Courtesy WKTV
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A man named “Kem” reportedly used a 3D printer to manufacture “firearms” to turn in at a Utica, New York gun buyback. New York Attorney General Letitia James intended to buy “unwanted” guns and paid up to $250 each for the guns.

What AG James no doubt planned on was buying typical street blasters. Mr. Kem, however, printed and gave them 110 “unwanted” firearms. They gave him 42 $500 gift cards for a total of $21,000. That’s a good day’s work, if ATF doesn’t crack down on Mr. Kem for unlawful manufacture of firearms.

It’s not the first instance of a brave individual printing guns on their 3D printer and turning them in at a “buybacks.”  In Houston, the government changed the rules after one man nicked them $3,100. But this one, at $21,000, seems to set a new standard and a high bar to others to reach for.

As Kem told WKTV . . .

“I 3D-printed a bunch of lower receivers and frames for different kinds of firearms,” said Kem.

Then, he drove six hours to Utica.

“And he sees the tote and says, ‘how many firearms do you have?’ And I said, ‘110,’” said Kem.

That’s when the organizers of the “buyback” realized they hadn’t really thought the whole thing through.

This began a haggling and negotiating session with Attorney General’s Office staff that lasted all day long.

“And it 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,” said Kem. “$21,000 in $500 gift cards.”

Amen, brother. A rousing success indeed. Yet strangely, the Attorney General’s office didn’t include the 3D “ghost guns” in the promotional photos of the day’s haul.

In the WKTV interview, Kem said that it “was the greatest thing that Letitia James could have done. She literally put a bounty on 3-D printed guns. She said, ‘I will give you extra money if it doesn’t have a serial number on it.'”

Preach it!


Asked where he got the idea, he told the local media outlet he saw people on Twitter talking about using 3D printers to make big bucks by printing guns for buyback programs. 

Perhaps he was referring to the story of a man who recently turned in 62 3D-printed guns to Houston’s buyback program and collected $3,100.

Kem provided a master’s thesis on gaming the gun buyback scheme. Look for them to make changes in the rules for their future “successes.” Meanwhile, the New York AG was not amused.

“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 behavior 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.”

At the Guns Save Life organization in Illinois, we’ve collected our fair share from Windy City taxpayers over the years. However, the best we ever did was about $6240 using real, albeit mostly non-functional junk “turned in” at a Murder City “buyback” in 2012.  The ensuing international publicity proved such a black eye for the City of Chicago that they ended the program for about three years. And then when they brought it back, they held it at just one or two locations.

Using creativity and their own “gun buyback” rules against them – Alinsky style – to gig them for $21,000 is truly epic trolling.

Well done, Kem. Well done.

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64 COMMENTS

  1. How could they change the rules?
    Ghost guns are almost the most dangerous thing in existence. More deadly than COVID but not quite the threat to Democracy that January 6 was.

    Seems they’ll have a hard time screeching about how they need to get ghost guns off the street while refusing to accept ghost guns from off the street.

    • I don’t understand. I have never been harmed by a ghost, why would I even want to shoot them, much less get a special gun to shoot them with? Can’t we just all get along?

      • No no, you misunderstand. When you die, you need to make sure your family bury you with one of your guns, so you have it to protect yourself on the way to the afterlife. If you don’t have a Ghost Gun with you, you might get eaten by wraiths.

        • What are you talking about? Everybody knows ghost guns are guns that fire ghosts, and the most dangerous ones have clips that have more than ten ghosts.

          Come on, man!

        • More likely need that gun buried with you to protect from Libturds disturbing your RIP on election days……making you get up to go vote. Wait, wait, those Libturds won’t make you get up to vote. They’ll just “harvest” your ballot.

          “When I die, don;t let me vote Democrat.” – tee from Lilicloth.com and Dzousa.com.

  2. that would be a good idea if it would break the Democrats back, but sadly I think it’s going to cost the taxpayer money.

    • Cant avoid that (taxpayer cost) but at least he exposed how stupid a lot of our officials are and gave me a great laugh in the office last week. Didn’t want to draw too much attention to it in case some other municipality gave a similar opportunity for this kind of event.

