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New York Introduces Legislation To Crack Down On 3D Printers That Make Ghost Guns (3dprintingindustry.com) 156

Posted by BeauHD from the making-it-more-difficult dept.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is proposing first-of-its-kind legislation that would require 3D printers sold in the state to include built-in software designed to block the printing of gun parts used to make "ghost guns." The plan would also add criminal penalties for making 3D-printed firearms and hold printer owners or manufacturers liable if safety controls aren't in place. 3D Printing Industry reports: "From the iron pipeline to the plastic pipeline, these proposals will keep illegal ghost guns off of New York streets, and enhance measures to track and block the production of dangerous and illegal firearms in our state," Hochul said.

In addition to mandating printer-level safeguards and restricting access to CAD files, the proposed legislation would require law enforcement agencies to report any recovered 3D printed firearms to a statewide database. The measure also includes a provision requiring commercial gun manufacturers to redesign pistols so they cannot be easily converted for automatic fire. "These illegal firearms are being manufactured in homes and used in crimes right now, which is why I have been working with my colleagues in Albany and the private sector over the past several years to stop their proliferation. Passing these measures will reduce crime and strengthen public safety for all New Yorkers," said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
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New York Introduces Legislation To Crack Down On 3D Printers That Make Ghost Guns More

New York Introduces Legislation To Crack Down On 3D Printers That Make Ghost Guns

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  • Why? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Thursday January 15, 2026 @09:25PM (#65928066)
    It's legal to manufacture your own guns, even in New York.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by CalgaryD ( 9235067 )
      It is about control. People, especially bureaucrats, just love to be able to tell other people what they can or cannot do. They breathe and eat this power.

      • Mostly for self-protection reasons since the types of people you mentioned would be the first to seriously piss someone off.

      • It is about control. People, especially bureaucrats, just love to be able to tell other people what they can or cannot do. They breathe and eat this power.

        This is about control alright, but it’s the control bureaucrats have and want to keep. By abusing Weapons of Mass Distraction like this ghost gun bullshit. Kathy Hochul can’t even enforce law and prevent actual crime. The hell makes anyone think they’re going to police CAD file access? Give me a break. The more absurd the suggested lockdown, the more obvious it’s a Mass Distraction designed to keep the masses busy.

        I can already see 3D print vendors thinking about stopping sales

    • Re: Why? (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Define 'Ghost Guns'...

      Is a ghost gun a gun that can go undetected by a magneto-scope (metal detector), or is it a gun without a serial number, handmade by an individual?

      How is a 3-D printer going to know it's making a gun part? HOW? Will the government provide model patterns your printer needs to lookout for? Will we get weekly updates to keep the printer up-to-date? This is moronic, it makes no sense and can't be done. This makes as much sense as 'smart guns' that magically only work in the registered owne

      • Re: Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Friday January 16, 2026 @08:02AM (#65928792)

        Define 'Ghost Guns'...

        Is a ghost gun a gun that can go undetected by a magneto-scope (metal detector), or is it a gun without a serial number, handmade by an individual?

        The latter. Only in Hollywood can Bruce Willis the cop get paranoid about some perp breaking down a “invisible” ceramic Glock 7 at the security checkpoint to hide it in a keychain in order to sneak it past Clint Eastwood the Secret Service Senior Citizen, so you can try and kill The Big Guy.

        How is a 3-D printer going to know it's making a gun part? HOW? Will the government provide model patterns your printer needs to lookout for? Will we get weekly updates to keep the printer up-to-date? This is moronic, it makes no sense and can't be done. This makes as much sense as 'smart guns' that magically only work in the registered owners hand, or the 'Micro-engraved' bullets so we can identify the person that bought the ammo...

        Will any reporter ask NY lawmakers HOW this will be enforced?

        Will anyone ask why citizens keep falling for Weapons of Mass Distraction? As if the ‘smart guns’ and ‘micro-engraved bullets’ programs weren’t obvious enough? The short answer is the machine won’t know. And legislators won’t care about this law eventually including ‘weapons’ parts printing. Which essentially means any 3D printed part that looks scary enough to a grown-ass liberal child. Argued all the way up to SCOTUS in 3 months. And the Distraction rages on..

