[HN Gopher] California's new bill requires DOJ-approved 3D print...
___________________________________________________________________
California's new bill requires DOJ-approved 3D printers that report
themselves
Author : fortran77
Score : 205 points
Date : 2026-02-19 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.adafruit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.adafruit.com)
| chrisjj wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder what Adafruit's first language is.
|
| Of course the Bill does not _require_ DOJ-approved 3d printers.
| zachrip wrote:
| Can you clarify what you mean?
| alisonkisk wrote:
| 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.)
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| "to be able to get a 3D printer" is implied in the
| "requires" wording. There's no problem with that part.
| vel0city wrote:
| 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.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > 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".
| vel0city wrote:
| I still don't see what's you're saying. California's bill
| is requiring their DoJ to approve 3D printers for sale or
| transfer within the state of California.
|
| I wonder what your first language is.
| e12e wrote:
| 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?
| 15155 wrote:
| > prevent off the shelf printers to print well known gun
| parts?
|
| > copy or print known currency bills
|
| Currency explicitly embeds detectable patterns to make
| software detection easy - firearm 3D models don't have any
| such feature.
| Gormo wrote:
| 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.
| vel0city wrote:
| I do agree, there are a lot of federalism concerns. That
| said, there are a lot of things which are illegal for sale
| at a state/city/county level that vary across
| state/county/city lines. Its not entirely a new domain.
| Gormo wrote:
| Sure, but those local laws have no relevance outside
| their jurisdiction. In this case, it's not clear that
| California isn't trying to extend its reach beyond its
| own borders.
| rolph wrote:
| 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.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Regulating actual guns that are frequently used in crime?
| Unlikely.
|
| Regulating theoretical guns? No requirement is too draconian.
| Spivak wrote:
| 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.
| nickff wrote:
| I've observed this behavior, but never came up with such a
| succinct (perhaps pithy) way of describing it.
| vkou wrote:
| > but never came up with such a succinct (perhaps pithy)
| way of describing it.
|
| Here's one.
|
| "Life is complicated, so is rule-making."
| nickff wrote:
| This is indeed pithy, but does not capture the contrast
| of the great-grandparent comment.
| Gormo wrote:
| How about "when your career depends on _appearing_ to
| solve problems, fake ones are much easier than real ones
| ".
| xienze wrote:
| > 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.
| Spivak wrote:
| 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.
| xienze wrote:
| 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.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| 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.
| xienze wrote:
| > 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.
| postalrat wrote:
| 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.
| sellmesoap wrote:
| The 28th amendment: right to keep and bare 3D printers
| 0x457 wrote:
| > 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.
| ggreer wrote:
| 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 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_&_Pisto
| l_...
| LoganDark wrote:
| 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...
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| 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)
| throwing_away wrote:
| 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".)
| rolph wrote:
| 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.
| Imnimo wrote:
| Do you have to prove that your 3D printer cannot print a 3D
| printer which can print a gun?
| m463 wrote:
| when offspring are forbidden, only outlaws will have in-laws
| armeehn wrote:
| 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.
| cyb_ wrote:
| Did you mean this one (PDF)? https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/
| 487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
| carb wrote:
| Not OP but yeah that's the one!
| bluedino wrote:
| Like the printers that won't do prints of money that's money-
| size
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| only when they start printing ICs
| 0x457 wrote:
| Well, you can print out of conductive materials.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| 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.
| acedTrex wrote:
| who is sponsoring and pushing these bills?
| MrMember wrote:
| Authoritarians, as always.
| criddell wrote:
| Assembly Member Bauer-Kahan
| sonar_un wrote:
| 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.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| 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.
| jajuuka wrote:
| 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.
| nippoo wrote:
| 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?
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| 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.
| guelo wrote:
| > 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| 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.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| > 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
| kube-system wrote:
| 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...
| thom_nic wrote:
| > 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.
| sellmesoap wrote:
| Ironically the anti-gun lobby seems to drive a lot of gun
| sales, perhaps it is not what it says on the tin?
| nostromo wrote:
| 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.
| delichon wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| A democratic governor/president is the greatest salesman
| for the gun industry. When a Dem is in office, the right
| wing comes out with all of the "they're coming for your
| guns" which is followed by a spike in gun sales.
