> The state should prosecute people who make illegal thing, not add useless surveillance software on every tool in every classroom, library, and garage in the state.
This is analogous to requiring text editors to verify that a document does not contain defamation, fraud, incitement, fighting words, child porn, etc., before it saves the file. In first amendment terms that led to the conclusion that prior restraint on publication is incompatible with the amendment. The same doctrine should be extended to the second amendment for the same reasons. The alternative is intolerable surveillance.
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?
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.
> strictest laws that the federation allows them to have
Note that "the federation" allowed states to have stricter gun laws until recently when we got a new partisan supreme court that is out of step with the previous 200 years of jurispudence.
It was confirmed for the previous ~130 or so, at least, since United States v. Cruikshank... although I certainly wouldn't want to go back to those days before the Bill of Rights were incorporated against state/local governments... Basically it was a blank check for racists to suppress minorities.
The result of United States v. Cruikshank was that southern states were allowed to to prohibit black individuals from owning firearms to defend themselves from the KKK. Not exactly a great example of gun control.
What's also crazy it is that it is also relatively recently that the first amendment was incorporated against states and localities as well.
> 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.
I have three guns. One I inherited, two I bought right before California turned up gun restrictions. Possibly the greatest time for gun makers was when Hilary Clinton had a clear lead in the race for president.
No conspiracy required. There's a lot of money to be made lobbying against guns - in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year - regardless of efficacy.
On the other hand, no one from the pro-gun camp is involved with or wants to involve themselves with drafting common-sense gun regulations to reduce the impact of mass shootings while respecting Constitutional rights. Everything from that side seems to revolve around arming schoolteachers and permitting more guns in more spaces.
So of course you're going to have wildly-overreaching proposals making it through committees and put to the vote, because no one from the other side is there to compromise with. Americans prefer to debate on the news circuit instead of the committee floor.
I won't try to make as strong a claim as the person you are responding to, but unfortunately, the politicized nature of the topic makes research on gun violence, especially as it relates to gun laws in the US, extremely fraught. The vast majority of research articles are plagued with issues. One should not just blanket trust the research (in either direction, and there are definitely peer reviewed journal articles pointing in different directions).
The claim you responded to was too strong, but for similar reasons, yours is also far far too confident.
I'm responding to someone making assertions with zero cites, and I cite a source. If anyone has a cite showing that loose gun policies results in lower rates of gun deaths, they're free to present that.
I'm impugning the entire field of research, why would I then provide an opposing citation? My own claim should lead you to not trust it. I'm also not making any particular directional claim that would require such a citation.
I'm arguing that your statement, citation supported or otherwise, was stronger than I believe is warranted. You (correctly) criticized the original comment for making a stronger claim than they were able to support. You then technically did a better job in supporting your own claim (in the sense that you made any attempt to support it at all), but, in my opinion, you still made the same mistake of making a claim that was much stronger than warranted.
“Common sense” is a red flag for me. Obama pitched revoking second amendment rights for people on the Do Not Fly list as “common sense”. My common sense says we shouldn’t use a secret, extrajudicial government watch list with documented problems with false positives to revoke constitutional rights.
Yet another lie by ommision. Violent deaths by guns have no relation to strength of gun laws. What that measures is the number of accidental deaths by guns. If gun owners want to kill themselves it's not my job to keep them safe.
> Suicidal people aren't a valid reason for my rights to be restricted, sorry.
You also have a right to travel around the country, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to drink and drive. There are plenty of valid, constitutional reasons for firearm ownership to be restricted to qualified individuals. When these restrictions are in place, many fewer people die. It is what it is.
It is hard to police guns when there is free travel between the US states, yet only individual states can be relied upon to pass any reform. A broken federal government means guns are easily exported from red states with practically zero gun laws to blue states where they are used to commit crimes. States are often forced to recognize rights granted by other states because such an interstate jurisdictional question naturally bubbles up to the aforementioned dysfunctional federal system.
Similarly to how many (most?) guns used criminally in Mexico actually come from the United States.
Edit: I'm not surprised by the downvotes, but I am amused. These are objective facts. Any basic research will yield many studies (including from the American government) showing that the majority of guns used in crimes in Mexico are traced back to the States. Americans love the boogeyman of dangerous Mexican cartels so much they never seem to ask themselves where these guns come from in the first place. Hint: look in the mirror.
> A broken federal government means guns are easily exported from red states with practically zero gun laws to blue states where they are used to commit crimes
So why are the crime rates in most of these "red states" you are referring to often so much lower?
> Any basic research will yield many studies (including from the American government) showing that the majority of guns used in crimes in Mexico are traced back to the States
I couldn't give less of a fuck if this were true "research" or not: this isn't my problem, nor is it a valid reason to restrict my rights.
Also, please: a multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise can't build or buy a machine shop and enslave or hire some machinists? They can build submarines and drones, but just couldn't possibly operate without US firearms? What reality do you live in?
The characterization of the federal government as "broken" (at least in this capacity) and "dysfunctional" is a normative judgment you're making based on your own subjective value preferences.
Some -- perhaps most -- Americans regard the federal constitution's ability to restrain states from enacting policies that transgress against generally accepted individual rights as desirable, and working as intended.
That wasn't the objective fact in question, and I think you know that. A humorous one to contest anyway, given it is well known most Americans take a dim view of federal politics, especially when their favored party is out of power. This is a country where national elections are routinely decided by roughly a percentage point.
Are you willing to concede most guns used by criminals in Mexico come from the United States? That would be a question of fact, not characterization. And that, if it is easy enough to smuggle guns from red states into Mexico to commit crimes, it stands to reason it is even easier for red states to do the same to blue states? Or are you going to invent some other strawman to attack in your defense of your "individual rights"?
> states that already have the most restrictive gun control already, yet to nobody's surprise, hasn't done much to curb violent crime
The "most restrictive gun control" states in the US would still be generally by far the least restrictive gun control states in the rest of the developed world (you know, where gun-related deaths are a small fraction of here?).
Your answer smacks of "well, they tried and surprise surprise it doesn't work so why are we doing it?", i.e. "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens".
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.
> 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.
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.
^ This. The Feds are so utterly gridlocked in culture war nonsense and whatever dumb bullshit Trump is up to that they cannot effectively govern. States and activists groups are trying to address actual problems the country has, instead of just playing political games on Twitter.
To be fair, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group was murdered with a 3D-printed handgun. He made $10 million in 2023, or about 100 times the median salary of a UnitedHealth employee.
I know no such thing. The number one type of gun death is by far, suicide. When a gun owner takes a gun home (or in this case, prints one) statistically speaking they are more likely to use it to end their own lives or harm themselves more than anything else.