  3. Glad he porked NY, but he did open the door for prosecution for manufacturing without a license. He manufactured with the intent to sell, not for personal use. ATF is just looking for people to make an example out of. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.

    • Jim Warren you are exactly right. Sooner or later, with hauls like this, the ATF are gonna put the cuffs on somebody to make an example of them.

      And 110 counts of manufacturing without a license will be a long stretch in prison.

      • All of these “buybacks” are “no questions asked.” Getting those awful guns off the street is much better than punishing those gangbangers, you know.

        Another version of this story claims they weren’t even guns Kem printed, but drop-in auto sears. Hey, if the ATF claims pistol braces and binary triggers are “machine guns,” then DIASs certainly count!

        Here’s the link I saw: https://www.ammoland.com/2022/09/ny-pays-30k-for-3d-printed-firearms-at-gun-buy-back/

        • “No questions asked” was a state promise. Feds don’t give a rat’s ass about state promises.

      • The problem with prosecution of anyone using their “buyback” event is that will make their target audience avoid their events.

      • Isn’t the prohibition against manufacturing to sell? Not sure this would qualify. Either way, more power to Ken and others like him, use their retard tactics against them. Be ungovernable.

      • Do gift cards count as currency or monetary gain would be another question. I am sure he could be charged but the arguments would be interesting.

      • The man was manufacturing firearms as is his right under the second amendment. Then He chose to exercise his first amendment right to protest the buyback as a waste of taxpayer money. The fact he got paid to do it does not mean he manufactured the firearms with the intent to sell them.

      • Prosecute the city for not paying sales tax on those purchases. Surprised the satae and feds don;t prosecute for not declaring income on the sales. Don;t keep any form f records of cost or income from those sales. Under new ATF “we’ll know a dealer when we see one” regulation interpretations, they will charge one for being in the gun business without a FFL license. “No quesrions asked”…..never give true ID, always wear a good disguise to avoid facial recognition.

    • He didn’t manufacture them to sell but rather to have a gun for every corner in his house, every bathroom, every bedroom drawer….you know…just to be prepared. And then along came the stories about how evil 3D guns are and he had an epiphany that he should get rid of them and lo-and-behold this buyback just happened to come along.

      See how that works?

  4. As savy as New York Bureaucrats are its amazing they just did not confiscate the guns and call in the ATF to throw him right in the slammer. He could have been charged with a variety of crimes besides manufacturing guns without a license.

    You can bet this scam will soon end permanently.

    And it was bad publicity for anyone wanting to make his own weapon for his own use legally.

    It was also a bonanza of advertisement for Biden pushing for a complete ban on all home made firearms.

    • By banning nylon? Yeah from NY it was an embarrassment at all official levels and with Bruin in place good luck with bringing any hammer down. At this point some officials are terrified of anything ending up in court so good luck with your assertation it will be fun to see how it ages.

    • Huh? Tattle to BATF and destroy the “credibility” of the buyback program? The second that call happened would be the final second of the entire operation. Kudos to Kem for his fine work outmaneuvering a clumsy bureaucracy.

    • Man, dacian. You are the most ignorant and uneducated person I’ve ever encountered.

      Are you even potty trained?

    • Variety of crimes, huh? In a state where you can murder someone and be released without excessive paperwork, much less any punishment? Where cops have been outlawed? I’m thinking not.

    • To which scam are you referring? One selling 3D printed guns….or government thinking they can “buy back” that which they never owned…..or politicians INFRINGING the 2A????

  5. “one individual’s greedy behavior won’t tarnish our work”

    That sentence alone is lipstick on a pig. Their work is rooted in corruption and an unwillingness to recognize the Constitutional right of individuals to keep and bear arms. Gun “buybacks” grow from a sewer, funded by the most corrupt and most racist people in the world. Gotta keep them darkies disarmed, or they might shoot one of our loyal henchmen when they kick a door down with a no-knock warrant.

  6. Wake up, ain’t just darkies they want to disarm. They want to disarm all of us. They will replace all of us. Turn us from citizens to slaves of the state.

  7. I am inspired to go magnet “fishing” in the Hudson River close to New York City or the Chicago River and take my haul to the next gun “buyback”.