| tracker1 wrote:
| The latter doesn't make the former untrue. There are
| plenty of people that want to eliminate all private gun
| ownership altogether, even if their public speech is more
| moderate.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I bought my three when I saw videos of the ATF under Biden
| start random "knock and talk" sessions for those who
| recently bought more than one firearm. They're all in a
| friend's gun safe as I have had bouts of depression, so I
| won't keep it in my home... I know it kind of defeats the
| purpose... but I'm very much a supporter of all of my civil
| rights, including and especially 2A.
|
| I do some range days a couple times a year.
| pear01 wrote:
| 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.
| Gormo wrote:
| > 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.
| pear01 wrote:
| 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"?
| Gormo wrote:
| > Are you willing to concede most guns used by criminals
| in Mexico come from the United States?
|
| No -- nor am I willing to assert the opposite, because I
| have no knowledge of the topic. I will ask, though: why
| is the place of manufacturer of guns used by criminals is
| Mexico something worth worrying about?
|
| > 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?
|
| Well, yes, of course. But I assume that this will be the
| case regardless of any attempted policy at any level of
| government, because I do not believe suppressing the
| movement of firearms is an attainable goal at any scale
| in the first place.
| pear01 wrote:
| Well maybe you should endeavor to get some knowledge? Yet
| it seems like you are saying it's irrelevant because you
| are uninterested in suppressing the movement of firearms,
| because it's not an "attainable goal". So really, you
| aren't interested in investigating this fact. That's
| fine, that's your business.
|
| Regardless of your own personal interest, it is a fact,
| and one you could confirm and learn more about rather
| easily. But you're not interested. So, if the best you
| can come up with is a more dressed up version of the
| other reply's "idgaf" well again that is your business. I
| appreciate the lack of vulgarity but I'm not going to
| attempt to make you interested in something. In my mind
| it's not a very compelling argument or reason to have
| replied to me, despite the fact you've left me sort of
| vaguely intrigued by the boundaries of your intellectual
| curiosity. But suit yourself. Have a nice day.
| Gormo wrote:
| > Well maybe you should endeavor to get some knowledge?
| Yet it seems like you are saying it's irrelevant because
| you are uninterested in suppressing the movement of
| firearms, because it's not an "attainable goal". So
| really, you aren't interested in investigating this fact.
| That's fine, that's your business.
|
| Yes, all of that is correct.
|
| > Regardless of your own personal interest, it is a fact,
| and one you could confirm and learn more about rather
| easily.
|
| I could, but I could also spend my time learning about
| many other topics which would yield useful insights,
| develop skills, help me understand the world better in
| ways that actually matter, among many other things. Why
| would I then spend time studying something for which the
| outcome would be the same regardless?
|
| > So, if the best you can come up with is a more dressed
| up version of the other reply's "idgaf" well again that
| is your business.
|
| Well, no, it's not just that _I_ don 't give a fuck, but
| rather that I think the entire line of inquiry is a waste
| of time _in itself_ , in that all it will do is provide a
| rationalization for one normative position or another,
| and offers little utility to _anyone_ beyond that.
| Arguing over it is like arguing over how many peanuts are
| in a particular jar -- yes, there 's an objectively
| correct answer, but the question itself is of no
| importance, and not worth bothering to answer.
| 15155 wrote:
| > 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?
| wat10000 wrote:
| The 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2024 were:
| Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri,
| South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas,
| Maryland.
|
| Not seeing this so much lower crime rate in red states
| here.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > 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".
| mullingitover wrote:
| > 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/
| mulmen wrote:
| "Common sense" is a red flag for me. Obama (who I voted for
| twice, don't come at me) 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.
| 15155 wrote:
| "Common sense" is an oft-used tactic in this space: if
| what I am pushing is common sense, whatever you are
| pushing is senseless.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| "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.
| mullingitover wrote:
| 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.
| 15155 wrote:
| "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?
| mullingitover wrote:
| Attack the source as much as you like, it's not refuting
| the point in any way.
| ottah wrote:
| Isn't the validity and credibility of the source critical
| to it being supportive of your argument? Seems like a
| reasonable counter-argument in my opinion.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| 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.
| ottah wrote:
| Same thing with anything in regards to drug use in the
| United States. Dr Carl Hart talks about how hard it is to
| get anything that doesn't show harm published
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hart
| bigbuppo wrote:
| 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?
| noosphr wrote:
| 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 your link 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.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > 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.
| 15155 wrote:
| > 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.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > 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.
| 15155 wrote:
| 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.)
