out of PVC?
Not a good one, I’d imagine. The casings real purpose afaik is to turn into shrapnel, I don’t think plastic would be as effective. Then again, I believe it’s common to mix screws or similar in with the explosive for more shrapnel, so maybe. Just speculating though
Iron rust. Can be used with the aluminum you included to produce thermite.
How stupid, I use my printer to print minis for DnD. But, wait, it could theoretically print a gun, better get a background check, and have a waiting period of 6 months… fucking stupid.
Let’s try to address the problems that led to this. Nah, let’s try to ban stuff instead.
It won’t even be effective. As I pointed out earlier, hoodlums in the ghetto, who are the implicit targets of this, aren’t buying Bambus and becoming 3D printing experts overnight just to run off one off-the-books Glock. Someone with five or six brain cells to rub together is printing guns in quantity and selling them to the criminals. Anyone willing to employ that business model can and will simply kit build a printer rather than buying an off the shelf unit, which is certainly not difficult to do. It just adds one extra step to the operation for anyone who truly wants to do this, and 3D printing a working firearm is already a pretty decent commitment especially if you’re not already an experienced printer. Especially Glock frames.
There’s a 3D printer designed to also print itself, right?
That’s kinda-sorta the goal of the RepRap project, yes, but some ancillary parts are still required like motors and control boards and heater blocks and such.
Ehhh typically the hood gunsmith is the guy with a 10 stack of braincells, who gets an ender and becomes decent enough with it to print a lower, slap a cheap nbs parts kit in it and finish it with an even-cheaper-than-PSA upper, and sell it for $200 to anyone he knows, rinse and repeat. Really makes his money printing switches and DIAS.
Still though, stupid law.
You can also technically make a gun with generic plumbing supplies or you could finagle one with random garbage and a drill bit.
Home Depot background checks are next.
You can fuck someone up real good with a 2X4 ( pronounced two be fore ). Yet I haven’t had to pay for a 2x4 ownership license.
You can also really fuck someone up with a big bag of shit…be it actual shit or rocks or concrete or just a bunch of shit from Good will (which could included actual shit). Where do we apply for big bags of shit at the DMB?
“Papers, Please”
2 pipes, 1 nail, 1 end cap, 1 12-gauge shell, done.
Yeah, a dude actually made a ton of money during a gun buyback, by making cheap pipe guns. The buyback program had a flat amount as the bare minimum, meant to entice people to turn their firearms in. It was like $200 minimum. He made dozens of $5 single-shot pipe guns, and turned them all in. And since they were technically functioning firearms, the program was forced to pay out.
LOL, and I got downvoted for saying the gun buybacks are stupid. People turn in crappy/broken guns for money to buy a better gun. Hell, I have 3 or 4 I’d ditch. Maybe more if you offered me $200 each.
The windchimes are not what they seem.
Aww. He just died (David Lynch).
Kinda odd and you can see it in my comments, but yesterday I made a Lynch reference.
Then I talk about David Fincher, but since I always mix those two Davids up I was very consciously not typing Lynch later.
That was all before news went public so needless to say he was on my mind a lot of yesterday. Very Lynchian.
“I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange“
May I introduce you to TM 31-210?
THIS IS AMERICA! You can’t post stuff like this outside of a classroom!
You can’t post stuff like this in a classroom… At least in the south
Uhhh… Hello? How are the kids supposed to live in constant fear of being shot of not reminded that guns can and do exist everywhere?
I am sorry (not), but I am speaking to you from Germany via an Austrian server. So:
Muh freduum of speek!
Did I do this correctly?
Only if you say it louder while licking the boots of the people taking said freedoms away. Also you need to firmly believe that you are the free-est country in the world. Belief in angels is optional for now.
You forgot the screaming eagles and the guitar solo. Otherwise, a solid attempt.
Background checks for plumbers wrenches next.
Im making a charcoal foundry. You gonna card me for briquettes bitchboy?
Make a community with a dude that makes potassium and another dude that makes sulfur and then you can really make things go off
Luigi would have passed a background check.
And didn’t even use his own printer (according to his confession/manifesto)…
was it even printed in new york? I mean im sure someone would never bring one in from jersey.
Everything is legal in New Jersey.
Unexpected Hamilton ❤️
Why do you print like you’re running out of time?
Keep in mind that this is a state that bans nunchuks.Never mind, NY used to have a nunchuks ban but then in 2018 a federal court determined that New Yorkers have a constitutional right to nunchuks.
Don’t worry, my state considers throwing stars to be “assault weapons” now and their sale and possession is banned. There’s still stupidity abound if you care to look hard enough.
their sale and possession is banned
How will I assassinate the Shogun now?
You’ll have to use your blowgun. Those are still unregulated.
You jest but automated blowguns with face recognition could be deadly and nearly impossible to spot!
Way ahead of you. Ever load a thumbtack into a piece of 5/16" brake line and give it a puff with your air compressor?
Don’t ask me how but the fuckers remain straight in flight. They’re cylindrical enough that you could surely make such an apparatus magazine fed.
If you have the compressor, wouldn’t it be easier to just use a nail gun with the sensor on the tip disabled?
Not much range on a nailgun. The nails tumble in flight in quite a short distance.
the right to bear nunchuks is either something bears would want or something animal rights activists would be strongly against
If you’re european and ask yourself why 3D printed guns are such an issue in the US: It’s not because entire guns are easy to print (or printable at all), It’s because of their idiotic gun laws: in the US, the only controlled part is the receiver or frame, which often enough is made of plastic anyway, while the most important part -the barrel- is freely obtainable.
Germany has a similar law, except that every part of the gun is controlled.
Surely it would be much easier to require checks to buy ammunition.
As people told me yesterday, apparently my state (California) already does that.
As a 2nd amendment loving American, I cosign your idea. I’m fine with getting a license to purchase more ammo.
However, I’ll make my own before I pay extortion prices.
