Sorry, I’m just a guy from overseas trying to understand why, in a country where 1 out of 4 people possess weapons, the 3D printer is the problem. I mean, there are companies selling industrial-grade firearms—why the heck is the 3D printer the target?
California’s New Bill Requires DOJ-Approved 3D Printers That Report on Themselves
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Beep@lemmus.org to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de 2 weeks ago
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Because it makes for a good distraction from actual problems that they don’t care to solve because those problems would require them to heavily tax millionaires and billionaires.
douglasg14b@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s not about firearms.
It’s about controlling what you can 3D print.
When your 3D printer has to connect to a third party service to check if it’s allowed to print what you just sent it. That’s a clear vector for companies to enforce IPs.
Printing a replacement part for your appliance? Sorry, they’re blocked.
Printing parts to repair part of your vehicle or snap something back on? Sorry, that’s banned.
Printing something that resembles the intellectual property of any other company? Sorry, that’s banned.
Also a mass surveillance device to produce surveillance of what people are 3D printing and report it to a central authority.
MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de 2 weeks ago
Ok however its hard for me to believe that such measures could render effective. Regulating the tech literate people in such a way will always fail. The only effect it could have is that when its illegal to posses a unregistered/hacked you are an easier target for “law enforcement actions”
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
“Boss, check out this gizmo that someone just printed in Sacramento!”
"That’s a great idea! Patent it, then sue their ass!
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Because it makes firearms available to people without having to jump through hoops the government can track, but they can make a machine that makes flexi-dragons into a boogyman, so they throw a “protect the children” in the bill and it automatically passes.
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Because it doesn’t make money for Big War
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Because our government is run by old dumbasses.
Wilco@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Because money. Firearms are everywhere in the US because of gun lobbyists. If citizens print their own guns then money is lost.
ikidd@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Because between them, the legislators don’t have two brain-cells to rub together and figure out why this is an un-enforceable bunch of bullshit.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
There are a few layers to it.
On the surface, the excuse they give is that printed guns don’t have serial numbers and thus can’t be tracked. They call them “ghost guns” to instill an element of horror in the messaging.
If you dig a bit deeper, you’ll see that it’s the same old tactic of manufacturing outrage and spreading fear in order to manipulate the masses. Even when people supposedly see through it, on the collective level it still works. So it seems to be an effective tool, which encourages them to keep using it.
On a deeper level than that, it’s a trojan horse. Just one more way to restrict consumers rather than holding corporations accountable. One more way to maintain their hold on people’s wallets. 3D printers give people too much autonomy, enabling them to be self-reliant. The people benefiting from the current system can’t have that, they won’t tolerate it. “No, you’ll spend $50 on that action figure, and if you need ten of them you can either cough up the dough or go to hell.” Basically.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
See Luigi.
It’s not the gun, it’s gun makers worried about DIY gunsmithing. The politicians are just the bitches.
CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Also not from America, but I assume this is just the same sort of thinking as trying to ban trench coats after the Columbine shooting, IE: they have to look like they’re doing something, but they can’t do the actual thing that would solve the problem because there’s too much money involved and they’re greedy cowards.
Also it’s weird that Teen Vogue was the best source that came up when I searched for that lol.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
Just like all the “for the kids” bullshit excuses to enact draconian population monitoring, this system will make it harder for small manufacturing shops to compete with the mega corps.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
This is stupid.
You easily tell who is 3D printing guns because they have one hand and bits of plastic barrel stuck in their faces.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
“3d printing guns” isn’t about the pressure holding parts, it’s about the traceable serial number holding parts. On most firearms the “lower assembly” or “receiver” (frame, trigger group, feeding assy) is legally considered the firearm and is what bears the serial. Most of those can be printed and use off the shelf hardware to work, albeit with a much lower lifespan.
Pressure containing wear parts that are meant to be exchanged (barrel and breech bolt) typically do not carry serials and are thus not normally traceable. If you eliminate the serialized, traceable part of the firearm, then any collection of parts could be used.That said, eliminating an entire hobby and industry because gun serialization laws haven’t been updated in a hundred years is probably not the right way to do it.
RedMari@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Is printing a lower less illegal than removing the serial number? Must be, otherwise what’s the point other than cost?
