Date saved: 2026-10-24 15:24 (PDT)
Sources: GBH, New York State Assembly, Futurism, Manhattan District Attorney
Key findings
Massachusetts Question 9 goes to voters
- GBH (Oct 23, 2026): Question 9 is a ballot referendum on Chapter 135, the 2024 gun law: a yes vote keeps it, a no vote repeals it. The law requires serial numbers on all guns, which means 3D-printed or parts-kit ghost guns must be registered, bans modifications that convert semi-automatics to automatic fire, and expands red-flag petitions to health care providers and school officials. Massachusetts had the country's second-lowest firearm death rate in 2024, at 3.8 per 100,000 residents. (Source)
New York targets files and printers
- New York State Assembly (Oct 2026): The SFY 2026-27 enacted budget prohibits manufacturing untraceable firearms with 3D printers and bans the sale and distribution of the digital files used to produce them, covering silencers, high-capacity magazines and other components as well. It also directs a state working group to evaluate whether blocking technology can be built into 3D printers sold in New York to stop them producing firearms at all. NYPD ghost gun seizures jumped more than twentyfold between 2018 and 2022. (Source)
- Manhattan District Attorney (2026): Manhattan prosecutors credit the same 2026 New York law with giving the state a tool against the flow of printed ghost guns that earlier seizures only documented, alongside the office's broader gun violence work. (Source)
The capability side: an AI that generates guns
- Futurism (Oct 2026): Gun-rights activist Cody Wilson unveiled the WASP, a .22 caliber weapon he calls the first AI-made gun, and "GatGPT," an AI gun generator trained on DEFCAD, his online library of millions of digital gun models. It answers firearms questions and picks parts for a build, and the WASP itself carries no serial number, which is the definition of a ghost gun. Wilson told The Verge the point is an AI that can generate guns, not a single generated gun. (Source)
The 3D-printed gun fight has moved from legislatures to the ballot box. Massachusetts votes on November 3 on Question 9, a referendum that decides whether a 2024 law survives: that law puts serial numbers on every gun in the state including printed ghost guns, bans the parts that turn semi-automatics into automatics, and widens who can ask a judge to remove someone's firearms. A no vote does not restrict anything new, it deletes what is already on the books, which makes this the first time a state has handed its entire ghost gun regime to a popular vote.
The second front is the printer itself. New York's budget this year does not just criminalize printing untraceable guns, it bans selling or distributing the digital files that describe them, and it formally asks a state working group whether blocking technology could be built into printers sold in New York at all. That is the logical endpoint of a decade of file bans, and it is the point where gun control runs head first into general-purpose hardware, scanners and free expression.
Meanwhile the capability side did not wait. Cody Wilson, who printed the first working plastic gun thirteen years ago, now sells the story of an AI that designs guns on demand, trained on the same library of millions of models the ghost gun community already downloads from. Whoever wins the votes and the court fights, the technical problem keeps getting easier for buyers.
Watch next: the Question 9 result on election night, and whether any other state copies New York's working group language about printer-level blocking.
Source links
- GBH: What you need to know about Question 9: Upholding firearms regulations
- New York State Assembly: Amy Paulin on new 3D-printed ghost gun provisions
- Futurism: We Regret to Inform You That "GatGPT" Is Exactly What It Sounds Like
- WGRZ-TV: New York proposes crackdown on 3D-printed guns and illegal firearm modifications
- Massachusetts Peace Action: Your Guide to the MA 2026 Ballot Questions