The New York budget bill has provisions that require 3D printers to have software which will block the creation of firearms and certain accessories. Some say this will crush manufacturing.
The budget bill — signed on May 28 — has language included in it which requires changes to 3D printer hardware. Those changes come in the form of limiting what a “three-dimensional printer” can and cannot create. The problem with the definition of a three-dimensional printer is that this will include any and all computer-aided rendering or subtractive manufacturing machines. Our friends at Eye on the Target Radio recently raised the alarm on the topic.
What’s a three-dimensional printer? Most people can picture a desk-top device printing out little trinkets or usable plastic gadgets with spools of filament feeding it. Some folks might picture one of the many 3D printing fails that nearly everyone who engages in the hobby has experienced — a pile of twisted up plastic mess. When you drill down into what New York is calling a three-dimensional printer by law, the net cast is much broader than consumer-level units.
A. 10005–C / S. 9005–C defines a three-dimensional printer as “any machine capable of rendering a three-dimensional object from a digital design file using additive manufacturing” or ”any machine capable of making three-dimensional modifications to an object from a digital design file using subtractive manufacturing.”
The law is applicable to any — yes, three-dimensional printer, as one would suspect. But, any other device that uses a digital file and employs “subtractive manufacturing.” That would mean every modern computer-controlled lathe, mill, and machine.
In the definition for “digital firearm manufacturing code,” the breadth of what’s applicable is spelled out:
Means any digital instructions in the form of computer-aided design files or other code or instructions stored and displayed in electronic format as a digital model that may be used to program a three-dimensional printer or a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine to manufacture or produce any firearm, rifle, shotgun, ghost gun, unfinished frame or receiver, firearm silencer, rapid-fire modification device or major component of a firearm.
Governor Kathy Hochul’s press release says that the budget bill would “require first-in-the-nation minimum safety standards for 3D printers sold in New York to be equipped with basic technology that prevents the unlicensed, illegal production of lethal firearms and firearm parts.”
On July 5, Amanda Suffecool and Rob Campbell from Eye on the Target Radio discussed this topic on their radio show. Besides the pair being experts in firearms, Campbell is a machinist by trade.
When the duo discussed the provisions in the law, Suffecool explained it “means that the legislators thought, ‘oh, it’s printers,’ so it’s not a big deal” and she further observed “we know that that would be potentially every CNC lathe mill manufacturing.”
“A lot of these industrial robots, everything uses that same type of code to operate, so it’s way far-reaching,” Campbell said. “I believe it’s probably an infringement on the First Amendment rights, but it’s one of those things that it takes a couple years to get to the courts to find out. But, the real problem here is that they put it in a budget bill. A budget bill has to be passed because everything has to keep working, so they can’t. If they put them in a budget bill, they know it’s going to go through. It’s like when you watch the government, they put (things) in a fiscal bill because they know that it has to pass, otherwise all of a sudden everything shuts down, so they can’t have that.”
The implications are broad. Suffecool says that the companies will “need software that has a blocking mandate, technology, hardware, firmware, or software designed to identify and block digital files used to print firearms, silencers, magazines, and illegal accessories.” She explains that there’s a penalty of $5,000 per machine if companies “fail to include this blocking technology.”
In a state like New York, where people and companies are scuttling the state like rats jumping off a sinking ship, the legislators probably did not fully consider the consequences of the law change. The economic implications are going to catch up with them quicker than the constitutional.
Right now the rule of the law is that a commission is being formed to regulate the industry, but the intent of the law is so broad they’re probably going to have to revisit it with some serious carve-outs for conventional industries — never mind a company that actually builds firearms.
Campbell identifies that the law likely is violative of not just the Second Amendment, but also the First and Fourth. Suffecool cites Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and the reversal of the Chevron doctrine in the conversation. Would such big brotheresque software qualify as the same type of oversight that the Loper Bright plaintiffs were fighting the government over? Quite possibly.
Progressive strongholds like the Empire State are not strangers to making bad policy. Once they gather their commission together, they’re going to quickly figure out that the task they’re setting out to do is impossible. In the end they’re going to be left with an unenforceable law, find they wasted taxpayer’s dollars, and likely end up spending a good amount of time — they’ll be sued over this eventually. It’s going to be entertaining to see what they come up with, that much can be said.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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