[kart23]

it’s illegal to make a gun for personal use without a serial number in ny and ca.

https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/consu...

[RevEng]

So it's okay to 3D print a gun as long as you have a serial number? That seems to reinforce that 3D printing shouldn't be banned, especially by blanket technical means.

[y-curious]

That is the essence of the weird gun laws. Take a Glock pistol as an example. The only part that has a serial number and is legally “the gun” is the thing you hold in your hand: the frame. It’s plastic and has the trigger and some parts to hold the magazine.

The rest of the stuff? You can buy and overnight ship it to yourself legally with almost no regulation (as of 2026 CA requires more gun-like treatment for those parts).

[groundzeros2015]

NY and CA have the most strict gun regulations

[namlem]

NJ and CA. You can't make guns at all in NJ, and you need a firearm permit to buy an airgun or bb gun.

[brewdad]

Combined they are home to 1 in 6 Americans so it's important info that applies to a lot of us.

[rolph]

theres a procedural problem with this, and its apparently why the feds dont require serial number on a PMF until FFL transfer is about to occur

when should you be required to serialize it?

if you serialize after it is worked to the point of being a firearm, then there is a period in time, however short, when the firearm is unserialized, thus illegal, thus serializing after creation could be obscuring a crime.

vs serializing before firearmhood, and you are now requireing a "hunk of metal" to be serialized because of what it MAY become in the future.

and just when does a hunk of metal start becoming a firearm, the so called 80% threshold

[hahahahhaah]

Not really. You can just register prior. If hunk of metal doesn't become a gun do nothing.