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From who are these awful ideas in California governing coming from
The tech bros.
Who are owned by private equity for sovereign wealth funds pushing for nothing but returns. Hence they don't care if they sign on the line with Goebbels or enshittify their product into uselessness.
Anti-gun/gun control lobby would be my first guess. You can basically print all the serialized parts (the part required for registration) for most any gun then get the rest of the parts and assemble it yourself. The gun parts don't necessarily even need to be based on an actual manufactured gun, there are designs for completely homemade guns down to the ball using parts you can easily pick up at any hardware store. Then there are also people who are printing parts that can turn some semi-automatic guns into selectable fully automatic.
Problem is the plans are already in the wild for printing gun parts and for open source printers. I don't know what good would accomplish to deter people from printing when the person targeted is already motivated enough to print one to begin with.
Making a gun is already illegal in California and Washington. This stupid law won't make any difference. If someone is willing to break the law to make a gun, they probably are not going to follow this law either. 3D printed guns are rarely used to commit crimes anyways. It takes a lot of time and effort to get one to work well.
This is probably about companies like Bamboo Labs wanting an excuse to lock down printers even more. It will also make it difficult or impossible for smaller companies to sell 3D printers in California to get rid of competition.
Washington State. They have a identical (or at least similar) bill I heard about last month.
The lobbying power of tech companies that profit from proprietary technology and feel threatened by open source. The same people who are behind DRM on everything from ebooks and music to printer inks, and legal restrictions on repairing the devices you own.
jesus fucking christ the kind of person who has a machine dialled in enough to print a functional weapon that will actually work and not come apart in their hands or blow off their face is the sort of person who will also have the means and wherewithal to obtain a conventional weapon. And they will most likely turn to the latter if they want to do harm.
Back when 3D printers were brand-new, I was at a college event where the Engineering Club had one on display. I stopped to watch it, and spoke with the kid who had built it. He was a Freshman, and had built it during the previous summer, because he wanted to come to college and make an instant splash in the Engineering Department.
He certainly succeeded, because he was the one in the booth that everybody wanted to talk to, while the upperclassmen that hadn't accomplished anything, sat in the back of the booth and glowered at the Freshman upstart.
So anyway, if they ban them, we'll just build them.
I believe the entire goal of RepRap was to build a machine that could build all the parts needed to build another machine. Most of the parts for a lot of machines are either 3d printable or bog-standard off-the-shelf parts that could be used for millions of other things. I have a feeling the really scary target would be software, something similar to the draconian age-verification BS being run around.
I don't see how they could realistically target Marlin firmware. It's incredibly straightforward software/firmware that could easily be forked and duplicated. Even the old driver boards (Ramps) were originally hand-made pcb's designed by fellow hobbyists.
They make it illegal to distribute, install, use, etc. They make it illegal to sell, distribute, build, etc. any printer that can run on Marlin (hoping to force manufacturers to block anyone installing non-oem firmware on the machines at all).
I'm not saying it's reasonable or feasible, but the people making the laws clearly don't know or care about any of that.
Edit - If they make enough stuff illegal, they don't need to catch you breaking the law when they decide to arrest you. They just arrest you and then figure out which crimes you were committing.
"Get in good trouble, necessary trouble..."
This is called the proliferation of technology, its useless to fight it, and also one of humanities greatest existential threats.
Sooner or later building a nuke in your backyard is going to be just as easy.
Just FYI, I am full pro 3d printer, love mine. Looking into a second one now.
Sooner or later building a nuke in your backyard is going to be just as easy.
No. Even if you would get your hands of enough base material (impossible and would also be bigger than your backyard in volume). The energy you need for sorting the isotopes would be more than you could pull out of your power wires.
This isnt a question about technology but physics and energy, no matter how good consumer tech gets. NO you wont build a nuke in your backyard.
The same way as you will never build a moon rocket in your backyard, some things just require a fixed amount of energy, and putting that amount of energy in your backyard just wont happen.
It wont stop anyone looking to print a silencer. It will just make it closed source and pay per print. Its a idiots solution.
Is California just gone fucking mad after newscum? What is up with all these fucked up legislations against private freedom?
Its really, really big and populous, and also ethnically, culturally, and socially diverse. I think those combined factors lead to California passing more volume and variety of laws than any of the other American states.
Many of the laws they pass are regulation on business and consumer protection in excess of those provided by the federal government, but the socially progressive side of politics has its villains, too. Their villainy comes in the form of forced trading of freedom for security--outlawing activities that are dangerous to you, or banning objects and knowledge that have the potential to harm you or others even if they have other practical uses.
Its the main reason why it is risky to fight for the victory of one's own political "team" without further consideration. It is easy for people interested in the public good to be overzealous in enforcement of public safety.
It's hard to get broad agreement on where to draw that line. For example, I tend to lean in the "natural law" direction, where I think you should be allowed to have and do almost anything you want, so long as it doesn't materially harm anyone else, even indirectly. Most other people, even on the left, find that relatively extreme and believe in more personal regulation in the name of increased public safety. For example, most Democrats support moderate to strict restrictions on personal firearm, chemical, and encryption ownership, rather than banning the illegal uses of those things themselves. It is more dangerous for people to be able to be able to get dangerous stuff, so it makes sense people would have a lot of differing opinions on where to settle between "Mad Max" and "Minority Report".
Is the last one you're referring to the age verification one? If so, you should know that was good legislation that makes it easy to block federal attempts at something far worse.