| mullingitover wrote:
| > 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
| tracker1 wrote:
| So are you advocating to outlaw alcohol? I mean, since
| people get depressed and drink which drives more
| depression and kill themselves... I guess you're
| suggesting that all depressants should be outlawed.
| tracker1 wrote:
| According to the first militia act, every able bodied
| male over 18 is what defines a qualified individual.
| Beyond that, you're actually required to own a firearm in
| that case.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Well, Canada is trying to keep guns away from you but is
| also perfectly willing to help you kill yourself.
| wagwang wrote:
| Garbage methodology, state by state policies need to use
| something like a difference in difference study measure
| actual effect sizing
| delaminator wrote:
| It's also a documented empirical fact that arresting the
| criminals in DC has reduced shootings to virtually zero.
| bombcar wrote:
| The most common gun death is suicide so that tracks pretty
| well.
|
| But I doubt most people count suicide as "violent crime".
| themafia wrote:
| "gun deaths."
|
| You ever wonder _why_ they state the problem in such an
| abstract way?
|
| It's because that statistic is an abstract itself. It
| combines, in my view inappropriately, suicide, murders, and
| accidental injuries.
|
| There are 2x as many suicides every year over murders.
|
| Anyone bandying about the "gun deaths" statistic has either
| been misled or is attempting to mislead others.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Not only that, the vast majority of gun related killings
| are with handguns, but they keep trying to outlaw the
| "scary" rifles.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Until knife killings start to rise (UK). Beyond this, I've
| seen several interventions of armed citizens stopping a
| crime in progress, when the police are still in route. When
| seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
|
| My dad was ex-army, retired PD (detective, undercover) and
| a heavy 2A advocate. I grew up with guns around so it
| wasn't some weird, scary thing to see. I have many friends
| who also are heavy 2A who also grew up with guns in the
| home. It's first a matter of familiarity and second a
| matter of civil defense. I'm not a fan of "must flea" laws,
| and not a fan of restricting gun rights at all.
|
| And yeah, if you can afford a tank and the ammo for it, as
| far as I'm concerned, you should be able to own and operate
| it. I would draw the line at nuclear weapons and materials.
| tadfisher wrote:
| 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.
| ottah wrote:
| You don't cooperate with abolitionists using compromise.
| You will never come to an agreement that satisfies both
| parties. By definition it is impossible.
|
| Interests are also not always clear, any movement that
| wants to restrict activities using the law, is going to
| attract opportunistic power-seeking individuals. There's
| always crazy carve out exceptions in these proposals that
| allow the wealthy and the powerful to use and possess
| firearms that regular people cannot reasonably expect to
| have. It's laws to protect the powerful from the everyone
| else. Billionaires are creating armed doomsday compounds in
| countries like New Zealand, while supporting legislation
| that makes it harder to own a gun for self defense.
|
| Also mass shootings are statistically the least likely
| cause of a gun related death. They are in the news because
| they are novel, not because they are likely to happen to
| most people.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Calling anything about gun control laws "common sense" is
| disingenuous at best. I'm coming at this from the "you go
| left enough and you get your guns back" side of the whole
| debate, but it's extremely difficult to solve a problem
| that consists of "tool used for its intended purpose, but
| in the wrong context".
|
| Guns kill things. That's their primary purpose, it's why
| they exist. The people who aren't interested in guns for
| that purpose are easy to please: they don't really care
| about gun laws except in so much as they stop them from
| buying fun toys. They'd probably be fine with wildly
| invasive processes (being put on lists, biometric safeties,
| whatever), so long as they were given something in return.
| Something like, "You can have machine guns, but they need
| to be kept locked up at a licensed gun range".
|
| People who just want guns for hunting are likewise easy to
| please. I'm not aware of _any_ gun laws that have seriously
| effected the people who just want to shoot deer, because
| the tool you use to shoot an animal that isn 't even aware
| you're there is pretty fundamentally different than those
| you to shoot someone who doesn't want to be shot.
|
| The problem is people who want guns because of their
| utility against people, whether that means self defense,
| community defense, or national defense, fundamentally need
| the same things ( a need that is very expressly protected
| by the second amendment) as the person who wants to shoot a
| bunch of innocents. The militia folk might be fine with
| restrictions on handguns, but handguns are bar none the
| best choice for the self defense folk. The self defense
| folk might be fine with the existing machine gun ban, or
| other restrictions on long guns, but the militia folk need
| those for their purposes. The self dense folk are probably
| fine with being put on a list, but the militia folk who are
| concerned about the holders of that list are rightfully
| opposed to that.
