It's hard to believe, but there was a time when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul actually showed some support for the right to keep and bear arms. Back when she was County Clerk in Erie County, Hochul helped streamline the concealed carry permit application process, and even in her first term in Congress she voted in favor of enough pro-2A bills that she won the endorsement of the NRA in her re-election campaign in 2012. She was proud of that endorsement at the time, calling it an "honor."
Once Hochul turned her eye towards statewide office, though, her support for the Second Amendment was quickly shoved aside and forgotten about. Now Hochul's all in on gun control; calling lawmakers back to Albany to pass new restrictions on concealed carry after the Bruen decision, demanding the New York State Police file "red flag" petitions at every possible opportunity, and endorsing a wide variety of anti-gun measures.
This session, Hochul is calling for a crackdown on 3D printers, digital code, and a ban on the sale of striker-fired handguns that can be illegally modified to fire full-auto through the installation of a switch. Today, the anti-gun governor made another push to get these new restrictions in place.
Gov. Hochul is highlighting increased support from law enforcement across New York for a series of proposals aimed at cracking down on DIY machine guns and 3D-printed “ghost guns.”
— CBS 6 Albany - WRGB (@CBS6Albany) March 24, 2026
More:https://t.co/zDbLbfGoWf
Hochul’s proposal would require firearm manufacturers to design pistols that cannot be easily modified into illegal automatic weapons.
The Governor is also pushing new restrictions targeting 3D-printed firearms, often referred to as ghost guns because they lack serial numbers and are difficult to trace.
The proposal would:
- Criminalize the unlicensed manufacture and sale of 3D-printed firearms
- Ban the distribution of digital files used to create guns
- Require all recovered 3D-printed guns to be reported statewide
- Establish a working group to create safety standards for 3D printers
The plan would also require 3D printers sold in New York to include technology that blocks the production of firearm components.
Hochul was joined by her hand-picked choice to head up the New York State Police, as well as Democrat District Attorney Lee C. Kindlon, who both offered up the prerequisite praise for the governor's latest crackdown.
Kindlon, for instance, declared, "Governor Hochul's proposal attacks this issue at the source: requiring that pistols sold in New York be designed so they cannot easily be converted and criminalizing the digital blueprints used to manufacture these weapons and components," adding that "clear, enforceable laws like this are exactly what prosecutors need."
He forgot to add "unconstitutional."
Hochul's calling for a ban on some of the most commonly sold handguns in the country, though law enforcement would still be allowed to purchase and possess these same pistols for some reason. Weird how that's always the case, isn't it?
Mere possession of these switches is already a crime under New York and federal law, but now Hochul wants to ban the guns that can be illegally converted as well. If that's allowed to stand, then it won't be long before gun control groups start demanding a prohibition on all semi-automatic firearms. We've already seen legislation introduced to ban all gas-operated semi-automatic long guns, and now they're going after striker-fired semi-automatic handguns as well.
Hochul's efforts to restrict 3D printers and digital code is just as bad, from both a common sense and constitutional standpoint. There is a national tradition of home-built firearms that predates the Founding, and though the technology has changed our rights have not. A right to keep and bear necessarily encompasses a right to acquire, and there's nothing in our nation's history that suggests the only way we can do so is by purchasing a firearm at retail.
New York's "ghost gun" laws are already so prohibitive that Dexter Taylor is sitting in a maximum security prison after being sentenced to ten years for possessing unpermitted guns he built himself. Now Hochul and her fellow 2A prohibitionists are taking aim at the technology used to help build those guns.
S7364A would make it a felony offense to, among other things, manufacture a "major component" of a rifle or shotgun through the use of a 3D printer. What's a major component? The bill doesn't say, but even if you printed a component to use with a gun that ws legally purchased, you could still face criminal charges. The same bill makes it a misdemeanor offense to sell or distribute any code or file that could be used to make a gun, magazine, suppressor, unfinished frame or receiver, or any other "major component" of a firearm.
Prosecutors don't need these "tools." They need to go after violent criminals, not possessory offenses that shouldn't be crimes to begin with. So long as Hochul's running things in New York, though, turning lawful gun owners into criminals for exercising our Second Amendment rights will always be the bigger priority for blue cities and counties under Democrat control.
