A New York man told a local news station that he was able to deceive the attorney general’s office into selling more than 100 3D-printed guns for $21,000 in a firearm buyback program.
The man, who only gave his name as ‘Kem’ to the media, said he drove six hours to Utah to get his money.
Selling 3D-Printed Guns
The Man (Kem) told the media that he got the idea to make a quick buck after seeing relevant Twitter posts announcing New York Attorney General Letitia James’ “Cash for Guns” program. The post informed residents that they could trade in their firearms for cash and that many people were considering doing so.
Kem was inspired by this post, and it immediately planted a seed in his mind. Kem had bought a cheap $200 3D printer for Christmas last year with the intention of making some products and making a quick buck. He had no idea that this $200 printer would become his golden goose.
Kem recalled, “I got the idea from the Twitter post and immediately thought of 3D-printing guns. I 3D printed a bunch of lower receivers and frames for different kinds of firearms and drove to the Attorney General’s office.”
He continued, “The officials saw my tote and asked – ‘How many firearms do you have?’ And I said, ‘110.’”
“However, getting the money was no easy task”, as Kem recalled.
Kem had to haggle and negotiate with the staff of the Attorney General’s Office in order to be paid. He ended up spending his entire day to this endeavour.
Kem said, “Our fiery negotiations finally ended with the guy and a lady from the budget office finally coming around with the 42 gift cards and counting them in front of me, and gave me $21,000 in $500 gift cards.”
Enlightenment post the success
After fooling the authorities with his 3D-printed guns and earning $21,000 from it, Kem seemed to have gained a new perspective and he sermoned that his small experiment demonstrated that such policies simply do not work and they do not help in reducing crime.
Kem commented, “I’m sure handing over $21,000 in gift cards to some punk kid after getting a bunch of plastic junk was a rousing success. Gun buybacks are a fantastic way of showing, number one, that your policies don’t work, and, number 2, you’re creating perverse demand.”
Kem also added that, “You’re causing people to show up to these events, and, they don’t actually reduce crime whatsoever.”
On the flip side, a spokesperson at the Attorney General’s Office released a statement saying, “It’s shameful that this individual exploited a program that has successfully taken thousands of guns off the streets to protect our communities from gun violence. We have partnered with local police throughout the state to recover more than 3,500 guns, and one individual’s greedy behaviour won’t tarnish our work to promote public safety. We have adjusted our policies to ensure that no one can exploit this program again for personal gain.”
The Backlash
The AG’s office amended the buyback rules in response to public outrage over government officials misusing public tax money. The new rule states that “ghost guns” cannot be turned in, whereas the Utica buyback had no such restrictions. The 3D printed guns submitted for the next event had to be capable of firing multiple rounds safely.
News Source: Interesting Engineering
