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[return to "New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers"]
1. Mister+W6[view] [source] 2026-02-03 16:19:17
>>ptorro+(OP)
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.

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2. RajT88+v8[view] [source] 2026-02-03 16:25:36
>>Mister+W6
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.

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3. billfo+R9[view] [source] 2026-02-03 16:30:40
>>RajT88+v8
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.

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4. RajT88+Pb[view] [source] 2026-02-03 16:38:17
>>billfo+R9
> 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.

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