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1st Amendment + 2nd Amendment == The Right to 3D Print and Bear Arms

Moreover, how could this be implemented? Determining the 3D volume which a given G-code file will result in is something which the industry would find very useful, but no one has yet achieved. Doing so would probably simultaneously result in the folks doing so being awarded a Fields Medal and the Turing Award (in addition to making a boatload of money licensing the resultant software/patent).

On top of that, how does one resolve the matter of the same G-code file (for two nested circles plus come machine-specific codes) resulting in either a metal washer, or a lamp base, depending on whether run on a machine set to metric w/ a coolant system, or Imperial w/ a tool changer?

Lastly, who creates the list of forbidden parts? How will it be curated? And most importantly, how will it be secured that it isn't a set of blueprints which are then used to make firearms?

A more reasonable bit of legislation would be one which required folks who are barred by statute from owning firearms (convicted felons/convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse) to approve with their parole officer any file for a part/object made by a 3D printer or CNC machine before submitting it to the machine.

3d printing is also a creative expression and part of free speech. However principles don't matter to authoritarians, and really the only defense is constant political pressure and civil disobedience.

Politically the US is very much not a monolith on this topic and many states and localities have passed laws that were later struck down as unconstitutional. This is a bill in California, which does have about the strictest laws that the federation allows them to have, and they would place even stronger restrictions on guns if they could. This is not really ironic as much as it is pushing the envelope for gun control as far as they legally can.

But also, California regulators likely see the regulatory landscape as the reason this law is needed rather than in spite of it.

Gun manufacturers are likely against these types of regulations because many of them would affect manufacturers and the tools they use too.

> is this pressure from the gun manufacturing lobby

Definitely not, it's pressure from the anti-gun lobby that keeps pushing "one more bill that this time will actually change violent crime statistics, we promise!"

These bills are being introduced in the states that already have the most restrictive gun control already, yet to nobody's surprise, hasn't done much to curb violent crime. But the lobby groups and candidates campaign and fundraise on the issue so they have to keep the boogeyman alive rather than admit that the policies have been a failure.

> The irony isn't lost on me that it's the USA, the country with some of the most permissive gun laws in the world, that's imposing these draconian rules on 3D printed guns - or is this pressure from the gun manufacturing lobby?

It's like saying "I am baffled by Europe, look at what Hungary is doing ..."

For example, some states don't need any permit to open or conceal carry, some have no minimum age requirements to buy guns, and the majority don't have any mention of 3D printed guns.

Federal law applies then about untraceable guns and or arms that cannot be detected by metal detectors. But those predate 3D printers as we know them today.

It's not the most "permissive gun laws in the world". In Norway you can buy a suppressor off the shelf with little to no paperwork.

If you live in CA and don't want to experience permanent hearing damage from shooting, you'll catch a Felony for simply possessing one. It's a big middle finger like the rest of California's gun laws.

I think the current government of California would significantly regulate firearms if they could. It’s prevented from passing more restrictive laws due to the US constitution and a Supreme Court which takes an extremely broad interpretation of the rights derived from the second amendment.

In the US there is a certain class of politician that considers poor people being able to exercise their rights a problem that needs to be solved.

This is a reaction to the inability to accomplish anything at the federal level in the "we have to do SOMETHING" vain.

It is both the USA and California. California doesn't allow most guns that other states allow and there is a lot of friction between CA and the USG.

California isn't really the USA anymore, so please don't associate them with the rest of us!

> that's imposing these draconian rules on 3D printed guns

This is a bill with no votes - the first committee hearing is in March.

The purpose of the bill seems to be have some controversy & possibly raise the profile of the proposer.

The bill is written very similarly to how we enforce firmware for regular printers and EURion constellation detection.

This only benefits expensive proprietary enterprise 3D print makers..

It is pressure from the gun control lobby. Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group, is the brains behind it. The states moving this legislation (California, Washington) are very hostile to gun ownership, and already have bans on assault rifles and printed guns. This is just another step in tightening the noose.

No, this is probably an illegal CA law.

I'm a strong believer in 2a rights. However I think every type of weapon might require a license. So if you 3d print a gun that you would be allowed to own if you had already completed your background check, then you're gold.

If you end up 3d printing a nuclear bomb, the licensing requirements for that would be a billion times harder. (secure facilities, 24/7 guards, blood oath to the United States etc...)

It’s pressure from the anti gun obsessed nonprofits on the left like Everytown. Bloomberg has nowhere else to waste money and there are legislators willing to present bills authored by Everytown blindly. But in many cases gun control bills are known to be unconstitutional and pushed through anyways. It takes years for laws to be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and even if they are, states like Washington or California or Oregon will just pass the next Everytown authored unconstitutional bill with a slight variation.