You could make a similar case for this as was made for the banning of highly toxic coal gas in the UK in the 1960's. Most suicides are acts of distressed individuals who have quick, easy access to means of ending their own lives. The forced changeover from coal gas to natural gas is largely credited with a reduction of suicide by 40% after it was done. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC478945/
I don't think 3d printed guns have been around long enough to really provide meaningful data on whether this law will be effective, and on the whole, I'm not thrilled about it. But again, as was originally commented: this is an issue where states are, perhaps ineffectively and ineptly, attempting to solve what they see as problems, under a federal government that has shown itself incredibly resistant to common sense gun regulation that virtually everyone, including the gun owning community, thinks is a good idea.
> The forced changeover from coal gas to natural gas is largely credited with a reduction of suicide by 40% after it was done.
The mechanism of that reduction very well could be reducing the level of depression in the populace and thus suicidal ideation, rather than just making the means less handy (or of course, some combination). Coal gas, like any other gas used for combustion, doesn't burn perfectly and UK homes likely had persistent amounts of carbon monoxide roughly all the time since heat gets used not-quite-year-round.
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.
> 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 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.
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.
No amount of FBI stats about how often "assault" rifles are used will change people's minds. They don't like them and so want to take them away.
I don't know how to square the same people saying we're living under a tyrannical government also pushing legislation that makes sure said tyrannical government is the only one with guns.
I can't square people who think owning a gun will stop or prevent a tyrannical government. Especially when the tyrannical government just leverages its supporters as a vigilante force.
The problem with that thinking is that you have to have the will to act to stop tyranny, and no amount of armament will give you the will or the foresight to see it.
Long gun homicides (justified and unjustified, "assault weapons" and grandpa's 30-06 combined) are typically sub-100 per year, see: FBI crime stats for the last N decades.
Pick whatever demise: falling off of ladders, roofs, etc. - it's not hard to exceed this number in any given year.
It's legal to manufacture your own firearms. Putting limitations on 3d printers just makes people who want to this's lives harder and stifles innovation.
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."
Might be true in California, but this is almost entirely false at a federal level.
You can't make it for the purposes of sale, but you can sell or loan it as part of trading your personal collection. I've heard the myth about not being able to sell over and over but no one has ever been able to point out a federal law against selling a privately manufactured firearm incidentally later as part of trade in their collection, with or without a serial number. All successful prosecutions I've read involved people making them for the purpose of sale or transfer and then getting caught doing that -- for that you need an FFL.
You do not have to be a FFL to transfer a nonserialized firearm. In fact tons of guns made before the GCA had no serial number, as there was no blanket requirement before 1968, they are legally sold privately all the time (as are PMF / "ghost guns" that people no longer want).
>[addndm] "Requirements for Individuals
Yeah that's an uncited bit of misinformed nonsense, it's totally false. If there is a law or ruling they surely could have cited it, in fact what they did was apparently trawl forums or something repeating that myth and just regurgitated it out. Here is the actual rule they claim they are referring to[] I challenge anyone to find that nonsense in there.
In fact, it says the exact opposite, as I will cite the actual rule that those morons are pretending to refer to:
At the same time, neither the GCA nor the proposed or final rule prohibits unlicensed individuals from marking (non-NFA) firearms they make for their personal use, or when they occasionally acquire them for a personal collection, or sell or transfer them from a personal collection to unlicensed in-State residents consistent with Federal, State, and local law. There are also no recordkeeping requirements imposed by the GCA or the proposed or final rule upon unlicensed persons who make their own firearms, but only upon licensees who choose to take PMFs into inventory. In sum, this rule does not impose any new requirements on law-abiding gun owners.
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.
I have no idea about CA but this is absolutely the case in NYC.[] Dexter Taylor is sitting in jail for a decade for making personal use firearms without a license. No other alleged criminal activity and they never even left his house. During trial, the judge said "the second amendment isn't allowed in my courtroom."*
His lawyer knows they are going to lose all the appeals in New York but basically he has to sit in jail for 3-4 years through the state court system until it can hit federal courts where there is a good chance his case will eventually get overturned.
Of course the second amendment isn't allowed in his courtroom. It's literally not allowed in any courtroom in the country. It's a courtroom. The only people permitted to have guns in a courtroom in the US are the bailiffs and the judge. Was that a reading comprehension issue, or are you just trying to rile people up?
Sports Arenas and Jails are two other places you might be surprised to learn don't allow the second amendment.
No, what the judge is saying is that just arguing that you're allowed to do whatever "gun things" you want because of the 2nd amendment in a state district court is specious. You can argue the merits of the specific case based on the precedent in that and other courts that have jurisdiction but simply standing up and arguing baldly that the 2nd amendment lets you make guns and sell them without a serial number doesn't carry water. To make that argument you'd first have to take the F out of ATF and roll back a lot of case law that exists at the federal level that does give states the right to enact some controls.
It's a gross oversimplification of what the judge was trying to say to imply that they don't care about the 2nd amendment or the constitution.
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.
Trying to restrict the non-printed ICs you'd connect to your 3D printed parts would be even dumber. There's a zillion things that can slam out bits and control a stepper motor.
California has lots of restrictions on firearms. When I lived in the state, I had to get a firearm safety certificate (which involved paying some money and taking a multiple choice test), present my ID for a background check, get my thumb print taken, submit two forms of proof of my address (such as utility bills), demonstrate safe handling of a firearm, and wait 10 days. A cell phone bill didn't count as proof of address, only fixed utilities like water & electricity. I'm sure this denied many renters the ability to purchase firearms. Also I could only purchase firearms on California's roster (a whitelist of firearm makes and models). Popular firearms such as 4th generation Glocks were not on the roster, though cops were allowed to buy them. Also firearms couldn't have threaded barrels (it's a felony to put one on your gun) and magazines were limited to a capacity of 10 rounds.
Carrying a handgun for self-defense was impossible, as the local authorities only gave out permits to those with political connections. This caused a scandal in 2020 when the Santa Clara County Sheriff was caught issuing concealed carry permits to some bodyguards at Apple in exchange for iPads.[1] Thanks to Bruen[2] it is now possible for any law-abiding citizen to get a permit if they jump through all the hoops (which includes fingerprinting, a psych eval, and examination of your social media posts), though it can take over a year to process the application and costs can exceed $1,000.
At some point the law changed to require a background check to buy ammunition, which always failed for me. I never figured out why, but my guess is that my name didn't fit in the state's database. This sort of thing happened to around 10% of legal gun owners in the state. I never got it sorted out before I moved away.