|
| IMO, the most effective gun law that isn't a complete non-
| starter to any legitimate groups of gun owners is the
| waiting period. It's an effective policy that substantially
| reduces suicide. That's a good thing. Requiring sellers to
| not sell to people under 18, or those who are obviously a
| threat to themselves and others is also largely
| unobjectionable. Punishing parents who fail to secure their
| weapons from their children, also a good thing.
|
| No one's in favor of mass shootings, but it's not anywhere
| as simple as saying "common sense gun regulations".
| 15155 wrote:
| > IMO, the most effective gun law that isn't a complete
| non-starter to any legitimate groups of gun owners is the
| waiting period. It's an effective policy that
| substantially reduces suicide
|
| If I own many firearms already, what exactly does a
| waiting period do besides infringe upon my rights?
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| If you own many firearms already, how is a 30 day wait
| preventing you from bearing them?
|
| But yeah, the benefit does mostly arise for first time
| gun buyers. But that would require a master list of all
| gun owners. I'd prefer the wait per gun.
| 15155 wrote:
| "A right delayed is a right denied" (*except when it's a
| right protected by the Second Amendment, I guess.)
| tracker1 wrote:
| Would you be okay with a 30 day waiting period for posing
| a news article, that included strict penalties for
| misinformation/disinformation? Since you have to wait to
| publish, you have less reason to get things wrong.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Regarding your statement about the guns used against
| animals being different than the ones used against people
| is just wrong. The AR-15 is about the perfect choice
| against wolves or wild boar, just as a single example.
|
| As far as the waiting period, there's a perfectly valid
| reason against that as well... if you are under eminent
| threat of violence from someone and want to be able to
| defend yourself/family/home today... it stops you from
| being able to do so.
|
| I am okay with the (relatively quick) background check...
| when I bought my first guns a few years ago, I had to
| wait about an hour in the store for the results to come
| back (Phoenix). Even then, I'm not okay with secondary
| offense restrictions (weed, etc) as a restriction.
| rconti wrote:
| This is a reaction to the inability to accomplish anything at
| the federal level in the "we have to do SOMETHING" vain.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| ^ 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.
| nostromo wrote:
| Ah yes, the actual problem facing America right now...
| unsanctioned 3d printers.
|
| Thank you California for acting on this, our top national
| priority.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| The actual problem is gun violence which you absolutely,
| 100% know.
| nostromo wrote:
| Which this bill will do nothing to solve, which you
| absolutely 100% know.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| 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.
| 15155 wrote:
| > 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?
| philsnow wrote:
| > 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_poison
| ing#Chro... :
|
| > Chronic exposure to relatively low levels of carbon
| monoxide may cause persistent headaches, [...],
| depression [...].
| tadfisher wrote:
| 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.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| You can make a gun with a piece of pipe and a nail. It's
| performative legislature.
| conradev wrote:
| 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.
| jwitthuhn wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is that really limited to the US though?
| stuffn wrote:
| 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.
| dekhn wrote:
| Can you redo your "fun fact" but include all types of guns?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Well there _is_ a lot of weird focus on entirely the wrong
| things when criticizing guns.
| goostavos wrote:
| 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.
| jajuuka wrote:
| 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.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| 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.
| whyenot wrote:
| Do you have a reference or at least some hard numbers for
| your "fun fact"?
| 15155 wrote:
| Long gun homicides (justified and unjustified, "assault
| weapons" and grandpa's 30-06 combined) are typically
| sub-500 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.
| plandis wrote:
| 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.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| 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.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I mean on Amazon you can buy them too, you just might have to
| look for something like a "lawnmower muffler for 9mm
| exhausts".
| jerkstate wrote:
| That's a felony everywhere though
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Sure, if you're a big fan of getting your dog shot and
| yourself thrown in federal prison for 10 years.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I'm pretty much a gun control maximalist, but I would be more
| than happy to barter suppressor restrictions for pretty much
| anything else, since I agree with you that there's a good
| non-shooting-other-people reason to want to have them and I
| doubt they're actually that relevant to murder stats.
| jopsen wrote:
| This only benefits expensive proprietary enterprise 3D print
| makers..
| rdtsc wrote:
| > 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.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| 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.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| > 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?
| 15155 wrote:
| If someone prevents you from exercising your right to vote,
| would you be angry?
| gopalv wrote:
| > 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.