The real fix is that we need to get rid of immunity for legislators. When they violate the civil rights of the constitutional rights of citizens through their actions, they must be held personally liable and must go to jail.

It's important to note that the USA also has some of the fiercest opponents of private gun ownership in the world.

The most important thing to note here is that a majority of the support for gun control in America is cultural. Even the loud-and-proud pro-gun people got extremely shy about their own principles once the Black Panthers started packing heat. On the flipside, it's also not hard to find gun control supporting Democrats that happen to own firearms in their house. There's a related cultural argument over "assault weapons", or "black guns" - i.e. the ones that look like military weapons rather than hunting tools.

The result of all this confusion - and, for that matter, any culture war fight - is a lot of stupid lawmaking designed specifically to work around the edges of 2A while ignoring how guns actually work or how gun laws are normally written. Like, a while back there were bans on purely cosmetic features of guns. Things like rail attachments, that do not meaningfully increase the lethality of the weapon, but happen to be preferred by a certain crowd of masculinity-challenged right-wingers. In other words, a ban on scary-looking guns.

What's going on here is that someone figured out how to make a 3D printed gun that will not immediately explode in your hand on first firing. In the US it's legal to manufacture your own guns, and there's no requirement to serial-number such a gun, which makes it more difficult to trace if that gun is used to commit a crime. You can't really stop someone from making such a "ghost gun" (practically, not legally), so they want to take a page out of the DMCA 1201 playbook and just ban all the tools used to make such a thing possible.

Personally, I don't think that will pass constitutional muster - but that also relies heavily on existing culture-war brained nonsense that happens to be standing constitutional principle. 2A itself can be interpreted in all sorts of different ways. The original interpretation was "no interfering with state-run slave catching militias", and then later that turned into "everyone has the right to own firearms". Nothing stops it from changing again.

It's the anti-gun lobby. Bloomberg's band of morons who believe a government monopoly on force is good.

These bans are almost exclusively in states with already extremely strict (high rated by the gifford's law people) gun laws.

So far, there is zero evidence in the last 30 years more strict gun laws have curbed crime. The states with the strictest laws conveniently have the highest proportion of gun crime. The same people writing these laws don't understand what "per capita " means. Nor are they willing to confront the reality of what the data shows. The calculus for these petty tyrants has changed from banning guns wholesale to lawfare. Make owning and purchasing firearms so burdensome the market dies, and with it, the rights. This is just another play in that strategem.

Fun fact: More people died last year putting foreign objects in their rears than by AR-15s. That is how insane the anti-gun lobby has become. They are literally barking at their own shadow these days.

It's legal insofar that if you want to exercise your rights expect to sit in Jail until your lawyer can take it to the Supreme Court. At which point CA will slightly reword the law to intentionally circumvent the Constitutional rights of its citizens.

the caveat is it has to be your personal product and you cant sell it, probably cant "loan" it, and it would be questionable if you were found letting your buddy try a few shots.

you have to be an FFL to legally transfer a nonserialized firearm, and part of that includes endowing the firearm with a serial, and completing the 4473.

if the firearm is already serialized you can do private sale from person to person, in a casual non business context, you cant privately transfer a "ghost" it has to be serialized and go through 4473 transfer then it can go through private sale.

[addndm] "Requirements for Individuals

For individuals who already possess a PMF or an unfinished receiver for personal use, the rule does not require retroactive serialization. However, if that individual decides to sell or transfer a privately made firearm to another person, the transaction must be conducted through an FFL. The FFL must then apply a serial number to the weapon and complete the required background check and record-keeping procedures before the transfer can legally occur."

https://legalclarity.org/supreme-court-ghost-gun-decision-cu..

This reminds me of Ken Thompson’s speech on trusting trust. The recursive/meta nature of it all has helped me explain to those unfamiliar that this is such a waste of time. Education is where it’s at, but I’m preaching to the choir here on HN.

when offspring are forbidden, only outlaws will have in-laws

only when they start printing ICs

Like the printers that won't do prints of money that's money-size

Regulating actual guns that are frequently used in crime? Unlikely.

Regulating theoretical guns? No requirement is too draconian.

80% kits are already illegal in California (as are 0% kits, if a solid rectangle of aluminum is marketed as being suitable for milling into a firearm)

I feel like kits for the purpose of assembling a printer would also be subject to regulation and attack... and open-source printer firmware... and related guides or resources... and related hardware platforms, like CNC and laser cutting...

> (d) “Three-dimensional printer” means a computer-aided manufacturing device capable of producing a three-dimensional object from a three-dimensional digital model through an additive manufacturing process that involves the layering of two-dimensional cross sections formed of a resin or similar material that are fused together to form a three-dimensional object.

https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-civ/division-3/...