You have described the lawmaking process of basically any country. We can't actually write laws to solve real problems because real problems are hard and you can actually tell whether they've been solved or not, but we can write laws to solve imaginary problems and then when nothing changes declare victory.
You can pretty much tell when any given administration has run out of ideas once they start making a huge amount of noise about laws that affect to first and second order literally nobody. 3-D printed guns is basically California's version of illegal immigrants voting in elections. Both things happen to a vanishingly small degree that it's not worth taking any action on either, but you can make them sound like they're the greatest threat to America if you have a megaphone loud enough.
> Both things happen to a vanishingly small degree that it's not worth taking any action on either
Eh, small thing there. Ever notice how when discussion about voter ID laws in the US come up that commenters from other countries are absolutely blown away by the idea of not having to show an ID when you vote? Because it’s such an obvious thing to not just leave up to the honor system, like we do? Point being, everyone else seems to think this “thing that could never happen” is worth safeguarding against.
You're right it's a very obvious thing that you should have to show your government issued ID to verify who you are to a civic function, and that relying on the honor system is something that seems like it could never work because elections are serious and people have vested interest in particular outcomes and so would obviously look to cheat.
But this is what I'm talking about it being a theoretical problem. It's so obvious that this could be an issue but it's not an actual issue and the USA stands as an example that, counterintuitively, you actually can rely on the honor system. And so because the system currently works as it is and there's no real problem to point to I think it is reasonable to be inherently suspicious of the motives of a government that wants to make a thing harder without being able to point to a concrete problem.
A less controversial example on hacker news would be having to show your government ID to access porn. We are all rightfully suspicious of the motives of a government that wants that when to most Americans it is plainly obvious that there is not a real problem being solved. It's so obvious that you should have to show proof that you're 18 in order to access 18 and up material but we have more than two decades of proof that just asking them if they're 18 and up works well enough.
I think you’re making the mistake of assuming that this thing that we can’t really verify (because we can’t make sure <person voting> = <person registered> at the polls) isn’t happening, precisely because we can’t accurately verify it. It’s not a theoretical concern that voter rolls can be stale (because of not removing dead people or people who have moved in a timely manner) or otherwise inaccurate. And attempts to actually purge voter rolls always meet stiff resistance as some nefarious ploy to disenfranchise voters. There is at any time a non-zero chance that you could vote using the name of someone who’s either dead or not around any more. So why so much resistance to safeguarding against that? Nevermind the added benefit that a national ID card could be used as a real replacement for Social Security numbers. But again, so much resistance to something that every other country thinks is a good idea. Which is even more assuming since we point to “well everyone else does it that way” for so many issues. But voter ID? Oh, well that’s complicated, couldn’t possibly work here.
They meet stiff resistance because they're always done at election time and only selectively.
Voter ID laws are a non-starter because historically they've been used, along with literacy tests and civics tests, to disenfranchise people who can't get an ID. For example, in Idaho you must have "proof of your identity and age" like a birth certificate or citizenship certificate, plus proof of residency like a utility bill or rental agreement or employment record.
These things are easy for most people to provide, but people who are in unstable living situations may find these things impossible to provide. Requiring those people to provide ID at the polls would effectively disenfranchise them.
> Regulating actual guns that are frequently used in crime? Unlikely.
Well, two things. First, your phrasing implies there’s no regulations around firearm ownership at all, which is not true.
Second, much to the chagrin of California and similar states, that pesky second amendment exists. Which makes the kind of regulations they _want_ around firearms (i.e., regulate/tax them out of existence) kind of tricky. But presumably regulations around what you can do with a 3D printer are much easier to handle from a constitutional perspective.
> Which makes the kind of regulations they _want_ around firearms (i.e., regulate/tax them out of existence) kind of tricky.
Not really. They do whatever regulations they want all the time. It's just sometimes federal government steps in and forces certain local laws to not be enforced.
I was able to get CCW permit in LA only due to such intervention.
There also exists a pesky fourth amendment that should protect people from laws like this but unfortunately it doesn't have the industry and lobbing that the second amendment has.
i think it can go further than that, such as circular scenarios, what portion of the item, is the part to worry about.
if a printing or milling job, or some combination of both, is split into many portions, until each portion is such a jigsaw puzzle, [perhaps literally] that it cant be filtered as its so non specific in form, that it could be anything.
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.
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.
Requiring people to drive to Nevada to buy a real 3DP?
I'm a long time shooter of all kinds of firearms (bolt actions to full-autos).
What people don't realize is that gun control works, but only when it's very controlled - i.e. full registration, deep checks, mandatory training, strict storage, no handguns, etc.
You need to do it across the whole country, as a real customs border can cut guns significantly, but in the US you can do still do a private party (person to person with no dealer) transfer in many states, making gun running pretty trivial.
None of this will happen anytime soon in the US, and the ghost guns, etc. thing will keep happening.
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.
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.
US requires only the serialized part of a firearm treated as guns. For the AR-15, which is like PC/AT of guns, it's a nearly cosmetic part of it, sort of a motherboard backplate. Or like, a collar for a dog rather than the heart of a dog. As such, that part reportedly can be printed and used to shoot live rounds fine. Most other guns apart for AR-15 don't even matter, like how an E-ATX motherboard with dual PowerPC hardly matter in any talks concerning a PC - if you'd be wondering what about Raspberry Pi, that would be SIG P320 or something like that.
In most place of the world, including where I am, pressure bearing parts such as the barrel, the bolt that locks onto the end of the barrel to seal it as it fires, the firing pin that ignites the cartridge, the live cartridge containing gunpowder, etc etc, rather than the part that merely carries its nameplate, are controlled. It is illegal in such places to buy or possess functionally relevant parts of a gun, at least without a license, and/or prior approvals. This is more like buying a CPU or motherboards would be controlled rather than cases and faceplates. In some places, what is considered a gun in US hardly qualify as such, even almost slipping through customs(allegedly).
You guys gotta fix that broken classification before trying to offload onus onto the global 3D printing community. Or drop it altogether.
Snuck in my Bambu P1S. Won't be upgrading that firmware hahaha! I've had it for a few months now and it's a good consumer-grade easy-to-use 3d printer.
A 3D printer being able to identify what it's actually printing is much harder than it seems. Also, the majority of what gets printed are parts - how do you distinguish between a legal gun owner printing accessories and parts that go towards a ghost gun?
Also, good luck farming off the job to the DOJ right now. The ATF has already mostly shrugged at the prospect of 3D printed guns, and that was before the administration gutted it. I don't think they have any interest/ability to cooperate with tech regulation at this time.
