New York officials are continuing to blame 3D-printed firearms for violent crime in the Big Apple and beyond, instead of pointing the finger at the repeat offenders who are responsible for an outsized portion of armed robberies, home invasions, and carjackings.
Deputy Chief of the NYPD Intelligence Division Courtney Nilan, working with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, have been pushing companies to prohibit files that can be used to print gun parts, but as Nilan recently told AMNY, they aren’t relying on coercion alone. If they get their way, possessing these files will be a crime in the Empire State.
Currently the pair say many of these ghost gun makers are able to skirt the legal process since sharing and downloading files is not against the law — something authorities want to change.
“In theory it’s not illegal. You’re selling a little baggie of not illegal parts. You’re selling a file. So there’s a lot of different aspects,” Nilan said. “If someone’s ordering those parts, we can prove that if somebody has those parts, the only thing they’re gonna use those parts for is to build firearms. So, it still involves a lot of the power investigating. Now, it’s still a lot with the postal inspectors. It’s still a lot of old school physical surveillance sometimes.”
They say it doesn’t have to be that way, however. Currently there is legislation sitting in the New York State Senate that would make the manufacture of 3D-printed guns and gun parts illegal. But it has yet to be voted upon. In the meantime the tech continues to progress at a rapid pace.
“Every day, someone’s coming up with something new.” Nilan said.
New York already bans unserialized firearms and 3D printed guns. I’m pretty sure the legislation that Nilan is referring to is A2228/S3562, which would require a criminal background check be performed on anyone purchasing a 3D printer that is “capable of creating firearms”. Under the legislation, the state would have 15 days to run a background check, and any individual with an outstanding warrant or a felony conviction would be prohibited from purchasing the printer, even if they have no plans or desire to build a gun with the device.
Nilan may also have been referring to A1777/S227, which would “criminalize the intentional sale, distribution, or disposal of digital instructions that may be used to program a three-dimensional printer to produce such weapons.”
The Supreme Court hasn’t directly weighed in on whether computer code is considered “speech”, with all of the protections offered by the First Amendment, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that there is a First Amendment right to code as part of our freedom of expression. I doubt that matters much to New York lawmakers, who routinely pass laws that blatantly infringe on our Second Amendment rights. It seems odd that they’d give any more deference to our First Amendment rights, especially when those rights are used to help create a firearm.
Black market gun makers and sellers aren’t going to pay any attention to a law criminalizing code or requiring background checks for 3D printers. They’re already ignoring the New York law that makes it a crime to possess or sell unserialized firearms, so why would these bills be received any differently?
Instead of trying to ban yet another piece of hardware, New York politicians should be cracking down on individuals who commit violent offenses. It shouldn’t matter if they’re using a homebuilt and unserialized firearm, a gun that was stolen, or even one that was lawfully purchased. The fact that someone like Dexter Taylor can be sentenced to ten years behind bars for making his own guns while bank robbers are getting twelve months behind bars is utterly ridiculous, and a sign of the craziness inherent in the state’s criminal justice system.
Editor’s Note: As awful as New York Mayor Eric Adams has been on 2A issues, Zohran Mamdani would be even worse as the next mayor of New York City.
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