No person who wants a gun will be smart enough to build one with a 3D printer, therefore this bill is stupid
Machining a Receiver from a metal blank on a CNC requires either a very expensive machine or a lot of experience as a machinist. You can’t just buy a CNC and download some G-Code and hog something out from a chunk of steel. But printing a gun on a 3D printer doesn’t require any special knowledge or experience (except the knowledge to understand you’re as likely to blow your hand off as shoot someone with a 3D printed firearm).
A kid could print a firearm in their bedroom at home, and their parents might not even know about it. Not so for CNC (I have a Taig 4-axis CNC. I only use it when it’s absolutely necessary. It’s a significantly more complicated process to CNC than to print. My Taig is relatively small, but it’s still bigger, heavier, noisier slower, and much, much messier than my X1C or my Form3, though TBT the Form3 is kind of messy).
That’s not completely accurate. There are several CNC machines that are made specifically for receiver creation. Simply buy the machine, load stock and click go.
GhostGunner.net has one for 80% billets (but can do 0% billets if you meet the criteria). The specific CNC options are not cheap, but DIY Mills can be made relatively cheaply. So, if there is a motivation, there is a way.
Here’s some stuff from their site.
No Prior CNC Experience Required
With simple tools and point and click software, GG3 is the perfect platform to learn and program a CNC, regardless of application.
No prior CNC skill is required to interact with community gunsmithing files. GG3 is the most popular way of finishing unserialized rifles and pistols in the comfort and privacy of home.
Personally, I built my own desktop router out of a Two Trees router. It didn’t take much to do and can cut aluminum quite well now. I haven’t tried to make an 80% receiver, but I don’t remember seeing any geometry that would be prohibitively difficult.
Like you mention, CNC programing is much harder than 3D printing, but 3D printing is a gateway to CNC programing. Like I said before, if someone is motivated enough to use 3D printing to make an illegal possessed firearm (meaning they can’t legally own one), they are likely motivated enough to learn enough to cut a receiver.
Well, I suppose there can be “cookbook” solutions - Buy my CNC machine, I will tell you what types of end mills you need and I’ll give you a G-Code file that’ll produce the receiver you want and even tell you where to order stock.
Still. A lot more expensive, and not the kind of thing a kid is likely to be able to buy without parental intervention, set up in his bedroom, and then start making guns.
And of course, you need to source a lot of other parts after you’ve made your receiver with the CNC approach.
3D printing lowers the bar significantly, you can basically print the entire gun.
I think we can all agree that the kind of legislation being talked about here is pointless at worst, and ineffective at best. But logic will not prevail, politicians aren’t swayed by logic, they do whatever they think will get them the most votes. If that’s appealing to irrational fears of their ill-informed constituency, they’re fine with that.
No dispute from me, this will not move the needle on the violence front. In my opinion, laws have failed to make a lot of sense for decades. Sure, every once in a while, useful legislation is passed, but largely it’s just a virtue signaling exercise or an attempt to one up the other side of the aisle.
You shouldn’t use this forum for your political agenda, period. Your issue is not more important than any other issue. It’s so sickening to see Americans go nuts over their guns everywhere and force that issue on everyone’s faces. Lots of people using this forum that are not in the USA so this is totally irrelevant and really it’s just SPAM. If you want to “raise awareness” print some leaflets and post it around your own community, urging everyone to write to your representatives to cancel the bill. Seriously, this is a global forum and you are spamming everyone who’s not in the US about your political issue. Stop, it’s selfish and arrogant.
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FYI, I’m a distiller, and in 2018 or so, the federal government tried to start tracking the purchase of all stills in the USA by asking manufacturers and sellers to provide a list of their sales to the government on a regular basis. This attempt lasted about 3 months, at which point they found out how many stills were being sold, and that they had no capacity to keep track of that level of data points without just making owning a still for any reason illegal (no budget to actually go check what people are doing with hundreds of thousands of stills). 3D printers are significantly more ubiquitous than stills are, and are much easier to DIY. There’s absolutely no way that any state will be able to manage to keep track of every person who buys a printer or 5 stepper motors and an arduino. If this bill passes, it’ll be utterly unenforceable like the still tracking was before it because there’s likely millions of 3D printers in NY alone.