This, like every other bill on the subject that has been attempted from around the country, is bound for a quiet death by committee.
The definition carve-out for "additive manufacturing" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. CNC mills, laser cutters, and waterjet cutters can all produce the same end result but fall outside the statutory language. So the bill doesn't regulate the capability — it regulates the specific manufacturing process. Which means it's trivially circumvented by anyone who actually wants to make something prohibited, while imposing DOJ-reporting requirements on every hobbyist, educator, and small manufacturer running a $200 Ender 3.
This is the pattern with most hardware regulation attempts: the compliance burden falls on the people already operating in the open, while the actual threat model (someone with intent) routes around it by switching tools or buying across state lines.
It's highly misleading to call a bill that was introduced a couple of days ago by one Assembly member "California's new bill". Bills aren't laws and most bills go nowhere.
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" ?
This is so dumb. It isn't the printers where you could solve this but the slicers and slicers are for the most part open source. Effectively this is another ban on particular numbers. The printers just execute G-code and to make a printer aware of what it is that it is printing requires a completely different level of processing than what is normally present in the printers. Besides that, you could break anything up into parts that don't necessarily look like the complete article.
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.
I wonder how "significant technical skill" will be interpreted in practice. That phrase likely means something different to the average HN reader than to the average congressman.
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.
This is bullshit. It's a clear power grab to re-seize democratized means of production, and added surveillance. Both suck. The proposed bill in Washington is even worse, and blanket bans nearly any kind of machining or manufacturing that doesn't use surveillance. I'm going to have to actually write letters to lawmakers now as if there wasn't enough bullshit happening already.
That's an illegal tube is what you've got right there... Hay wait _I_ could be an illegal tube at any point, either by choice or at the mercy of a lawmakers writing tools.
This is an idiotic feel-good bill being pushed by political opportunists who want to look like they're taking action against a flood of illicit plastic guns. In a sane world, it would be shut down before anyone even wasted the time to print it.
I feel like the core issue here is accessibility. It’s always been possible to machine your own gun, but that required technical skill. Now the skill lies in the designing of the models, not the manufacturing, so it may be more practical to go after model distribution. But that ship might have already sailed with the advent of AI model creators.
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.
> 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.
> (a) Any business that produces or manufactures three-dimensional printers for sale or transfer in California shall take both of the following steps
This is worded a bit ambiguously: it's not clear whether it's meant to be "manufactures ... in California" or "for sale or transfer in California". IANAL, but wouldn't the latter be unconstitutional inasmuch as it conflicts with federal jurisdiction over interstate commerce? It seems unlikely that California would be able to enforce this against businesses that have no operational presence there, and are merely shipping 3D printers to California from other states.
And if that's the case, the only meaningful effect of this bill passing will be to further motivate anyone making or selling 3D printers to leave California for other states.
Clearly this is mostly security theatre (see eg comment about proving that them printer can't print a printer that can print a gun).
On the other hand - it would be low hanging fruit to prevent off the shelf printers to print well known gun parts? Much like photocopiers and scanners and printers won't scan, copy or print known currency bills?
The irony is that these printers are all coming from China where even thinking about printing a gun is illegal. In comparison, America has a massive consumer gun production industry that wouldn’t survive if a significant share of that production wasn’t smuggled into Latin America.
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.
> The state should prosecute people who make illegal thing, not add useless surveillance software on every tool in every classroom, library, and garage in the state.
This is analogous to requiring text editors to verify that a document does not contain defamation, fraud, incitement, fighting words, child porn, etc., before it saves the file. In first amendment terms that led to the conclusion that prior restraint on publication is incompatible with the amendment. The same doctrine should be extended to the second amendment for the same reasons. The alternative is intolerable surveillance.
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?
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.
> Gun manufacturers are likely against these types of regulations because many of them would affect manufacturers and the tools they use too.
No chance. For them compliance is the easiest thing in the world to law like that
Well, the NRA has come out against all of these proposed bills and has mentioned concerns about requirements that they may place on manufacturers.
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260218/washington-action-a...
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260112/bans-for-3d-bluepri...
> strictest laws that the federation allows them to have
Note that "the federation" allowed states to have stricter gun laws until recently when we got a new partisan supreme court that is out of step with the previous 200 years of jurispudence.
It was confirmed for the previous ~130 or so, at least, since United States v. Cruikshank... although I certainly wouldn't want to go back to those days before the Bill of Rights were incorporated against state/local governments... Basically it was a blank check for racists to suppress minorities.
The result of United States v. Cruikshank was that southern states were allowed to to prohibit black individuals from owning firearms to defend themselves from the KKK. Not exactly a great example of gun control.
What's also crazy it is that it is also relatively recently that the first amendment was incorporated against states and localities as well.
> 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.
Ironically the anti-gun lobby seems to drive a lot of gun sales, perhaps it is not what it says on the tin?
I have three guns. One I inherited, two I bought right before California turned up gun restrictions. Possibly the greatest time for gun makers was when Hilary Clinton had a clear lead in the race for president.
No conspiracy required. There's a lot of money to be made lobbying against guns - in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year - regardless of efficacy.
On the other hand, no one from the pro-gun camp is involved with or wants to involve themselves with drafting common-sense gun regulations to reduce the impact of mass shootings while respecting Constitutional rights. Everything from that side seems to revolve around arming schoolteachers and permitting more guns in more spaces.
So of course you're going to have wildly-overreaching proposals making it through committees and put to the vote, because no one from the other side is there to compromise with. Americans prefer to debate on the news circuit instead of the committee floor.
> hasn't done much to curb violent crime.
> they have to keep the boogeyman alive rather than admit that the policies have been a failure.
It's a documented, empirical fact that there is a marked correlation between common-sense gun laws and reduced rates of gun deaths.[1]
[1] https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/
"documented, empirical fact"
I won't try to make as strong a claim as the person you are responding to, but unfortunately, the politicized nature of the topic makes research on gun violence, especially as it relates to gun laws in the US, extremely fraught. The vast majority of research articles are plagued with issues. One should not just blanket trust the research (in either direction, and there are definitely peer reviewed journal articles pointing in different directions).
The claim you responded to was too strong, but for similar reasons, yours is also far far too confident.
I'm responding to someone making assertions with zero cites, and I cite a source. If anyone has a cite showing that loose gun policies results in lower rates of gun deaths, they're free to present that.
"a source" - You "cited" the most left-leaning, well-funded anti-gun lobby in the United States. Is that who passes for a "source" these days?
Attack the source as much as you like, it's not refuting the point in any way.
I'm impugning the entire field of research, why would I then provide an opposing citation? My own claim should lead you to not trust it. I'm also not making any particular directional claim that would require such a citation.