    Anyone have any idea if typical gun “buybacks” these days have terms which refuse to accept rusted pieces of junk that were on river bottoms for several years?

  8. So glad they got that black powder cap n ball assault pistol off the street. I feel much safer now.

    Thanks, Letitia!

    FJB

  9. He’s just a perfectionist. He wasn’t satisfied with the 1st, 5th, 110th… and that he made. just work in progress

  10. Of course they didn’t include them in their pictures of the “successful program” results. They will add 110 to their already bloated claims of how many
    ” Ghost Gunz ” that the popo are encountering on the Mean Streets of New York… over 100
    ” recovered ” from a town of 65,000 – do the math : it’s an
    EPIDEMIC out there, do something quick!!

      • He got gift cards. I seem to recall that gifts are not considered income for tax purposes. (I’m smiling!)

  11. “That’s a good day’s work, if ATF doesn’t crack down on Mr. Kem for unlawful manufacture of firearms.”

    The ATF isn’t coming to get him. What he 3D printed were basically ‘toy’ kind-of-look-alike replicas of what he calls “lower receivers and frames for different kinds of firearms” that were completely non-functional and incomplete so they don’t actually qualify as firearms.

  12. New York Attorney General Leticia James claimed their Utica gun “buy back” was a big success, with 296 guns being turned in to police. 177 of those were this guys 3D printed stuff, but she isn’t letting people know that.

    • Note, and correction:

      It was 100 3d printed ‘replica’ toy type stuff and 60 “Yankee Boogles”.

      The cops offered him $6000.00 that he turned down and insisted on the full advertised price. He was promised and given full amnesty. The police didn’t have the gift cards to cover it, and they tried to buy the cards from multiple stores but they couldn’t get the needed amount due to banking regulations (a single entity is limited on the number of gift cards they can buy in a single day). So the police department had to call in off-duty officers to buy pre-paid credit cards individually from various stores. The lady with the police finance section was really PO’d.

      So after hours of waiting he got his money.

      There were also other 3D-printed “firearm” people there turning in their ‘replica’ toy type stuff too.

      So it was claimed 296 guns were turned in. 100 of them were this guys stuff, 60 of them were the “Yankee Boogles” (yes, they counted each one as a firearm), and then the other people turning in their 3D printed stuff. The estimate for the take of real guns is about 100, pieces of junk.

      • Hmmmmm….pondering those “straw purchases” of unlawfully buying for a prohibited person being a felony…cops losing gun rights, jobs.

  13. Whooda thunk; 3D printers are useful in getting evil, wicked, mean, bad and nasty off the streets. We need more people directly involved in gun control like this.

  14. ARev you seriously telling us that bits of couloured plastic were assessed as real firearms and ‘bought back’ a $US 500 a shot. Bullshit -its a bloody hoax.!

    • That’s exactly what 3D printed receivers, I mean “ghost guns” are, Albert. Your response shows both your ignorance and the ignorance of the argument against self-manufactured firearms in general. Thanks for proving the point.

  15. A few years ago City of Seattle had one of these “Gun buy back events”. Some smart gun enthusiasts parked down the street with a huge sign offering much more for specific weapons.
    Seattle PD attempted to stop them however they were not breaking any laws. Hilarious!

  16. The story above leaves out some important details of this event…. Go to youtube and listen to the hour long interview with Kem and the “out of battery” guys. It’s really worth listening to.
    The police didn’t want the 3D printed receivers he had, but what the police and ATF wanted was the bag 3D printed auto-sears. The sears are classified as machine guns by the ATF. So each little auto-sear fetched him big bucks as a “firearm”.
    The people running the buy back actually ran out of gift cards, so they had to send out the force to stores in Utica to buy up enough gift cards to cover the 21K… Hilarious !

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  18. sees like feds might visit kem for posession.
    i had a customer drop saturday. bldg. eng. was retired 24th precinct cpd. we determined many mutual friends. he answered call from his son, said take the mossberg to st. ita and get the hondo gift card.
    i said, i’ll give you two hundred. deal. the front site is knocked off, they glued half a bic pen on there, ha. easy fix, or not. looks unfired with nice hardcase. they would have destroyed it.

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