| almosthere wrote:
| 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...)
| stronglikedan wrote:
| California isn't _really_ the USA anymore, so please don 't
| associate them with the rest of us!
| kmeisthax wrote:
| It's important to note that the USA also has some of the
| fiercest opponents of private gun ownership in the world.
|
| The most important thing to note here is that a majority of the
| support for gun control in America is _cultural_. Even the
| loud-and-proud pro-gun people got _extremely_ shy about their
| own principles once the Black Panthers started packing heat. On
| the flipside, it 's also not hard to find gun control
| supporting Democrats that happen to own firearms in their
| house. There's a related cultural argument over "assault
| weapons", or "black guns" - i.e. the ones that look like
| military weapons rather than hunting tools.
|
| The result of all this confusion - and, for that matter, any
| culture war fight - is a lot of stupid lawmaking designed
| specifically to work around the edges of 2A while ignoring how
| guns actually work or how gun laws are normally written. Like,
| a while back there were bans on purely cosmetic features of
| guns. Things like rail attachments, that do not meaningfully
| increase the lethality of the weapon, but happen to be
| preferred by a certain crowd of masculinity-challenged right-
| wingers. In other words, a ban on scary-looking guns.
|
| What's going on here is that someone figured out how to make a
| 3D printed gun that will not immediately explode in your hand
| on first firing. In the US it's legal to manufacture your own
| guns, and there's no requirement to serial-number such a gun,
| which makes it more difficult to trace if that gun is used to
| commit a crime. You can't really stop someone from making such
| a "ghost gun" (practically, not legally), so they want to take
| a page out of the DMCA 1201 playbook and just ban all the tools
| used to make such a thing possible.
|
| Personally, I don't think that will pass constitutional muster
| - but that also relies heavily on existing culture-war brained
| nonsense that happens to be standing constitutional principle.
| 2A _itself_ can be interpreted in all sorts of different ways.
| The original interpretation was "no interfering with state-run
| slave catching militias", and then later that turned into
| "everyone has the right to own firearms". Nothing stops it from
| changing again.
| tracker1 wrote:
| It's mostly the same Karens that want to outlaw guns altogether
| so come up with burdensome rules to inhibit gun ownership. I've
| always been pretty libertarian on 1A and 2A myself.
| bitexploder wrote:
| 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.
| sgt wrote:
| 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!"
| sellmesoap wrote:
| 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.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| 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.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| _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-...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It's not even close to 0.3%, the last time the Obama
| administration tried to get accurate numbers the republicans
| blew a head gasket. The fact that supposedly every American
| owns 4 or 5 guns should hint at how bad the smuggling problem
| is, and Americans are supporting it with a wink and cooked
| statistics, they are basically willingly exporting death.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| 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.
| novok wrote:
| 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.
| rolph wrote:
| 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.
| dabinat wrote:
| 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.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Then the AI hallucinates a plausible model that explodes in
| your hands.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Fascinating parallel with this thread regarding regulating AI
| bots:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066567
|
| Nice sentiments, but totally impractical.
| t1234s wrote:
| "3D Printer" is a broad term. Would this apply to HAAS automated
| CNC machines? They can "3D Print" things from billet.
| dns_snek wrote:
| > (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.
| chucksta wrote:
| -resin or similar material
|
| Or just start printing them out of something useful like
| metal
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Good point. Is metal powder "similar material"? What's the
| cheapest laser sinterer?
| 15155 wrote:
| The recently-introduced WA legislation also covers subtractive
| methods; I imagine CA omitted that specifically because of
| Haas.
| okokwhatever wrote:
| Price surge for old 3d printers ;)
| topspin wrote:
| 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.
| xnyan wrote:
| > Thing is you can make a 3d printer; it's basically CNC
| stuff with a different tool.
|
| Yes, but no too. I've built and purchased many 3d printers.
| You can make a 3d printer, but can you make one that works
| reliably as something like a washing machine with little to
| no tinkering or adjustment? Bambu Lab can sell you that for
| less than three hundred bucks. Just give it a file, feed it
| plastic, and it will rip.
|
| I can now build a 3d printer that reliable, but only with
| parts and tools from other people and only after experience.
| Realistically not being able to buy a 3d printer off the
| shelf means it's going to be inaccessible for most people.
| michaelbrave wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| arjie wrote:
| 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.
| numpad0 wrote:
| 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.
| Simboo wrote:
| Yummy yummy user 3D model data
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| 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...
| nickpinkston wrote:
| 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.