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
That doesn’t make much sense as a law against printers, since it’s far easier and just as illegal to grind off the serial numbers on a gun.
Attacker94@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Unless I am missing something obvious, the simplest solution is to require both uppers and lowers to be stamped. As far as I can tell, this would only be a burden to manufacturers unless there are some weird interactions with the idiotic “stamped part is gun” definition of a firearm.
PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Zephorah@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
This is coordinated. Multiple states at the same time.
I don’t think it has anything to do with guns. Middle of the bell curve, most people aren’t using these for guns. They’re using these for right to repair. They’re using these for garage businesses. Shop businesses. Small businesses. (See: not corporate USA). Or for making/creatimg.
I’ve no doubt there are people sitting on some small slice of a tail on the bell curve who do print gun parts, but this is about corporate America.
It’s also a foot in the door dig on free and open source software.
It’s a way to block individual and small business from horning in on corporate America’s profit for a comparably tiny slice of their own.
Printing a knob to replace a broken on/off switch instead of buying a whole new item? Worse, selling that item or even just posting the pattern for free? We can’t have that.
Now, you’re bypassing my item’s proprietary system by printing…
Wait. I was able to sell threaded hand screw knobs for $5 each. Now you’re all just printing them? And the pattern is up there for free?
We need a law.
grue@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It is nothing less than, I say without exaggeration, a war on property rights as a whole.
Zephorah@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
You shall buy, not produce. Have your crafts, but don’t get entrepreneurial with it.
freshcow@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Great points, I think you’re on to something.
I think the old saying “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity” doesn’t apply when malice and corporate interests are in alignment. Now I’m curious to dig into who actually wrote the bill, and who are they financially supported by…Zephorah@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Given the open source bit, probably Microsoft.Linux is encroaching on home computing, Libre on office.
Whomever owns the biggest shares in arts, crafts, woodworking, etc. You’re supposed to buy the supply and end it there. Not seek profit.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Sooooo you want to stop gun violence in the US so your first instinct is to fuck over 3D printers because gun violence is okay as long as the guns are bought from the normal vendors?
This paw isn’t about lowering gun violence, this is something pushed to protect the gun manufacturers
pogmommy@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Because it’s not about stopping gun violence, it’s about ensuring the state has the final say over who gets a firearm, and keeps them out of the hands of people who might genuinely need them for self and community defense by any means possible
Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Nope, it is about competition with the firearms industry.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The 3D printing lobby isn’t as big as the NRA.
deathbird@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
They know they can’t take the gun industry head on, so they chip at the margins. They figure hobbyists aren’t numerous enough to fight back, while the real gun owners shrug.
I honestly wonder if this might be held unconstitutional if challenged.
jasoman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Can have the military complex lose money.
Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
'Kay. They do know these things are barely capable of being networked, right?
Bluefruit@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Wow a great bill to stop people from making weapons. Y’all gonna ban pipes and steel ball bearings next?
The fuck is our country coming to man.
douglasg14b@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Here’s the thing. This isn’t about banning weapons. It’s about controlling access to IPs and preventing right to repair.
A forcibly Internet connected online. Only 3D printer that has to first check a public database to see if it’s allowed to print the thing you just sent is most definitely going to be used to block you from printing parts to fix your appliances or devices.
And definitely going to be used to provide copyright protection and blocking to IPS of large corporations and companies.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I would like some regulation of middle aged men with beards 3D printing excessive numbers of Magic the Gathering characters.
Burninator05@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hold up. I’m not sure if we want to crash the filament market.
Atomic@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It is specifically trying to prevent people from making firearms that is not detectable with a metal detector. You are allowed to create your own firearm. As long as it is detectable with a metal detector.
I’m not here to argue their method of enforcement. I’m just saying what the purpose is.
EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Wrong, the purpose is to prevent people from not buying from a corporation - guns and otherwise. You can buy polymer guns right from the store.
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Just messaged my assembly member asking to vote against it. I suggest those who live in the state to do the same thing too.
Mister_Hangman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Banning guns is so easy. But dealing with the systemic problems that lead people to guns who definitely should t have them seems impossible to grasp.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Even if this bill was in good faith, I wouldn’t want it: I believe that the USA is headed into a civil war, and I want the good guys to have the ability to manufacture stuff if they need to. Be it guns or tractor parts, having flexible logistics will be invaluable. Not just for military use, but also for civilians who don’t have access to official parts.
