I’ve never heard of 3d printed guns being involved in crimes or even really heard of them much at all.
This is just another way to remove peoples rights.
“might stop anyone from 3D printing guns”
I can guarantee you that it won’t even do that.
It absolutely will not stop some people. But those are not the ones committing gun crimes
says who?
much like fi the children this has nothing to do with guns
It absolutely won’t do that. You know how many millions of early generation Prusa and Ender 3 printers are in the US? Many of these models have no internet connectivity whatsoever and print from SD card.
What that means is they will also try to incorporate spyware into your CAD and/or slicer software, which is even more invasive.
This is a anti-privacy bill.
It won’t stop anyone buying or importing innocuous machinery parts like 2020 aluminium extrusions or GT2 belts either. There are mature generic 3D printer designs out there that outperforms RepRap i3 bedslingers.
I don’t even understand how they imagine this will work. Most printers are certainly not powerful enough to do real 3d object detection. Even if they forced slicers to include this, just fork OrcaSlicer and take it back out. Actually a lot of printers run open source software as well, so we can just fork klipper of it ever comes to that.
It’s like making a normal printer that’s mandated by the government to never print dicks
I mean normal printers will not let you print money. That’s what gave these idiots the idea to begin with I’d wager. But there are orders in magnitude of difficulty between a piece of software being able to autonomously recognize a few existing designs of dollar bills and the infinite ways you can make a working gun or a gun part and the infinite ways other completely harmless objects can look like them.
It’s not even a few existing designs… There is an exact pattern called the eurion constellation that all printers block. Then the process for printing each countries currency just involves placing a eurion constellation and you get the protection.
Its a single pattern that is very rigidly defined, to the point that many counterfeit bills that pass inspection shift one mark off by about a millimeter to get it printed.
Granted having worked at a bank when I found out was that the bill didn’t have the off color threads as well, but it almost was approved despite getting a close inspection.
They don’t recognize bills. They recognize a pattern of tiny yellow rings in the bills, the Eurion constellation, which can barely be seen by the eye. This supposedly will stop copiers and printers from scanning or printing any document that has these.
Bypassing these is trivial.
I’m no gun person, but you could easily make a gun on a lathe or a mill drill, too. Get a CNC one and you don’t even need to know how to use them.
Are we going to start fitting them with “you might be making a gun” detectors, too? Of course not.
I’m pretty sure the law says any machine that takes sets of automated instructions, which includes CNC cutters and lathes
Are we going to start fitting [CNC lathes and mills] with “you might be making a gun” detectors, too? Of course not.
I’ve got some bad news for you about just how fucked-up these proposed laws actually are.
You absolutely need to know how to use any machine tool. You can’t just download a file to a CNC mill and have it spit out a gun. I worked as a machinist when I was in college, it takes a lot of skill and talent to setup a CNC to make parts.
Idk when you were in college, but tormach has come a long way with automation. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone had automated paths & tool changes and was able to pump out gun parts without much human intervention.
Once the machine is set up yes, they can absolutely do that. That’s how they’re manufactured for the most part.
But the idea that any untrained, inexperienced person has the ability to physically setup, make jigs, indicate in said jigs, make a cad file, turn it into a cam program, load it into a machine, indicate in the stock, select the correct tooling and set it up, etc, etc, etc… It’s a magnitude more difficult than 3d printing, and the machines that do that kind of fully automated work costs in the millions.
Honestly, the only difference would be the jigs and clamping, and making sure the tools are in the correct loading bay/socket. Everything else can be done by a 3rd party and distributed like it is with 3d printing. even the stock can be pre selected, it’s not any different than recommending abs over nylon or tpu.
I think the difference in magnitude only applies to the price of the machine.
What’s you background? Do you work with or operate machinery?
What kinda old ass 1900s grade equipment are you working with?
I’m not trying to be a dick, I just want to know if I’m talking to a layman or a professional.
You can’t load a file on a 3d printer and print a gun either…
On top of that, making a firearm is %100 legal.
Yes it is 100% legal, I’ve done it myself. And there are actually single shot pistols you can download and print.
I’m not in anyway in favor of the legislation, just pointing out that machining a functioning anything isn’t as easy as you said.