I'm arguing that your statement, citation supported or otherwise, was stronger than I believe is warranted. You (correctly) criticized the original comment for making a stronger claim than they were able to support. You then technically did a better job in supporting your own claim (in the sense that you made any attempt to support it at all), but, in my opinion, you still made the same mistake of making a claim that was much stronger than warranted.
Do you have a source that isn't the anti-pickle alliance's statistics on anti-pickle laws proving why you should implement their anti-pickle laws?
Garbage methodology, state by state policies need to use something like a difference in difference study measure actual effect sizing
The most common gun death is suicide so that tracks pretty well.
But I doubt most people count suicide as “violent crime”.
“Common sense” is a red flag for me. Obama pitched revoking second amendment rights for people on the Do Not Fly list as “common sense”. My common sense says we shouldn’t use a secret, extrajudicial government watch list with documented problems with false positives to revoke constitutional rights.
"Common sense" is an oft-used tactic in this space: if what I am pushing is common sense, whatever you are pushing is senseless.
https://www.criminalattorneycincinnati.com/comparing-gun-con...
Yet another lie by ommision. Violent deaths by guns have no relation to strength of gun laws. What that measures is the number of accidental deaths by guns. If gun owners want to kill themselves it's not my job to keep them safe.
> If gun owners want to kill themselves it's not my job to keep them safe.
Not so fun fact, the person most likely to be killed by a gun in your home is you.
Some places deal with that reality head on, and it has an outcome that a lot of people are okay with.
> Not so fun fact, the person most likely to be killed by a gun in your home is you.
No shit: people commit suicide (which your "statistic" you lifted from Everytown, Giffords, or VPC - anti-gun lobbies includes.)
Suicidal people aren't a valid reason for my rights to be restricted, sorry.
> Suicidal people aren't a valid reason for my rights to be restricted, sorry.
You also have a right to travel around the country, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to drink and drive. There are plenty of valid, constitutional reasons for firearm ownership to be restricted to qualified individuals. When these restrictions are in place, many fewer people die. It is what it is.
Can you show me where the right to drive a car is Constitutionally-protected?
Also, what a shitty analogy: suicide is by definition a self-harmful act, DUI is almost always a socially-harmful act on its own.
(And in many states, you can DUI on private property, by the way.)
> Also, what a shitty analogy: suicide is by definition a self-harmful act, DUI is almost always a socially-harmful act on its own.
"59% of people who died in crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers in 2022 were the alcohol-impaired drivers themselves"[1]
Also, people who commit suicide with their firearms typically have families who suffer.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/impaired-driving/facts/index.html
It's also a documented empirical fact that arresting the criminals in DC has reduced shootings to virtually zero.
It is hard to police guns when there is free travel between the US states, yet only individual states can be relied upon to pass any reform. A broken federal government means guns are easily exported from red states with practically zero gun laws to blue states where they are used to commit crimes. States are often forced to recognize rights granted by other states because such an interstate jurisdictional question naturally bubbles up to the aforementioned dysfunctional federal system.
Similarly to how many (most?) guns used criminally in Mexico actually come from the United States.
Edit: I'm not surprised by the downvotes, but I am amused. These are objective facts. Any basic research will yield many studies (including from the American government) showing that the majority of guns used in crimes in Mexico are traced back to the States. Americans love the boogeyman of dangerous Mexican cartels so much they never seem to ask themselves where these guns come from in the first place. Hint: look in the mirror.
> A broken federal government means guns are easily exported from red states with practically zero gun laws to blue states where they are used to commit crimes
So why are the crime rates in most of these "red states" you are referring to often so much lower?
> Any basic research will yield many studies (including from the American government) showing that the majority of guns used in crimes in Mexico are traced back to the States
I couldn't give less of a fuck if this were true "research" or not: this isn't my problem, nor is it a valid reason to restrict my rights.
Also, please: a multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise can't build or buy a machine shop and enslave or hire some machinists? They can build submarines and drones, but just couldn't possibly operate without US firearms? What reality do you live in?
> These are objective facts.
The characterization of the federal government as "broken" (at least in this capacity) and "dysfunctional" is a normative judgment you're making based on your own subjective value preferences.
Some -- perhaps most -- Americans regard the federal constitution's ability to restrain states from enacting policies that transgress against generally accepted individual rights as desirable, and working as intended.
That wasn't the objective fact in question, and I think you know that. A humorous one to contest anyway, given it is well known most Americans take a dim view of federal politics, especially when their favored party is out of power. This is a country where national elections are routinely decided by roughly a percentage point.
Are you willing to concede most guns used by criminals in Mexico come from the United States? That would be a question of fact, not characterization. And that, if it is easy enough to smuggle guns from red states into Mexico to commit crimes, it stands to reason it is even easier for red states to do the same to blue states? Or are you going to invent some other strawman to attack in your defense of your "individual rights"?
> states that already have the most restrictive gun control already, yet to nobody's surprise, hasn't done much to curb violent crime
The "most restrictive gun control" states in the US would still be generally by far the least restrictive gun control states in the rest of the developed world (you know, where gun-related deaths are a small fraction of here?).
Your answer smacks of "well, they tried and surprise surprise it doesn't work so why are we doing it?", i.e. "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens".
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 mean on Amazon you can buy them too, you just might have to look for something like a "lawnmower muffler for 9mm exhausts".
That’s a felony everywhere though
> 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.
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.
California isn't really the USA anymore, so please don't associate them with the rest of us!
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.
This is a reaction to the inability to accomplish anything at the federal level in the "we have to do SOMETHING" vain.
^ This. The Feds are so utterly gridlocked in culture war nonsense and whatever dumb bullshit Trump is up to that they cannot effectively govern. States and activists groups are trying to address actual problems the country has, instead of just playing political games on Twitter.
Ah yes, the actual problem facing America right now... unsanctioned 3d printers.
Thank you California for acting on this, our top national priority.
To be fair, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group was murdered with a 3D-printed handgun. He made $10 million in 2023, or about 100 times the median salary of a UnitedHealth employee.
You can make a gun with a piece of pipe and a nail. It's performative legislature.
The actual problem is gun violence which you absolutely, 100% know.
Which this bill will do nothing to solve, which you absolutely 100% know.
I know no such thing. The number one type of gun death is by far, suicide. When a gun owner takes a gun home (or in this case, prints one) statistically speaking they are more likely to use it to end their own lives or harm themselves more than anything else.