    • NY makes it as hard as they possibly can though. I remember seeing the BOOK of paperwork that had to be completed to file for a handgun permit. A binder, about 2" thick. And it costs hundreds if not thousands to complete the process, which includes getting permission from the local sheriff. To exercise a Constitutional right.

      Here in Georgia, you don't need a permit unless you want to do concealed carry, and that one is cheap and easy to get.

  • How? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Thursday January 15, 2026 @09:29PM (#65928074)

    Having the restriction on copying or printing money was easy - currency is well defined, so has a pattern that can be matched against. It succeeded because the restriction was on something that the government controlled the design of anyway (the restriction was only on US currency).

    A gun? Theres basically an infinite number of ways this could be designed and printed. Theres no fucking way printer-level restrictions can ever succeed.

    This is performative legislation which will accomplish nothing other than allowing for more charges or legal action. It wont prevent a single gun from being printed.

    • Not to mention that CAD files aren't used for 3D printing. 3D printing needs far more detailed instructions than CAD files provide, though they can be used as a starting point.

      It might also run into 1st amendment issues. I could see a court even considering the 2nd for it.

      • Anyone wanting to build a gun really only needs some basic metal-working handtools and
        set of plans [waghornswood.net.nz].

        I know I'd much rather have a Sten gun than a 3d-printed "one time use/explode" one.

    • Right. Thus, they will just send everything you print to the FBI for evaluation. Or some other agency they will create for this.

    • Obviously, the answer to "how will this work?" is AI. It's always AI.

      Bird is supposedly rolling out scooters that use AI to determine if you're riding them on the sidewalk. It doesn't matter if it actually works well, it's something regulators asked for, and that's how the game is played.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Obviously, the answer to "how will this work?" is AI. It's always AI.

        For some very limited definition of "work", wherein the 3D printer constantly fails with cryptic error messages and refuses to print anything that even vaguely looks like it could be a gun component, resulting in everyone just black-market importing stock-firmware versions from China.

        Or for some very limited definition of "work", wherein it misses 99.999% of all actual gun components.

        Or, more likely, all of the above.

        • Re: How? (Score:2)

          by kenh ( 9056 )

          How will the 3-D printer identify offending parts? Don't just say AI and think you've answered the question. Will each 3-D printer be required to have their own AI engine running locally, with gov't mandated updates as new designs become known to better train the AI?

    • Re:How? (Score:4, Informative)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMkeirstead.org> on Thursday January 15, 2026 @11:11PM (#65928284)

      It's not even comparable.

      Printers have a degree of smarts built into the hardware and/or driver. You can send them a Postscript file generally, which is an image format. So yes, they could match it up against some kind of pattern for currency.

      3D printers do not operate that way whatsoever. They recieve raw instructions in GCode that describes specifically how to move the print head around and what to extrude. The printer itself knows nothing about anything. It would not be able to match any kind of pattern.

      You could do this in THE SLICER SOFTWARE, which runs on the PC, but NOT the printer. Now, enforcing people to do it in the slicer becomes more complicated because slicers are all open-source and can be downloaded from anywhere.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 )

        This really depends on the printer. Older printers, sure, they just accept gcode or the custom format for resin printers, and deal with each layer as they get to it. Dont need anything complicated for that as the OS.

        But newer printers.

        My Creality K1s all run a full Linux server, for example - you can root it, replace it, SSH into it. And given the K1s are running on Marlin firmware, this isnt a unique setup. During printing they are adapting to temperatures, bed alignments etc on the fly as well.

        My HeyGea

        • Re: How? (Score:2)

          by kenh ( 9056 )

          Newer printers do a lot more than they used to.

          Really? Because a printer can regulate its nozzle temperature and you can SSH into it that 'proves' it can identify parts that might be used in a gun design?

          I think not - I can SSH into a modern residential thermostat, that proves nothing.

        • They do a lot more, but they still don't slice, so the exact same problem is still there: how are you gonna detect toolpaths that are gonna create a gun?
          hope the user named it gun.gcode?

        • Your KT isnjust as dumb as ecery other printer. The slicer is run on the PC.