In any case, the implementation of universal healthcare and UBI would be much more helpful for quelling violence. People who can have access to mental healthcare and with enough prosperity, are much less likely to become deranged enough to murder people. Measures like this, often exist to keep the peasants from being able to rise up against their overlords.
This thing is a product of malicious greed, not for the sake of good.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
printers can literally be built with dumb electronics, some pieces of metal and an arduino.
juat saying.
tal@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I guess that’d make open-source firmware illegal.
hector@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
It seems like that should be invalidated as a law? Like it would be if the feds pre-empted it.
But the courts have previously ruled that you can’t illegalize dual use devices that have legitimate legal uses and possible illegal ones, as they tried to do with CD burners back in the day for the record companies, may they burn in hell.
Not sure that would apply?
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Someone more eloquent than I am needs to craft a compelling argument that this violates the 2nd amendment.
phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Bauer-Kahan is a Democrat, if you wonder.
mlg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
firearm blocking technology.
grep -r “gun”lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
How does this “firearm blocking technology” even work? How does a 3d printer id whatever code the slicer sends it as a gun part?
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
The last half of the 2020’s is going to be remembered as when we lost all anonymity and privacy.
I guarantee by the end of the decade we get on-device snitches (to protect the children!) that profile and report everything you do, everything you type, everything you view.
Just leave me alone. Let me think my thoughts.
CetaceanNeeded@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is going to make life hard for hobbyists not criminals.
SalamenceFury@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
HEY CALIFORNIA DO YOU KNOW WHO IS LEADING THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE RIGHT NOW????? WHY ARE YOU COMING UP WITH THIS AT ALL, LET ALONE WITH THIS ADMINISTRATION IN POWER??
meme_historian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Wait so far these things are relatively trivial pieces of equipment in terms of software, no? Read instructions, move stepper motors/control heating elements.
So realistically what we’re looking at is hash based block lists for known firearm and parts designs, which would be trivial to circumvent by adding the equivalent of noop instructions to the .gcode files 🤷♂️
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I could make a working metal gun in a day with hand tools and a trip to home depot. Guns aren’t magical complicated devices. It’s a handle and a tube and a pin that smacks a bullet.
This bill is the epitome of stupid and one of the reasons the left has had so many issues becoming the party leaders. Stop trying to play “big brother” and stop trying to fuck with the 2nd amendment.
EtherWhack@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I imagine it wouldn’t really be too difficult to design parts in a way that they would be completely inconspicuous until trimmed and assembled
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Wow…they got us, no way we can print an STL from a USB stick.
rushmonke@ttrpg.network 2 weeks ago
This is all politics is, convincing morons to vote for puppets of the ruling class.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Silly woman who proposed that bill, if passed the law will only create a black market for 3D printers.
SnoringEarthworm@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Printing guns wouldn’t be a problem if you just made all bullets $5000.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
This is so fucking dumb. Anyone can Smith a gun at any hardware store.
matlag@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
That, the coming war against VPN in other states and countries, … Can’t we cut through all these baby steps and get straight to a 1984’s telscreen mandatory in all rooms?
Oh come on! Think about all the domestic violence’s victims!
eli@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
- The printer doesn’t know what it is printing, the slicer does, and at that point just use an open source slicer
- Just drive to Arizona, Nevada, or Oregon, buy a printer, and drive back, The MicroCenter in Phoenix just opened up.
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If they were smarter, which they are not, they would look to place restrictions on the slicer software. I doubt the printers even have the capability to recognize what is being printed. Most of them are like move left 3 steps, extrude .1mm of filament, move right 1 step…. yada yada yada.
This is just insanely dumb. They are essentially trying to regulate technology they know very little about.
SalamenceFury@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
That’s not surprising, that’s just what politicians do. Especially politicians who are 65+ years old who are completely out of touch with technology.
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I am reminded of a senator from Alaska trying to describe the internet as a series of tubes.
VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
The only thing they are in touch with is little kids. The Epstein Class !
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So in other words, what else is new?