You could make a similar case for this as was made for the banning of highly toxic coal gas in the UK in the 1960's. Most suicides are acts of distressed individuals who have quick, easy access to means of ending their own lives. The forced changeover from coal gas to natural gas is largely credited with a reduction of suicide by 40% after it was done. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC478945/
I don't think 3d printed guns have been around long enough to really provide meaningful data on whether this law will be effective, and on the whole, I'm not thrilled about it. But again, as was originally commented: this is an issue where states are, perhaps ineffectively and ineptly, attempting to solve what they see as problems, under a federal government that has shown itself incredibly resistant to common sense gun regulation that virtually everyone, including the gun owning community, thinks is a good idea.
> The forced changeover from coal gas to natural gas is largely credited with a reduction of suicide by 40% after it was done.
The mechanism of that reduction very well could be reducing the level of depression in the populace and thus suicidal ideation, rather than just making the means less handy (or of course, some combination). Coal gas, like any other gas used for combustion, doesn't burn perfectly and UK homes likely had persistent amounts of carbon monoxide roughly all the time since heat gets used not-quite-year-round.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide_poisoning#Chro... :
> Chronic exposure to relatively low levels of carbon monoxide may cause persistent headaches, [...], depression [...].
> statistically speaking they are more likely to use it to end their own lives
What historical precedent is there for infringement of Constitutionally-enumerated rights of others based on suicides?
Why is this somehow a "gotcha" that would justify these infringements, in your mind?
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.
> 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..
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.
> 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.
Why are you so angry about this?
If someone prevents you from exercising your right to vote, would you be angry?
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.
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.
No amount of FBI stats about how often "assault" rifles are used will change people's minds. They don't like them and so want to take them away.
I don't know how to square the same people saying we're living under a tyrannical government also pushing legislation that makes sure said tyrannical government is the only one with guns.
I can't square people who think owning a gun will stop or prevent a tyrannical government. Especially when the tyrannical government just leverages its supporters as a vigilante force.
The problem with that thinking is that you have to have the will to act to stop tyranny, and no amount of armament will give you the will or the foresight to see it.
Do you have a reference or at least some hard numbers for your "fun fact"?
Long gun homicides (justified and unjustified, "assault weapons" and grandpa's 30-06 combined) are typically sub-100 per year, see: FBI crime stats for the last N decades.
Pick whatever demise: falling off of ladders, roofs, etc. - it's not hard to exceed this number in any given year.
Can you redo your "fun fact" but include all types of guns?
Well there is a lot of weird focus on entirely the wrong things when criticizing guns.
It's legal to manufacture your own firearms. Putting limitations on 3d printers just makes people who want to this's lives harder and stifles innovation.
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..
Might be true in California, but this is almost entirely false at a federal level.
You can't make it for the purposes of sale, but you can sell or loan it as part of trading your personal collection. I've heard the myth about not being able to sell over and over but no one has ever been able to point out a federal law against selling a privately manufactured firearm incidentally later as part of trade in their collection, with or without a serial number. All successful prosecutions I've read involved people making them for the purpose of sale or transfer and then getting caught doing that -- for that you need an FFL.
You do not have to be a FFL to transfer a nonserialized firearm. In fact tons of guns made before the GCA had no serial number, as there was no blanket requirement before 1968, they are legally sold privately all the time (as are PMF / "ghost guns" that people no longer want).
>[addndm] "Requirements for Individuals
Yeah that's an uncited bit of misinformed nonsense, it's totally false. If there is a law or ruling they surely could have cited it, in fact what they did was apparently trawl forums or something repeating that myth and just regurgitated it out. Here is the actual rule they claim they are referring to[] I challenge anyone to find that nonsense in there.
In fact, it says the exact opposite, as I will cite the actual rule that those morons are pretending to refer to:
[] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/04/26/2022-08...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.
I have no idea about CA but this is absolutely the case in NYC.[] Dexter Taylor is sitting in jail for a decade for making personal use firearms without a license. No other alleged criminal activity and they never even left his house. During trial, the judge said "the second amendment isn't allowed in my courtroom."*
His lawyer knows they are going to lose all the appeals in New York but basically he has to sit in jail for 3-4 years through the state court system until it can hit federal courts where there is a good chance his case will eventually get overturned.
[] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Taylor
* Response to below (my comments are throttled): The argument/reference in his defense, not actual guns.
NYC, California... they're the same picture
Of course the second amendment isn't allowed in his courtroom. It's literally not allowed in any courtroom in the country. It's a courtroom. The only people permitted to have guns in a courtroom in the US are the bailiffs and the judge. Was that a reading comprehension issue, or are you just trying to rile people up?
Sports Arenas and Jails are two other places you might be surprised to learn don't allow the second amendment.
The full quote is.
>Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.
This is not about guns in the courtroom. This is a claim that the 2nd amendment of the constitution does not apply to the state of New York.
No, what the judge is saying is that just arguing that you're allowed to do whatever "gun things" you want because of the 2nd amendment in a state district court is specious. You can argue the merits of the specific case based on the precedent in that and other courts that have jurisdiction but simply standing up and arguing baldly that the 2nd amendment lets you make guns and sell them without a serial number doesn't carry water. To make that argument you'd first have to take the F out of ATF and roll back a lot of case law that exists at the federal level that does give states the right to enact some controls.
It's a gross oversimplification of what the judge was trying to say to imply that they don't care about the 2nd amendment or the constitution.
Do you have to prove that your 3D printer cannot print a 3D printer which can print a gun?
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.
Did you mean this one (PDF)? https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
Not OP but yeah that's the one!
when offspring are forbidden, only outlaws will have in-laws
only when they start printing ICs
Trying to restrict the non-printed ICs you'd connect to your 3D printed parts would be even dumber. There's a zillion things that can slam out bits and control a stepper motor.
Well, you can print out of conductive materials.
Like the printers that won't do prints of money that's money-size
the goal is you cant sell a 3D printer without attestation that it is anti firearm compliant.
now they have to do 80% printers, kits composed of not a printer subunits, to be assembled on site.
then DIY sources must be dealt with:
https://pea3d.com/en/how-to-build-your-own-3d-printer/
it looks like mole whackings, all the way down.
Regulating actual guns that are frequently used in crime? Unlikely.
Regulating theoretical guns? No requirement is too draconian.
California has lots of restrictions on firearms. When I lived in the state, I had to get a firearm safety certificate (which involved paying some money and taking a multiple choice test), present my ID for a background check, get my thumb print taken, submit two forms of proof of my address (such as utility bills), demonstrate safe handling of a firearm, and wait 10 days. A cell phone bill didn't count as proof of address, only fixed utilities like water & electricity. I'm sure this denied many renters the ability to purchase firearms. Also I could only purchase firearms on California's roster (a whitelist of firearm makes and models). Popular firearms such as 4th generation Glocks were not on the roster, though cops were allowed to buy them. Also firearms couldn't have threaded barrels (it's a felony to put one on your gun) and magazines were limited to a capacity of 10 rounds.