  • With what processor? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Thursday January 15, 2026 @09:31PM (#65928076)

    Most 3D printers run off cheap microcontrollers that don't have to do anything more than follow a set of CNC instructions provided to them. They couldn't detect an attempt to print a gun even if they wanted to.

    • Most 3D printers run off cheap microcontrollers that don't have to do anything more than follow a set of CNC instructions provided to them. They couldn't detect an attempt to print a gun even if they wanted to.

      Not to mention that 3D printers are frequently a DIY item - people build their own all the time. So good luck with enforcing the restriction, unless New York legislation can somehow mandate that every microcontroller and computer in existence conform to their fantasy.

    • This would probably have to be implemented in the slicer software. Shh don't tell the bureaucrats that you don't need to use the slicer software to make a print.
    • Stuff like this is so that when they catch somebody they can put them in prison. Very often this is when they know that the person is doing other illegal things or is that high risk to do other illegal things. If it's the person's first offense it's not uncommon for them to plea bargain and get probation and then they have to keep their nose clean for the next 5 to 10 years.

      It is similar to what Donald Trump was convicted of. The laws that were used to convict Donald Trump are about falsifying business

    • Re:ah yes, another comment section full of: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Thursday January 15, 2026 @09:52PM (#65928126) Homepage

      Well, mostly because this isn't the right way to go about regulating homemade guns. With current 3D printing technology, the only sort of fully 3D printed gun that you can make is a plastic "zip gun". Thing is, you've always been able to make those with hardware store parts, if your goal is to build an inaccurate single shot pistol.

      The truth behind 3D printed semi-automatic Glock clones (and similar firearms) is that they're being built through a legal loophole, where the majority of gun parts aren't subject to the same purchasing requirements as if you were buying the single component that is considered a gun - the receiver or frame. So, you 3D print that part and then buy the rest of the "gun" from online stores that legally aren't required to make sure you're eligible to own a gun. If gun part purchases were subject to the same ID and background check requirements as buying a completed gun, this loophole would be closed and nobody would bother trying to 3D print guns.

      It's also probably worth mentioning that even without a 3D printing loophole, criminals will still probably find ways to get their hands on guns, so that's an entirely separate issue.

      • Re:ah yes, another comment section full of: (Score:5, Informative)

        by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Thursday January 15, 2026 @10:08PM (#65928156) Homepage Journal

        Indeed. Mexico has far more stringent gun laws than the USA, has only 1 legal gun store (as of last time I checked), ownership of military calibers is forbidden (so no 9mm or 5.56 for the people). Cartels still have huge amounts of firearms, including machine guns. While US firearms are popular for handguns and niche weapons, lots are running around with actual AK line weapons (full auto/select fire), and the police have found the cartels to be manufacturing weapons as well.

        • Re:ah yes, another comment section full of: (Score:5, Funny)

          by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Thursday January 15, 2026 @10:18PM (#65928178) Homepage

          Cartels still have huge amounts of firearms, including machine guns.

          Hahahahaaha. Haha. Ha. Yeah, I wonder where they get them from?

          "According to [U.S.] Justice Department figures, 94,000 weapons were recovered from Mexican drug cartels in the five years between 2006 and 2011, of which 64,000 -- 70 percent, according to Jim Moran -- come from the United States." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          • Now how many of those serial numbers were of guns sold to the Mexican military and law enforcement? Anything full auto certainly was, as they sure ain't fucking paying the 10k minimum to get a pre-86 gun in the US.

          • Re:ah yes, another comment section full of: (Score:5, Informative)

            by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Thursday January 15, 2026 @11:22PM (#65928306) Homepage Journal

            The 70% figure is a misstatement. 70% of the guns Mexico's government submits to the USA for tracing are successfully traced to the USA.
            Trick is, Mexico only submits a fraction of the guns they collect. They don't submit weapons they trace to their own forces and store, weapons they know are from elsewhere, like the full auto AK-47 and 74 rifles with Russian and similar stampings, stuff obviously made in China or South America.
            The whole paragraph citing the 70% figure.
            "According to [U.S.] Justice Department figures, 94,000 weapons were recovered from Mexican drug cartels in the five years between 2006 and 2011, of which 64,000 -- 70 percent, according to Jim Moran -- come from the United States."[26] The percentages pertaining to the origin of weapons confiscated from organized crime and drug cartels may not be accurately reported. Said numbers represent only firearms Mexican authorities asked the US to trace (7,200 firearms) and that the ATF was able to trace (4,000 on file, of which 3,480 from US). US ATF Mexico City Office informed Mexican authorities ATF had eTrace data only on firearms made in or imported into the US and told them not to submit firearms that lacked US maker or US importer marks as required by US law. The guns submitted for tracing were only firearms that appeared to be US origin. The remaining guns were not submitted for tracing, or were not able to be traced. "In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States."

