The state government in New York continues to find new ways to complicate the lives of gun owners and residents in general. Their latest attack on 3D printers will make at least some of these modern tools effectively impossible to buy legally in the state. State Of New York’s Gun Laws @ TFB: New York Forced To Allow Non-Resident Carry After Supreme Court Ruling New York Wants To Make BB Guns Non-Functioning And Lame SCOTUS Rejects New York Gun Law Challenge New Law: Gun Stores In New York State Must Display Warning Signs New York State is cracking down on 3D printers for one obvious reason: In the 2020s, 3D printers are increasingly used to make firearms or firearm accessories. This makes it much more difficult for the government to regulate the possession and sale of these items. So New York’s state government is tacking new requirements onto the purchase of 3D printers, as part of the FY27 budget. When the new restrictions were announced, New York’s governor’s office summarized its changes with these bullet points: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.Require the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services to lead a task force of experts to recommend regulations that will ensure New Yorkers are protected from these dangerous weapons. Following the implementation of the resulting regulations, state law will allow for recourse against any actor who sells a 3D printer in New York without equipping it with such technology.Criminalize the unlawful possession, sale, or distribution of blueprints that allow the printing of illegal guns and gun parts, and the manufacture of 3D-printed firearms.Zeroing in a bit closer, the FY27 Enacted Budget does not require these changes to actually come into effect until 2029. But when that happens, all 3D printers sold in New York must have firmware that would analyze any design submitted for printing, and compare it to existing firearms designs. If the file looks too similar to an existing firearm or component, the printer would reject the design.To put it bluntly, this is not going to happen, with some figures in the 3D printing industry saying it’s a good idea, but impossible to effectively make a reality. Some 3D printers might play ball with New York’s laws, or at least pretend to, but insiders say the plan is impossible to effectively enact, and many 3D printer manufacturers won’t care anyway. As for the rest of the changes: Having the bureaucrats and desk jockeys of the state’s justice system come up with new regulations will do the same thing as criminalizing possession/sale/distribution of blueprints—they’ll just make previously-illegal things more illegal, or else they’ll conflict with the Second Amendment (and maybe the First Amendment too). No doubt the state government will cause significant irritation for the 3D printing community with these laws, but do not expect them to continue unchecked—the right to print your own firearms and parts is almost certainly going to be the major battleground of the gun rights community in years to come.