Number of 3D-printed guns soaring in New York
NEW YORK (WABC) -- In just hours - and for a few hundred dollars, you could make a real gun in your house that is untraceable - and nearly 100 percent polymer.
It can all be made on a 3D printer -- including extended magazines that can hold 30-50 bullets. Other gun parts like silencers are all untraceable.
The number of recovered 3D-printed guns has soared in New York. There were 100 in 2019 and 637 recovered last year.
The NYPD just made a bust last Friday.
Now, new legislation just introduced in the statehouse in Albany would make it a Class D felony to use a 3D printer to make gun and/or gun parts and a new Class A misdemeanor to sell the digital instruction to print the weapons.
"The pipeline is now on your kitchen table," said New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
"We see how significant it is that they're allowed to print," said Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal.
Right now, someone printing guns could only be charged with possessing the weapons.
"But what they are really doing is manufacturing guns so we need to call it what it is and a law that prescribes that conduct," said DA Alvin Bragg.
The DA's office and NYPD printed guns to train and testify at trials about the process - one that continues to advance.
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