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| 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.
| maplet wrote:
| 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.
| nothrowaways wrote:
| California is no longer progressive.
| Gormo wrote:
| 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.
| DonnyV wrote:
| 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."
| charcircuit wrote:
| 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.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| 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.
| mothballed wrote:
| 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.
| daveguy wrote:
| 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.
| charcircuit wrote:
| 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.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| 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.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Such a thing could have been phrased better by the judge
| in such a scenario. I personally feel the statement that
| was made was unprofessional at best.
| mothballed wrote:
| This has nothing to do with the federal laws that are
| enforced by ATF ... what he did was totally legally
| federally.
|
| And he didn't sell them, you pulled that out of your ass.
|
| It doesn't appear you have any familiarity with the case
| yet you purport to understand what the judge was saying
| by completely mischaracterizing the case with outright
| falsehoods. But I suppose if you just tell straight up
| lies confidently enough, someone will believe you!
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > arguing baldly that the 2nd amendment lets you make
| guns and sell them without a serial number
|
| I'm not familiar with the details of the case but,
| reading the thread, it seems this didn't occur if the
| guns "never even left his house".
| daveguy wrote:
| Weird. I have seen a bunch of people repeating that
| quote, but not a single source for the full court
| transcript. Court transcript are public record, available
| for request by anyone. So it's real strange no one seems
| to have a source reference, no? Did you read the
| transcript? Happen to have a reference?
| charcircuit wrote:
| Me either, that's why I replied opened endedly since I
| didn't have the full context.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Interesting point. The quote appears to be the defense
| attorney's interpretation of the judge's statements.
|
| https://scnr.com/article/hobby-gunsmith-in-nyc-convicted-
| aft...
|
| IMO, it depends on the events in court; if there was
| extensive argumentation about that and the judge is
| finally saying that it's been discussed to death and
| there's no point bringing it up, that seems fine. (I
| don't want to read the actual court transcripts to figure
| out what the attorney is referring to, so this comment is
| intentionally inconclusive.)
| stronglikedan wrote:
| NYC, California... they're the same picture
| rolph wrote:
| 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..
| mothballed wrote:
| 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 publication that those morons are pretending to
| refer to but yet won't cite themselves: 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.
|
| [] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/04/26/2022-
| 08...
| ggreer wrote:
| California law prohibits anyone from 3D printing a firearm (or
| most firearm parts) without first getting a manufacturing
| license from the state[1]:
|
| > (b) A person, firm, or corporation shall not use a three-
| dimensional printer to manufacture any firearm, including a
| frame or receiver, or any firearm precursor part, unless that
| person, firm, or corporation is licensed pursuant to Chapter 2
| (commencing with Section 29030).
|
| To get a license from the state, you must first have a federal
| firearms manufacturing license. California has additional
| requirements such as fees ranging from $250-600, yearly
| background checks of any employees who handle guns, a CA DOJ
| certificate of eligibility for every business owner, stricter
| building security measures than a FFL type 07, records of the
| serial numbers of all firearms produced, and allowing the local
| police to inspect the facility regularly. Firearm manufacturers
| are not allowed to sell guns to individuals, so you would not
| be able to take possession of your 3D printed gun until you got
| the model approved on California's roster, transferred it to a
| firearm dealer, then went through California's standard process
| for buying a gun, which I describe here.[2]
|
| 1.
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
|
| 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47079461
| charcircuit wrote:
| This is sad to hear. My knowledge of the situation was out of
| date of what things were like around 2020 in California. Many
| firearms companies today started off with one person creating
| an innovative design and then scaling that up. All of these
| barriers to entry just lock out hobbyists and potential
| disrupters out of the market.
| jibal wrote:
| 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.
| 0x457 wrote:
| 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" ?
| jf wrote:
| It has no cosponsors and hasn't been presented to a committee
| yet. It's like calling a bowl of flour, water, and yeast a
| "new bread"
| platevoltage wrote:
| The type of bad bills that DO go somewhere are the ones that
| the public doesn't hear about until it's too late. I don't know
| why this being reported on is a bad thing.
| delichon wrote:
| > 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 bill 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.
| WillAdams wrote:
| 1st Amendment + 2nd Amendment == The Right to 3D Print and Bear
| Arms
|
| Moreover, how could this be implemented? Determining the 3D
| volume which a given G-code file will result in is something
| which the industry would find very useful, but no one has yet
| achieved. Doing so would probably simultaneously result in the
| folks doing so being awarded a Fields Medal and the Turing
| Award (in addition to making a boatload of money licensing the
| resultant software/patent).