Carrying a handgun for self-defense was impossible, as the local authorities only gave out permits to those with political connections. This caused a scandal in 2020 when the Santa Clara County Sheriff was caught issuing concealed carry permits to some bodyguards at Apple in exchange for iPads.[1] Thanks to Bruen[2] it is now possible for any law-abiding citizen to get a permit if they jump through all the hoops (which includes fingerprinting, a psych eval, and examination of your social media posts), though it can take over a year to process the application and costs can exceed $1,000.
At some point the law changed to require a background check to buy ammunition, which always failed for me. I never figured out why, but my guess is that my name didn't fit in the state's database. This sort of thing happened to around 10% of legal gun owners in the state. I never got it sorted out before I moved away.
1. https://www.reuters.com/business/apples-security-chief-accus...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Rifle_&_Pistol_...
You have described the lawmaking process of basically any country. We can't actually write laws to solve real problems because real problems are hard and you can actually tell whether they've been solved or not, but we can write laws to solve imaginary problems and then when nothing changes declare victory.
You can pretty much tell when any given administration has run out of ideas once they start making a huge amount of noise about laws that affect to first and second order literally nobody. 3-D printed guns is basically California's version of illegal immigrants voting in elections. Both things happen to a vanishingly small degree that it's not worth taking any action on either, but you can make them sound like they're the greatest threat to America if you have a megaphone loud enough.
I’ve observed this behavior, but never came up with such a succinct (perhaps pithy) way of describing it.
How about "when your career depends on appearing to solve problems, fake ones are much easier than real ones".
> but never came up with such a succinct (perhaps pithy) way of describing it.
Here's one.
"Life is complicated, so is rule-making."
> Both things happen to a vanishingly small degree that it's not worth taking any action on either
Eh, small thing there. Ever notice how when discussion about voter ID laws in the US come up that commenters from other countries are absolutely blown away by the idea of not having to show an ID when you vote? Because it’s such an obvious thing to not just leave up to the honor system, like we do? Point being, everyone else seems to think this “thing that could never happen” is worth safeguarding against.
You're right it's a very obvious thing that you should have to show your government issued ID to verify who you are to a civic function, and that relying on the honor system is something that seems like it could never work because elections are serious and people have vested interest in particular outcomes and so would obviously look to cheat.
But this is what I'm talking about it being a theoretical problem. It's so obvious that this could be an issue but it's not an actual issue and the USA stands as an example that, counterintuitively, you actually can rely on the honor system. And so because the system currently works as it is and there's no real problem to point to I think it is reasonable to be inherently suspicious of the motives of a government that wants to make a thing harder without being able to point to a concrete problem.
A less controversial example on hacker news would be having to show your government ID to access porn. We are all rightfully suspicious of the motives of a government that wants that when to most Americans it is plainly obvious that there is not a real problem being solved. It's so obvious that you should have to show proof that you're 18 in order to access 18 and up material but we have more than two decades of proof that just asking them if they're 18 and up works well enough.
I think you’re making the mistake of assuming that this thing that we can’t really verify (because we can’t make sure <person voting> = <person registered> at the polls) isn’t happening, precisely because we can’t accurately verify it. It’s not a theoretical concern that voter rolls can be stale (because of not removing dead people or people who have moved in a timely manner) or otherwise inaccurate. And attempts to actually purge voter rolls always meet stiff resistance as some nefarious ploy to disenfranchise voters. There is at any time a non-zero chance that you could vote using the name of someone who’s either dead or not around any more. So why so much resistance to safeguarding against that? Nevermind the added benefit that a national ID card could be used as a real replacement for Social Security numbers. But again, so much resistance to something that every other country thinks is a good idea. Which is even more assuming since we point to “well everyone else does it that way” for so many issues. But voter ID? Oh, well that’s complicated, couldn’t possibly work here.
They meet stiff resistance because they're always done at election time and only selectively.
Voter ID laws are a non-starter because historically they've been used, along with literacy tests and civics tests, to disenfranchise people who can't get an ID. For example, in Idaho you must have "proof of your identity and age" like a birth certificate or citizenship certificate, plus proof of residency like a utility bill or rental agreement or employment record.
These things are easy for most people to provide, but people who are in unstable living situations may find these things impossible to provide. Requiring those people to provide ID at the polls would effectively disenfranchise them.
> Regulating actual guns that are frequently used in crime? Unlikely.
Well, two things. First, your phrasing implies there’s no regulations around firearm ownership at all, which is not true.
Second, much to the chagrin of California and similar states, that pesky second amendment exists. Which makes the kind of regulations they _want_ around firearms (i.e., regulate/tax them out of existence) kind of tricky. But presumably regulations around what you can do with a 3D printer are much easier to handle from a constitutional perspective.
> Which makes the kind of regulations they _want_ around firearms (i.e., regulate/tax them out of existence) kind of tricky.
Not really. They do whatever regulations they want all the time. It's just sometimes federal government steps in and forces certain local laws to not be enforced.
I was able to get CCW permit in LA only due to such intervention.
There also exists a pesky fourth amendment that should protect people from laws like this but unfortunately it doesn't have the industry and lobbing that the second amendment has.
The 28th amendment: right to keep and bare 3D printers
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)
The real question is, if I buy 80% of a 3d printer to be finished on my own, does it need a Prop 65 sticker?
(The answer is actually "yes, several".)
i think it can go further than that, such as circular scenarios, what portion of the item, is the part to worry about.
if a printing or milling job, or some combination of both, is split into many portions, until each portion is such a jigsaw puzzle, [perhaps literally] that it cant be filtered as its so non specific in form, that it could be anything.
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...
"3D Printer" is a broad term. Would this apply to HAAS automated CNC machines? They can "3D Print" things from billet.
> (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.
-resin or similar material
Or just start printing them out of something useful like metal
Good point. Is metal powder "similar material"? What's the cheapest laser sinterer?
Requiring people to drive to Nevada to buy a real 3DP?
I'm a long time shooter of all kinds of firearms (bolt actions to full-autos).
What people don't realize is that gun control works, but only when it's very controlled - i.e. full registration, deep checks, mandatory training, strict storage, no handguns, etc.
You need to do it across the whole country, as a real customs border can cut guns significantly, but in the US you can do still do a private party (person to person with no dealer) transfer in many states, making gun running pretty trivial.
