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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Regulating theoretical guns? No requirement is too draconian.

Or just start printing them out of something useful like metal

No chance. For them compliance is the easiest thing in the world to law like that

> 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/

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-...

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.

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".

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.

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_&_Pistol_...

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.

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.

> (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.

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?

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.

Note the difference w.r.t. the ridiculous "California's New Bill Requires DOJ-Approved 3D Printers".

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.

Thank you California for acting on this, our top national priority.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260218/washington-action-a...

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260112/bans-for-3d-bluepri...

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.

I do some range days a couple times a year.

But I doubt most people count suicide as “violent crime”.

just as deadly, harder to trace when there is no ballistic evidence, maybe an RF signature that FCC monitors will record.

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.

(The answer is actually "yes, several".)

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

> 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.

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.

I wonder what your first language is.

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.

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?

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".

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.

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.

Not seeing this so much lower crime rate in red states here.

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.

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.

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"?

If I own many firearms already, what exactly does a waiting period do besides infringe upon my rights?

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.

Here's one.

"Life is complicated, so is rule-making."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

The mechanism of that reduction very well could be reducing the level of depression in the populace and thus suicidal ideation, rather than just making the means less handy (or of course, some combination). Coal gas, like any other gas used for combustion, doesn't burn perfectly and UK homes likely had persistent amounts of carbon monoxide roughly all the time since heat gets used not-quite-year-round.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide_poisoning#Chro... :

> Chronic exposure to relatively low levels of carbon monoxide may cause persistent headaches, [...], depression [...].

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.

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.)

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.

"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