            Firearms confiscated: 94,000
            Submitted for trace: 7,200, 7.7%
            Successfully traced to the USA: 3,480. 48% of 7,200, 3.7% of the 94,000 collected.
            That is far less than 70%, to the point that saying 70% is in the realm of deliberate misinformation.
            All this indicates is that the Mexican government has a good idea of what weapons came from the USA. High quality handguns, semi auto weapons, firearms with serial numbers.
            They don't bother with weapons obviously manufactured without serial numbers or that they knew were made elsewhere, like the full auto AK series.

          • Yes, we all remember Fast & Furious government program that forced FFL holders to sell guns to known straw buyers buying guns to ship into Mexico - a program which had ZERO ability to track those illegally purchased guns once they entered Mexico, and was a campaign conducted without alerting the Mexican government.

            https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/27... [cnn.com]

      • Actually, the plastic zip gun is the best somebody can do with a relatively cheap plastic or resin type printer.

        Using industrial metal printers, like what Boeing and other airline manufacturers are using to make select parts, it is possible to print a fully functional handgun. I remember reading an article where they printed and tested a 1911 using one. All metal parts.

        That said, not a lot of us are running around with a $100k and up printer, so it isn't that much of a factor, at least for now. The noble

      • The truth behind 3D printed semi-automatic Glock clones (and similar firearms) is that they're being built through a legal loophole, where the majority of gun parts aren't subject to the same purchasing requirements as if you were buying the single component that is considered a gun - the receiver or frame. So, you 3D print that part and then buy the rest of the "gun" from online stores that legally aren't required to make sure you're eligible to own a gun.

        And online sites such as PCBWay do both 3D printing and CNC machining. I don't know if they have any policies in place regarding refusal to print or machine certain things; but even if they do, there's a good chance that any such design could be made in smaller pieces that might not be readily recognizable as gun parts.

        Between the parts that you can legally buy, and the ability to have parts machined in China and shipped to you, it might be possible to make an all-metal gun which no official gun manufacture

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          I'm sure you could get the machine shop down the street to do the same thing if you put your mind to it. But you'd have to put your mind to it. You couldn't just download some plans, buy the unrestricted bits and print off the restricted parts on your $300 printer.

          Realistically, even that latter bit is probably too much work to actually be a problem. Especially when you can just look in Dad's nightstand.

          • > I'm sure you could get the machine shop down the street to do the same thing if you put your mind to it.

            Not really. I work with machine shops on a regular basis and they know the issue and don't want anything to do with something that could put them in a federal prison.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by msauve ( 701917 )
          >they're being built through a legal loophole

          Tell us more about this "loophole." It seems to me that it's the anti-gun laws which are using the Commerce Clause as a loophole for the "shall not be infringed" part.
      • It's also worth noting that once a perp is arrested in a firearms-related crime, the firearms possession violations are the first to be plea-bargained away.

    • I think the issue is more that there are probably a 1000 better ideas they could implement first before coming to this bogus impossible to actually implement idea...

  • A firearm is a machine made up of discreet parts, many of which can either be sourced online without restriction in the United States (barrels, springs, slides, non-receiver frame, stock), or manufactured in a basic home workshop (basically just the receiver).

    Other countries ban all firearm parts, or critical parts like barrels. The US has a particular regime that only recognizes the receiver as the actual "firearm" at a federal level. I'm not up on the current ins and outs of state laws, but to the best

    • Ok, the proposed law is even more about thought control than just imposing a censorship regime on the printer:

      "It would also make it a crime to possess or share the digital design files used to produce 3D printed firearms unless the individual has appropriate authorization."

      In other words, it would defacto impose a gun manufacturing license requirement on anyone who even wants to have a cad file for a firearm.