None of this will happen anytime soon in the US, and the ghost guns, etc. thing will keep happening.
who is sponsoring and pushing these bills?
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.
US requires only the serialized part of a firearm treated as guns. For the AR-15, which is like PC/AT of guns, it's a nearly cosmetic part of it, sort of a motherboard backplate. Or like, a collar for a dog rather than the heart of a dog. As such, that part reportedly can be printed and used to shoot live rounds fine. Most other guns apart for AR-15 don't even matter, like how an E-ATX motherboard with dual PowerPC hardly matter in any talks concerning a PC - if you'd be wondering what about Raspberry Pi, that would be SIG P320 or something like that.
In most place of the world, including where I am, pressure bearing parts such as the barrel, the bolt that locks onto the end of the barrel to seal it as it fires, the firing pin that ignites the cartridge, the live cartridge containing gunpowder, etc etc, rather than the part that merely carries its nameplate, are controlled. It is illegal in such places to buy or possess functionally relevant parts of a gun, at least without a license, and/or prior approvals. This is more like buying a CPU or motherboards would be controlled rather than cases and faceplates. In some places, what is considered a gun in US hardly qualify as such, even almost slipping through customs(allegedly).
You guys gotta fix that broken classification before trying to offload onus onto the global 3D printing community. Or drop it altogether.
Fascinating parallel with this thread regarding regulating AI bots:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066567
Nice sentiments, but totally impractical.
Snuck in my Bambu P1S. Won't be upgrading that firmware hahaha! I've had it for a few months now and it's a good consumer-grade easy-to-use 3d printer.
Yummy yummy user 3D model data
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…
A 3D printer being able to identify what it's actually printing is much harder than it seems. Also, the majority of what gets printed are parts - how do you distinguish between a legal gun owner printing accessories and parts that go towards a ghost gun?
Also, good luck farming off the job to the DOJ right now. The ATF has already mostly shrugged at the prospect of 3D printed guns, and that was before the administration gutted it. I don't think they have any interest/ability to cooperate with tech regulation at this time.
This, like every other bill on the subject that has been attempted from around the country, is bound for a quiet death by committee.
The definition carve-out for "additive manufacturing" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. CNC mills, laser cutters, and waterjet cutters can all produce the same end result but fall outside the statutory language. So the bill doesn't regulate the capability — it regulates the specific manufacturing process. Which means it's trivially circumvented by anyone who actually wants to make something prohibited, while imposing DOJ-reporting requirements on every hobbyist, educator, and small manufacturer running a $200 Ender 3.
This is the pattern with most hardware regulation attempts: the compliance burden falls on the people already operating in the open, while the actual threat model (someone with intent) routes around it by switching tools or buying across state lines.
It's highly misleading to call a bill that was introduced a couple of days ago by one Assembly member "California's new bill". Bills aren't laws and most bills go nowhere.
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" ?
This is so dumb. It isn't the printers where you could solve this but the slicers and slicers are for the most part open source. Effectively this is another ban on particular numbers. The printers just execute G-code and to make a printer aware of what it is that it is printing requires a completely different level of processing than what is normally present in the printers. Besides that, you could break anything up into parts that don't necessarily look like the complete article.
California is no longer progressive.
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.
I wonder how "significant technical skill" will be interpreted in practice. That phrase likely means something different to the average HN reader than to the average congressman.
Price surge for old 3d printers ;)
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.
This is bullshit. It's a clear power grab to re-seize democratized means of production, and added surveillance. Both suck. The proposed bill in Washington is even worse, and blanket bans nearly any kind of machining or manufacturing that doesn't use surveillance. I'm going to have to actually write letters to lawmakers now as if there wasn't enough bullshit happening already.
I think this isn't about guns but more about seeing and controlling what people are printing. Guns is just the excuse to monitor.
"Hey I see your printing a replacement part for you washer. Well that is a patent part and you will need to pay to print that."
Who is going to tell them about lathes? They are much more practical for machining useful firearms. Good luck with all of that, I guess, California.
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!"
That's an illegal tube is what you've got right there... Hay wait _I_ could be an illegal tube at any point, either by choice or at the mercy of a lawmakers writing tools.
This is an idiotic feel-good bill being pushed by political opportunists who want to look like they're taking action against a flood of illicit plastic guns. In a sane world, it would be shut down before anyone even wasted the time to print it.
WE DO NOT LIVE IN THAT WORLD.
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.
just wait until some enterprising irresponsibility, starts spreading knowledge of microwave beam weapons, and the associated kit/files.
just as deadly, harder to trace when there is no ballistic evidence, maybe an RF signature that FCC monitors will record.
I feel like the core issue here is accessibility. It’s always been possible to machine your own gun, but that required technical skill. Now the skill lies in the designing of the models, not the manufacturing, so it may be more practical to go after model distribution. But that ship might have already sailed with the advent of AI model creators.
Then the AI hallucinates a plausible model that explodes in your hands.
Sometimes I wonder what Adafruit's first language is.
Of course the Bill does not require DOJ-approved 3d printers.
Can you clarify what you mean?
Title: "California’s New Bill Requires DOJ-Approved 3D Printers That Report on Themselves"
Actual fact: California’s New Bill Requires that 3D Printers Get DOJ Approval as Firearm-Blocking"
(The "report on themselves" is fiction invented by Adafruit.)
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.
Actual text from your link is:
> (a) Any business that produces or manufactures three-dimensional printers for sale or transfer in California shall take both of the following steps
This is worded a bit ambiguously: it's not clear whether it's meant to be "manufactures ... in California" or "for sale or transfer in California". IANAL, but wouldn't the latter be unconstitutional inasmuch as it conflicts with federal jurisdiction over interstate commerce? It seems unlikely that California would be able to enforce this against businesses that have no operational presence there, and are merely shipping 3D printers to California from other states.
And if that's the case, the only meaningful effect of this bill passing will be to further motivate anyone making or selling 3D printers to leave California for other states.
Clearly this is mostly security theatre (see eg comment about proving that them printer can't print a printer that can print a gun).
On the other hand - it would be low hanging fruit to prevent off the shelf printers to print well known gun parts? Much like photocopiers and scanners and printers won't scan, copy or print known currency bills?
> It seems pretty clear this would prohibit the sale of 3D printers that are not approved by the California DoJ.
Note the difference w.r.t. the ridiculous "California's New Bill Requires DOJ-Approved 3D Printers".
The irony is that these printers are all coming from China where even thinking about printing a gun is illegal. In comparison, America has a massive consumer gun production industry that wouldn’t survive if a significant share of that production wasn’t smuggled into Latin America.
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-...