The danger if this passes isn’t that someone will be able to successfully implement some manner of system for identifying gun parts which will, apparently, rely on pixie dust and magic. In reality this will effectively prohibit 3D printer sales in California entirely because compliance is literally impossible. And it’ll and give overreaching cops and prosecutors yet another nonsense charge they can arbitrarily slap people with over “circumventing” this mystical technology which does not in fact exist if they, ye gods forbid, build their own printer.
It’s the same horseshit rationale as the spent casing “microstamping” fantasy that legislators have been salivating about for decades. It doesn’t work, it’ll never work, but that’s not going to stop them from wishing it does and therefore turning it into a defacto ban.
Keep in mind, California also has the precedent of their infamous approved handguns list, which notoriously does things like arbitrarily declaring that the black version of some model of gun is legal, but possession of the stainless version of the exact same gun is a felony. We’re not dealing with people in possession of any type of rationality, here.
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I was just talking with a friend about the microstamping idea. I’d never heard of it before.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I haven’t read the bill, but from the description I think you could actually get around this by building your own. They can’t sell a printer that doesn’t have this, and you can disable it, but it doesn’t say here that you can’t build your own that never had the software. In that case, I assume we’ll see kits that are totally not meant to be assembled into printers with all their parts you need, and then unrelated documentation online somewhere on how to assemble it.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
It seems they are rationally putting pressure upon those willing to own guns or 3d printers.
Like most of rifle shots fired in WWI didn’t kill anyone and were meant for suppression.
Making you afraid of everything that can be a legal trap. Thus possibly dropping the thought of even owning this or that thing.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Frankly it seems more like a mild inconvenience then actual prevention. I don’t really care how smart a software gets, it can’t predict and prevent all possible configurations of prints that could possibly be used to create functioning guns without being so overly restrictive that even perfectly innocent prints would get flagged constantly in which case they simple won’t sell too normal users.
It would be a constant game of whack a mole with new creative designs, using multiple printers or with non-printed parts in the design. But no hardware or software that a smart enough engineer has their hands on its impervious to mods either, especially if they’re motivated like someone seeking to produce firearms would be.
It’s an overreaching law that will likely solve little to nothing, but might make 3d printers in general a bit more annoying to work with. “Sorry, you can’t make your dice tower because they’re a 16 percent change that it could be capable of firing an RPG out of the dragon’s mouth. Please make your design at least 12 percent less gun-ish and try again.”
Naia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
The only way these things could be implemented is if they phone home to some “AI” model. Printers themselves do not have anywhere near enough power to do any kind of analysis like that. Mine crashes if my microsteps are too high.
So its pretty obvious that the goal of this is to invade people’s privacy and will likely try to use it to block copyrighted material if it built. It’s the age verification BS all over.
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Wow. I hadn’t even thought about some of these ways around this. Excellent points!!
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
This is why politicians should be automatically retired at 65. We shouldn’t be allowing people who grew up without seatbelts to make any decisions involving technology.
sleep_deprived@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
FWIW, the person that proposed this legislation is 47: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Bauer-Kahan
GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Maybe have an exit poll, if they deserve retirement or must do community service to clean up the damage they have done…
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You’re surprised that law makers are trying to regulate things they know nothing about? Oh…oh I have like 2000 years worth of news for you…
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Not surprised. Just frustrated.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Laws are much older than 2000 years.
bcgm3@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I know I’m not supposed to attribute to malice that which could be attributed to stupidity, but sometimes I think the legislators’ ignorance is actually a front, and their real goal is just even more surveillance.
AceBonobo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Stopping terrorists is hard. Pretending to stop terrorists, that’s super easy barely an inconvenience.
Fmstrat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This would be impossible. Orca is rhe most widely used, and many printers don’t ship woth a slicer. Since Orca is FOSS, and there is no sale, there is no way to regulate that.
Firmware on the other hand, is different. The catch is just about every printer can have Klipper installed on it (most just have a modified Klipper already), which, means the law is pointless since it is also FOSS.
rushmonke@ttrpg.network 2 weeks ago
Slicers are open source so anyone can and will remove surveillance malware from it.
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
Require printers to check digital signatures on STL files and have only approved slicers add those
drmoose@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is a lost battle either way but a non-lost opportunity to acquire some power