New York residents eyeing a new 3D printer may soon have to submit a criminal background check if a newly proposed state bill becomes law. The recently introduced legislation, authored by state senator Jenifer Rajkumar, aims to snub out an increasingly popular loophole where convicted felons who would otherwise be prohibited from legally buying a firearm instead simply 3D print individual components to create an untraceable “ghost gun.” If passed, New York would join a growing body of states placing restrictions on 3D printers in the name of public safety.
The New York bill, called AB A8132, would require a criminal history background check for anyone attempting to purchase a 3D printer capable of fabricating a firearm. It would similarly prohibit the sale of those printers to anyone with a criminal history that disqualifies them from owning a firearm. As it’s currently written, the bill doesn’t clarify what models or makes of printers would potentially fall under this broad category. The bill defines a three-dimensional printer as a “device capable of producing a three-dimensional object from a digital model.”
“Three-dimensionally printed firearms, a type of untraceable ghost gun, can be built by anyone using a $150 three-dimensional printer,” Rajkumar wrote in a memorandum explaining the bill. “This bill will require a background check so that three-dimensional printed firearms do not get in the wrong hands.” …
“To those who think printing 3D guns is the way of the future. You are wrong,” NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said during a press conference following the daycare siege. …
But Second Amendment die-hards aren’t the only ones who’ve objected to regulation targeted at 3D printed firearms though. Free speech experts and some civil libertarians have argued banning 3D-printed firearms, or at least the designs to create them could run afoul of the First Amendment since the instructions are simply lines of text and code.
— Mack DeGeurin in New York Bill Would Require a Criminal Background Check to Buy a 3D Printer