It’s not 100% legal in some places. Know your local laws!
Even in NY it is %100 legal still, you have to print it with a serial and you must be licensed by the state to make a firearm (FFL or gunsmith).
Not in California ever since they passed that bill that requires a DOJ-issued serial number on your home made firearm.
Nope, you can still make up to 3 firearms a year in California without a FFL license.
Not in some jurisdictions. Know your local laws!
NY you can as long as you have a FFL or gunsmith license. Both are not super hard to get.
California you can without a license and you can make up to 3 a year.
I can make a shotgun with a pipe, a tack, and a rubberband. Don’t even need fancy tools. And that’s especially crude. Prisoners in jail have made working firearms from toilet paper.
I know. I meant relative to using a manual machine.
You could make the same argument for 3D printers.
Have you tried using an agentic AI?
Because people are already doing exactly that.
They’re using agentic ai to autonomously program, physically setup and gauge, and then run parts? Where are they doing this and who are “people”?
This is just dumb people being bought by gun lobby groups…on top of all of this bullshit, guns are %100 legal to make. It’s not illegal to make a firearm for personal use, even if you could 3d print one completely.
Know you’re local laws. It IS illegal to 3d print guns in NY amd CA already.
California it is illegal, but NY is not.
NY requires a FFL or gunsmith license
California you can only make 3 a per year without a FFL license.
And that’s why everyone needs to know their local laws!
I’m not suggesting anyone ever even touch a firearm before they know the laws. The laws and rules by not only the ATF but local governments is insanely convoluted.
Won’t stop anyone, but luckily I lost my 3D printer in a boating accident.
If you make it illegal to 3D-print guns, only criminals will have 3D-printed guns.
What’s to stop people from rooting the printer?
The law. It would become a criminal offense to use open source firmware.
And that’s exactly what the tech oligarchs’ true goal is.
Perhaps we should organize against those bottom-feeders?
The desire for convenience.
A “ghost gun” is any gun without a serial number.
So you have to ban more than the 3D printer data files.
You will need to ban metal files as well. That’s how real ghost guns are made.
They’ll get there. They hate the idea of individual people being able to make things for themselves or having any other escape from consumer serfdom.
This goes way, way beyond ‘guns.’ It is an assault on property rights and freedom of expression as concepts generally. It would fully outlaw Free Software firmware (which is what the entire 3D printer hobby, having started with the RepRap project, is based on!). It would cut the Maker movement as a whole off at the knees.
It’s absolute tyranny in ways entirely unrelated to guns themselves.
They should just require all ammunition to have serial numbers etched into the casing and the slug. When ammo is purchased, it is attached to an ID. People keep their ammo locked up to avoid being framed. People can shoot the ammo with any homemade contraption they want. Problem solved - until people learn to make their own ammo. Obviously possible for shotgun shells, but maybe not feasible for accurate rifling bullets.
There are so many spent casings in circulation that people can already reload their own ammo to last the next 100 years. Bullets can be cast. Even powders can be made.
Not only can you cast bullets, many do cast their own. You can apply much better quality control in our small batch runs at home than a factory will, which will make for more accuracy. A factory could be better, but most people buying factory runs care about cheap and so they won’t be as consistent - most than good enough for hunting or war use (even snipers), but if you are trying to win sharp shooting competitions you need that little extra.
Oh well soon enough we’ll have directed energy weapons and drones with hypodermic needles. Maybe someday bullets will be obsolete.
New laws in California and New York might stop people from 3D printing guns
It absolutely, positively, will not do that. If someone wants to print a gun, no legislation is going to stop them. It could at best, slow them down by maybe an hour, as they find, download and install different firmware for their printer.
If you want to prevent people from printing guns, you’ll need a different tactic, because that won’t do it.
Better gun laws in general would be a better approach. The odd ghost gun or 2 is probably just noise in the system.
Real glad I may have allegedly acquired a printer at some point in the last six years.
Allegedly.
When you consider how many students were shoot with 3d printed guns… Oh wait, those were all manufactured by a proper business, carry on then, we don’t want to interrupt big businesses.
This is just the dumbest thing ever… So I can’t print a grip for a camera?
Uhhh nope. Palantir said so