      So, some questions (not having read the actual text of the law) - would this then be applicable to

    • Don't give them any ideas. Pipes will be banned next. You could make a pretty crude gun with just a piece of pipe and something to smack the back of the shell with.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by 0123456 ( 636235 )

        The Sten submachinegun from WWII was once described as "a series of tubes."

        Which is basically exactly what it is. A few tubes, a trigger, and a magazine.

        Anyone calling to ban 3D-printed guns without banning metal tubing is just playing for votes with a law that will only ever be selectively enforced and certainly won't be effective.

      • Prisoners call them "zip guns"

        WW2 resistance fighters had shitty stamped-metal single-use guns that basically destroyed themselves when fired.

        Aren't there something like 300 million guns in circulation in the U.S., anyone that wants a gun can get one, what's the benefit of printing one?

  • lower receiver is no longer the hard part to DIY. It's the barrel. they need to start regulating the barrel, not the lower receiver. easy fix.

  • What gets a serial number is the receiver, the part the holds the components together but is often the not a very stressed part and without tight tolerances. Therefore it’s usually quite easy to make one with hand tools, though it might take a decent number of hours. What can’t be printed is the barrel, even if a several hundred thousand dollar 3D printed metal process is used, it would still require more machining and CNC tools are probably cheaper and not much harder to use. But you can 3D

    • Barrels are a wear part, I've replaced two so far.

      As for hard to build, rifled barrels predate bolt-action rifles by centuries.

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

      "Some of the earliest recorded European attempts of spiral-grooved musket barrels were of Gaspard Kollner, a gunsmith of Vienna in 1498 and Augustus Kotter of Nuremberg in 1520."

      The military didn't use them as they fouled easily with black powder. But they were common in civilian use by the French and Indian war if not sooner.

      Another point to remembe

      • Barrels are a wear part, I've replaced two so far.

        So what, are you trying to turn this into a gun of Theseus philosophical question? When your barrel is done you simply buy another with the new serial number and it legally is another gun. Buy extra barrels and it’s just extra guns there really aren’t limits as to the number of guns you can own. Homemade barrels have no accuracy and there is so much blow by that the bullet has insanely slow velocity to the point of barely working. No one is limiting the number of barrels here, just marking

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      There are videos on Youtube where someone makes a working, decently accurate pistol barrel out of a metal bolt with a few tools. It's been a solved problem for a long time.

      Rifle barrels not so much, but criminals usually want pistols, not rifles.

      • The problem with barrels made this way is lack of rifling, trueness of the bore, and tolerances to avoid excessive blow by. Lack of rifling alone will make anything over 10 feet become less and less accurate. You can do this for a pistol infinity easier than a rifle because the bullet can bounce off the sides creating massive stress in a pipe already loaded to maybe 50,000 pounds per square inch. This causes the barrel to explode in an almost cartoonish fashion except the wielder is usually maimed worse

  • ...moronosphere
    It's impossible for printer software to accurately determine if a part is a gun part
    Expect a lot of false positives

    • And BIOS/software patches to remove it entirely. Yo-ho and a bottle of rum.

    • They assume 3d printers are made by monoliths like HP or Canon. There is software in 2d printers that will prevent you from printing currency with an ink jet, which is probably where they got this idea from. The issue is that a lot of 3d printers are more Macgyver than mass produced product. In addition there is the obvious issue of "prohibition only creates black markers" and all the "unregulated" Prusa and Bamboo Labs printers will just be imported to New Jersey.

      I agree this is stupid, New York's attem

  • "Passing these measures will reduce crime and strengthen public safety for all New Yorkers," said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

    No. No, they really won't. From an economics perspective, ghost guns are merely a substitution of a less expensive good for a more expensive good. Nothing more. Therefore, if you somehow miraculously manage to prevent 3D printing of gun parts, they'll just go back to wood or whatever they used before. Or they will 3D print moulds and then pour liquid into the moulds

    • They're paid representatives of money, which doesn't require ethics or intelligence.

    • " E. collapsing the profitability of illegal drug sales through marijuana legalization, "

      Washington State tried that. It failed.

      "F. providing better financial support for the poor so that young people are not so easily tempted to join gangs."