We are just discussing an issue that this community (may or may not) face and has been gaining traction in my country and state.
I never claimed this issue was more important than any other issue.
If you actually read the thread, no one was “going nuts over their guns”.
I, in fact, mentioned that I don’t own a gun nor do I have any desire to construct one.
Not everyone participating in this conversation is from the US, so it is a “global” discussion.
This is a public forum.
Spamming? Spamming would be someone posting the same issue in multiple threads. It’s one post.
No one asked you to participate.
You weren’t forced to click on the topic link.
If it bothers you don’t read it.
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I don’t disagree that it would be quite difficult to enforce. But if it does became law, suddenly I and many other people would have a tool that we could be arrested for.
I don’t think this is the correct comparison, to be honest. Drones are usually in the public place and can potentially cause harm to others if operated by stupid.
I’ve seen personally in the past few years how drones were skyrocketing into the sand on the beach because someone lost control of it.
Anyway, I am also opposing those restrictions. Restricting 3D printer access is identical to restricting CNC or laser cutter. Doesn’t make any sense.
You do bring up some good points, but more laws or even other laws are not the answer. We should oppose these laws because they will set a precedent for more laws that will affect us even worse. Requiring a background check for the type of filament you can buy isn’t fundamentally different from the requiring a background check for a printer. We use carbon fiber PETG to print fixtures and assembly jigs in our manufacturing business often. Strong materials are printed daily for a billion other purposes than firearms.
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” - Thomas Paine
I’d argue your post is selfish and arrogant… You literally just said, “I don’t care about your problems, take it somewhere else”.
Please practice what you preach.
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My motive for coming here is to protest. I’m not a troll despite attempts to make me seem like one. I’m not rude either, I’m assertive. I repeat, this is not a political forum. Keep the politics out of this forum.
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@KPDA , I’m Australian and get where you’re coming from. The delivery could be a little more tactful though LOL. The topic does interest me as it typically comes around and lands on some local pollies desk here, depending on which way they lean it could be a feather in their cap so they start making noise here to one-up the world with Award winning Legislation. I don’t think its too much to ignore the “2nd Amendment” etc blurb that always enters the conversation, I tend to skip over it with an eyeroll.
The reality is that these knee-jerk nanny-state laws can make things harder for us and there is theres rarely a reversal for communities this small.
Bring on the 3d torture pieces 
If a thread gets a certain amount of flags it will automatically be locked for a minimum of 4 hours and up to 24 hours. Flags from “Regular” members have a higher weight than flags from newer members. The “self-governing” setup seems to work pretty good and I have very rarely seen Bambu step in.
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I live in the US but not in New York State. The concept that the government is able to do anything like this is a giant nothing burger.
it’s tempting to just ignore the thread but I’d vote to shut it down because the whole topic is not flattering to this country and who knows if some individuals reads this and thinks this promotes printing ghost guns. By saying the government has no right to stop you.
OMG!
I think this thread has been trolled to the point of termination.
In Canada, they have much more restrictive gun laws for every aspect of gun ownership and use. In the US, at least in some states, you are allowed to manufacture a gun for personal use without a license, but in Canada you can’t produce a gun without a license for any reason.
There have been a few arrests of people in Canada who 3D print guns. I guess since the US does allow citizens to make guns, that is New York’s approach to try to prevent known criminals from obtaining a printer.
Seems like it will mostly have a negative affect on non-criminals because if criminals want to get a 3D printer, they will find a way around the law.
Yeah, I am not advocating for “the right” to print your own guns. If they want to put restrictions on that, it won’t affect me.
I’m just against conflating 3DP ownership with gun ownership. The 2 are starkly different, and like most have pointed out, it won’t do much to control the criminal element.
And actually printing a useable firearm is “easier said than done”.
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Luckily Bambu Cloud is a great way for governments to keep tabs on what folks are printing.