I expect someone to get around this by modifying the slicing software to use a different algorithm that doesn't rely strictly on layering 2D cross sections.

The recently-introduced WA legislation also covers subtractive methods; I imagine CA omitted that specifically because of Haas.

It's anyone who manufactures plastic or parts. 3D Printers are the wild west of printing your own replacement parts and soon the goal will to ban these things, unless there is right to repair.

Authoritarians, as always.

Assembly Member Bauer-Kahan

Feckless democrats who want to appear tough on guns. Instead of taking on the NRA or lobbying groups they go after low hanging fruit to tout as victories to their base. It generates votes and wealth for the rep. Same thing with anti-trans bills from the right. Legislation that can pass through targeting small enough collectives that they don't have to worry about bad press.

All the news stories about ghost guns being 3D printed didn't hurt either. So they can sell a narrative of protecting people.

The real truth? Nonprofits like Everytown, funded fully by billionaires like Bloomberg, who are effectively bribing/coercing legislators with their money and power. They supply identical bills into many deep blue states. They’re all extremely invasive in this way.

Hey if we can train LLMs to generate 3D prints I wouldn’t have to struggle through CAD and could just vibe-CAD what I need…

Most "progressive" policies are, and have always been, scams aimed at tricking people into allowing the state to consolidate more power to use for ulterior purposes.

A great deal of regulation is sold to the public in the name of "safety", "equality", etc., but actually functions to entrench vested interests or inhibit competition in various industries.

Political solutions to social problems will always be turned to the advantage of whomever has the most political influence -- and that's always some narrow faction, and not the public at large.

Thing is you can make a 3d printer; it's basically CNC stuff with a different tool. I suppose fabricating your own 3D printer needs to be legally ensnarled as well.

Purely performative power grabbing. There is no epidemic of ghost gun violence. These measures would not stop it if there were. The new legal thicket this creates will exclusively harm innocent people.

This is about notching a victory: making others bend the knee to the prerogatives of some pressure group. Nothing more. Behind it are wealthy pearl clutching virtue signalers. In front of it there are non-profit grifters and politicians with campaigns to fund, and in the middle lobbyists milk both sides. Everyone mouthing obligatory moral panic narratives to keep the money flowing.

What about intelligent lathes? "Woa hold it, it looks like you're making a barrel. Now, let's report this first before I restore power!"

Well, it's a new bill. What is misleading about it? Is there a special term for "a bill that was introduced a couple of days ago by one Assembly member" ?

I don't even think plastic guns are very viable as it is, they're pretty shitty guns and this is pretty much a nerd hobby currently.

Then the AI hallucinates a plausible model that explodes in your hands.

Can you clarify what you mean?

I don't know what language you speak but here is a part of the bill in English

This bill would require, on or before July 1, 2028, any business that produces or manufactures 3-dimensional printers for sale or transfer in California to submit to the department an attestation for each make and model of printer they intend to make available for sale or transfer in California, confirming, among other things, that the manufacturer has equipped that make and model with a certified firearm blueprint detection algorithm. If the department verifies a printer make and model is properly equipped, the bill would require the department to issue a notice of compliance, as specified. The bill would require, on or before September 1, 2028, the department to publish a list of all the makes and models of 3-dimensional printers whose manufacturers have submitted complete self-attestations and would require the department to update the list no less frequently than on a quarterly basis and to make the list available on the department’s internet website. The bill, beginning on March 1, 2029, would prohibit the sale or transfer of 3-dimensional printers that are not equipped with firearm blocking technology and that are not listed on the department’s list of manufacturers with a certificate of compliance verification, except as specified. The bill would authorize a civil action to be brought against a person who sells, offers to sell, or transfers a printer without the firearm blocking technology.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

Let me point out the statement:

> The bill, beginning on March 1, 2029, would prohibit the sale or transfer of 3-dimensional printers that are not equipped with firearm blocking technology and that are not listed on the department’s list of manufacturers with a certificate of compliance verification, except as specified.

It seems pretty clear this would prohibit the sale of 3D printers that are not approved by the California DoJ.

It's not nice to lie about extremely obvious things.

that wouldn’t survive if a significant share of that production wasn’t smuggled into Latin America

Let's look at actual numbers. ATF says 50,000 guns were smuggled into latin america between 2015 and 2022. So about 7,200 a year. There are about 15-20 million new firearm sales per year in the US.

So assume ~.03% of production gets smuggled out. I think the industry would survive if that was cut that off. It actually would be better for them because it would make lies and slanders about the industry harder to make.

https://www.thetrace.org/2024/06/atf-gun-trafficking-report-...