Wtf are you talking about? It only blockw the private user. Litterally much more control over the devices inside the USA. Lot more survailance, how is this acceptable?
Do nothing about school shootings. Destroy hobbies and manufacturing instead. America is rotting from the inside.
America has been rotting from the inside since WW2 (MIC, FBI and CIA terrorism, etc), then supercharged with Reagan. Frankly, it's surprising it took this long.
But like.. are they going to prohibit all forms of melding materials into a shape? You can make a shank out of a stick rubbed on a rock ffs.
Or just use the rock.
This is just madness. What the hell is Newsom thinking/drinking?
So try and ban 3D printing guns, because that's too dangerous. But still sell guns at wallmarkt to be bought without background checks? I have the feeling something is a little off here...
How the fuck is this getting upvoted when it isn't remotely based in reality?
Because you can buy guns at Walmart, maybe not in California, but they sell guns in approximately half of their stores in the US.
You can also go to gun shows and buy guns without a background check.
But of course you're correct, he was wrong, It's not as easy as going to Walmart to get a gun without a background check. It's actually MUCH EASIER than that in more than half the US. You can just go online and pay for someone to send you a gun without any background check, site unseen, from the comfort of your own home.
I'm not sure how buying a gun at a gun show sans background check is easier than if Walmart didn't require a background check, but regardless, the premise of their statement (that Walmart doesn't require background checks) is factually incorrect. You're moving the goalpost. And no, you can't just pay for a gun online and have it shipped to you. That's not how that works, not legally at least.
FFS, you still need a bg check to buy from Walmart. There's plenty of things to point out to fight for sane gun laws without making shit up.
Fair, however, the point remains, that the whole 3D printers are dangerous weapon manufacturing sources is BS. 3D printers, at least those affordable to hobbyists are a damn poor choice for creating fire weapons. Yes, you can print some non-critical parts but that's about it. How many people died due to 3d printed guns in the US and how many to legally/illegally owned?
Maybe spend 5 minutes looking into it before commenting on something you know nothing about.
If it is so obvious, you could easily show me a source with the number of victims of 3d printed fire weapons, legally owned commercial fire weapons and illegally owned commercial fire weapons, in California or the US as a whole.
Or were you commenting on the suitability of FDM or resin printers for producing critical function parts of fire weapons? Which of the parts one could produce via FDM or resin, that couldn't be produced with subtractive manufacturing methods? Please elaborate with actual arguments.
Well, you asked for it lol.
you could easily show me a source with the number of victims of 3d printed fire weapons, legally owned commercial fire weapons and illegally owned commercial fire weapons, in California or the US as a whole.
For starters, no one in the US is doing this. There is no source for the number of victims of 3D printed firearms anywhere, the best you're going to get is from the limited places where authorities are tracking the number of crimes involving "ghost guns", which could be a 3D printed firearm, a home manufactured firearm by other means, or (most commonly) a legally purchased firearm which has had the serial number removed. Everytown (puke) has some statistics claiming 208 murders or shootings linked to a ghost gun and 134 "recoveries" of ghost guns, nationally since 2013. As you can see, that's not a lot. My point is, you're right that ghost guns aren't really a big problem, but that's not because they aren't viable as firearms. I think this is a moot point anyway, there are over 400 million guns in the US and millions more every year. The cat is so far out of the bag that it returned with a litter of kittens which are also out of the bag. Trying to control gun crime in the US by limiting supply is futile, but it looks good on a political platform so it's gonna keep happening.
But that's not even really what I was commenting on. The idea that FDM printing is not viable for home manufacturing firearms is at least 10 years out of date. First, it's important to understand that in the US, the "critical" part is the one that's legally considered the firearm. Every design has a serialized part which is legally "the gun" and which you (generally) must pass a background check to obtain. Everything else to construct a firearm is available online shipped directly to your door or over the counter without any kind of background check, at least in the vast majority of states. Even in the places where that's not legal (like California has recently done), it's very easy to for anyone trying to dodge that law to do so.
As an example, one of the most commonly 3D printed firearms is a Glock. With glocks, the frame is the serialized part. It's already made of polymer. So most people 3D print a frame, generally from PLA, and buy the rest of the parts to assemble the firearm. This is what Luigi (allegedly) popped a CEO with. In his case, he also 3D printed a suppressor which rendered his gun no longer semi auto, which would happen with a factory glock too, but generally these 3D printed glocks are nearly as viable as a "real" one for at least a few thousand rounds. I'm not gonna bother linking directly to anything here because again, most commonly 3D printed gun. Put "3D printed glock" into youtube.
For a more "real" scenario, you can take a look at Myanmar, where rebel forces have been 3D printing firearms to fight the Junta directly, in combat. They've mostly used the FGC-9, which, while not 100% 3D printed, does not require any "real" firearm parts to produce. Everything you need can either be 3D printed or acquired at a hardware store. You can even produce a rifled barrel at home (PDF warning) using a 3D printed jig and ECM.These 3D printed guns have mostly been a means to acquire actual military firearms from the Junta itself, but it worked, so these guns have been successfully employed by teenagers against a state military force.
For some other examples, here is the Orca (3D printed AR-15), the Plastikov (3D printed AKM), the mac n cheese (3D printed mac 10) This one is extra fun because you can get a set of "wind chimes" to complete your build. There's also the NylAUG, a surplus AUG parts kit which can be purchased over the counter with a receiver 3D printed in Nylon. Hell, the US army 3D printed a 40MM grenade launcher nearly a decade ago, and there are DYI versions too. There are many, many more designs. I think I've made my point.
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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