      Teenagers don't join gangs due to lack of financial support. They want to belong to the "in" group.

      "requiring people to store their firearms in locked safes when they are not physically present to dry up the sale of stolen firearms,"

      Didn't help.

      "D. massively increasing

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        " E. collapsing the profitability of illegal drug sales through marijuana legalization, "

        Washington State tried that. It failed.

        None of these things work in isolation. You have to do a large percentage of them.

        "F. providing better financial support for the poor so that young people are not so easily tempted to join gangs."

        Teenagers don't join gangs due to lack of financial support. They want to belong to the "in" group.

        Lots of gangs are involved in dealing drugs or other criminal activities. Better financial support makes that less interesting, and also opens up opportunities for doing lots of other activities that make people feel included, all of which can reduce the rate of gang membership. It isn't a complete solution, but there's a very significant correlation between poverty and gang membership, so arguing that it won't help is at b

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      Criminals don't make their own guns. They just buy them illegally.

      It's possibly worth nothing that the Sullivan Act of 1911 which brought "gun control" to New York was pushed by a politician who was owned by the criminal gangs, because the gangs didn't think it was fair that their victims were armed and could shoot back.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Criminals don't make their own guns. They just buy them illegally.

        Yeah, and that was the point of B. above. Illegal firearms have to come from somewhere. If they aren't making them, then either they are stealing them or they are buying them from someone else who made them or stole them. If firearms have to be locked up under penalty of jail time, and if gun stores have to have guns in locked cabinets at night under penalty of jail time, the opportunities for stealing guns decrease dramatically, which should significantly reduce the supply of illegally bought firearms.

  • If I design an entirely new firearm from the ground up in to defeat the built-in safeguards, will the company that makes that 3D printer be on the hook because someone used a printer they manufactured to print an instance of that firearm? I mean the parts designed to be printed, not the metal parts that are likely to be in there somewhere.
  • Next, she'll demand serial numbers printed on every part. Replacing her aging, bureaucratic, Big Mother ass with any random democratic socialist or even a Republicant would be better.
  • I smell a scam dressed up as "safety".

  • 3D printers consume a set of GCode, which is raw instructions of where to move the XY axis, how much to output, and when to move the Z axis.

    They know ZERO about what is being printed, and their compute is so low they would have ZERO ability to do any such analysis. All of that level of smarts is contained in THE SLICER, which is a set of software that takes in a 3D model and turns it into GCode for a specific printer based on user controls.

    You could in theory have this legislation target SLICER SOFTWARE, li

  • I looked and the NRA is basically saying the same things. https://www.nraila.org/article... [nraila.org] It never ceases to amaze me just how stupid politicians are, whether it be some nonsense like the Clipper chip or trying to somehow magically make a printer analyze G-code.

  • Since the introduction of ghost guns, homicides have been on the decline.
    Does that mean ghost guns are responsible?
    No. It's more likely that homicide rates are declining in spite of ghost guns, not because of them.

    A larger percentage of gun crimes are being committed with ghost guns.
    Does that mean ghost guns are responsible for gun crimes?
    Again no. It's more likely that people who commit crimes decide to use ghost guns than people who have ghost guns decide to commit crimes.

    If you don't like the second am

    • Please, define a ghost gun.

      How does requiring a gun to have a serial number keep them out of the hands of undesirables?

      Oh, it means guns that can't be detected by a metal detector? That's already a law, how does this change anything?

      If I go into my workshop and build one of these unregistered, undetectable guns, how will anyone know what I've done until I use it in the commission of a crime?

  • AFAICT 50 dollers worth of stuff from the hardware store makes a pretty useful gun aswell. Much quicker and way more effective than any 3D printed piece of semi-plastic ever could. Are they going to regulate who can buy pipes? Sounds kinda dumb this attempt at a law.

  • How exactly is any software supposed to know a 3d part is for a gun and not some other purpose? Even if the software maintained a database of every known part and were to somehow match a piece before every print, how ridiculously compute expensive would that be? When - a) the piece could be rotated on any axis, b) trivially modified to circumvent the check (e.g. changing the mesh, STL ordering or superficial details), c) would incur false positives and negatives galore.

    3D printers don't even require speci

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