|
| On top of that, how does one resolve the matter of the same
| G-code file (for two nested circles plus some machine-specific
| codes) resulting in either a metal washer, or a lamp base,
| depending on whether run on a machine set to metric w/ a
| coolant system, or Imperial w/ a tool changer?
|
| Lastly, who creates the list of forbidden parts? How will it be
| curated? And most importantly, how will it be secured that it
| isn't a set of blueprints which are then used to make firearms?
|
| A more reasonable bit of legislation would be one which
| required folks who are barred by statute from owning firearms
| (convicted felons (who have not had their rights
| restored)/convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse) to approve
| with their parole officer any file for a part/object made by a
| 3D printer or CNC machine before submitting it to the machine.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I'll be honest, I've always been mixed on prohibiting
| parolees and ex-cons from owning firearms in the first place.
| I think the right itself as part of self-defense is pretty
| clear and self-evident. I also don't like secondary crimes in
| general.
|
| Killing is bad... killing because you don't like $group is
| double-bad. Speeding is bad, speeding without a seatbelt is
| double-bad. etc.
|
| If you are such a danger to society that you shouldn't be
| allowed to be armed in case of defense, then you probably
| shouldn't be in society and remain locked up. That's just my
| take on it. I feel similarly on taking away voting rights
| after prison as well. I may not like how you vote, but I'm
| just not a fan of taking away people's rights outside
| prison/jail.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Too expensive/punitive, and note that there is an option to
| be restored to full citizenship after time
| served/restitution is made.
|
| My take on it is that if your judgement is so twisted that
| you are able to commit a felony and not be able to
| successfully petition for rights restoration, then you are
| not suited to deciding by whom the country should be
| governed.
| cbdevidal wrote:
| It's political theater. Not intended to actually
| accomplish much except "See!? We did something! Now vote
| for us again."
|
| Meanwhile, open source printers can and will just bypass
| it.
| bb88 wrote:
| Here's an interesting story about a non-violent felon
| becoming violent in my city. Not all felons are this way,
| but this one was.
|
| Oh and yeah, people are allowed to open carry guns in the
| statehouse here.
|
| https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/boise-mall-
| shooter-d...
| ottah wrote:
| 3d printing is also a creative expression and part of free
| speech. However principles don't matter to authoritarians, and
| really the only defense is constant political pressure and
| civil disobedience.
| legitster wrote:
| 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.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Guess this is as good an excuse as any.
|
| What are the recommendations for printers now? Bucket it by price
| range, so $0-200, $200-400, $400-800, $800+
|
| Any notable features which can be a big value add? Offline is
| obviously a requirement given how the winds are blowing.
| c22 wrote:
| If this happens I'm gonna buy one of these printers and
| exclusively print dicks with it.
| rolph wrote:
| that is prone as well, consider what if printing CSAM related
| items becomes a wide spread problem, that begs for
| considerations.
| duchenne wrote:
| If they are worried about firearms, why don't they target CNC
| mills rather than 3d printer? Can you even make a firearm in
| plastic?
|
| Some US company specialize in selling CNC mills specifically for
| firearms.
|
| Ex: https://realghostguns.com/product/gg3-s-cnc-deposit/
| It is sold with the cut codes for the AR-15, AR-.308, 1911,
| Polymer80 and AK-47 receivers and frames.
| ale42 wrote:
| Article says: New York's budget bill S.9005
| buries similar requirements in Part C, sweeping in CNC
| mills and anything capable of "subtractive manufacturing."
|
| So CNCs might be part of it. But I didn't check the actual bill
| text.
| burnt_toast wrote:
| > Can you even make a firearm in plastic?
|
| Yes but most designs still require metal bits. Typically the
| frame will be 3d printed and then you rely on machined
| components for things like slides and rails.
| platevoltage wrote:
| Well this bill looks regressive enough for Newsome to sign.
| aiiotnoodle wrote:
| There already is some intelligence fed back to the police
| somewhere in the 3d printed guns supply chain.
|
| You see it a lot on crime investigation shows. Pretty sure I've
| seen it on 24 hours in police custody and at least one other show
| or documentary.
|
| edit: police acting on a source, a lead or some other un-named
| entity.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-02-19 23:01 UTC)