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[return to "New York’s budget bill would require “blocking technology” on all 3D printers"]
1. pjc50+Ya[view] [source] 2026-02-03 16:35:13
>>ptorro+(OP)
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.

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2. milesv+2h[view] [source] 2026-02-03 16:57:25
>>pjc50+Ya
Could be the way guns are defined in UK are different. There is a fundamental problem in US law specifically, that you can purchase legally nearly any part of a gun separately, but only need to register the lower receiver. These are parts that take very little stress and can be relatively easily printed and used to hold together all the other parts that actually hold the stress of firing the bullet.

This is at least true for some specific rifles, where there’s a whole industry around selling unfinished receivers that are relatively easy to mill down with common machining tools to be able to assemble unregistered rifles.

My guess, is that these bills are a knee jerk reaction to constituents who’ve seen some tik toks talking about this. Though the conspiracist in me thinks that it’s mostly an excuse for control. This means, this bill is also coming for the UK too…

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