Washington State’s House Bill 2321 is currently causing a bit of an uproar, as it seeks to add blocking technologies to 3D printers, in order to prevent them from printing “a firearm or illegal firearm parts”, as per the full text. Sponsored by a sizeable number of House members, it’s currently in committee, so the likelihood of it being put to a floor vote in the House is still remote, never mind it passing the Senate. Regardless, it is another chapter in the story of homemade firearms, which increasingly focuses on private 3D printers.
Also called ‘ghost guns‘ in the US, these can be assembled from spare parts, from kits, from home-made components, or a combination of these. While the most important parts of a firearm, like the barrel, have to be made out of something like metal, the rest can feature significant amounts of plastic parts, though the exact amount varies wildly among current 3D-printed weapons.
Since legally the receiver and frame are considered to be ‘firearms’, these are the focus of this proposed bill, which covers both additive and subtractive technology. The proposal is that a special firearms detection algorithm has to give the okay for the design files to be passed on to the machine.
This blocking feature would have to be standard for all machines sold or transferred in the state, with a special ‘preprint authentication’ handshake protocol required. The attorney general is here expected to create and maintain a database of the no longer legal firearm and parts designs for those without a requisite license.
Putting aside for a moment the ridiculousness of implementing such a scanning feature, even if it wouldn’t be child’s play to circumvent, it also barks up the wrong tree. Although in the most recent ruling pertaining to this topic in Bondi v. VanDerStok it was acknowledged that advances in 3D printing have made this worth considering from a legislative context, the main issue with ‘ghost guns’ comes still by far from kits and similar sources.
Based on this, it seems highly unlikely that HB 2321 will be put up for a vote, never mind get signed into law. Although 3D printed designs like the 9 mm x1 9 mm cartridge Urutau bullpup are apparently quite functional, it’s notable that its manufacturing involves many steps, many DIY store parts, and a bolt carrier manufactured from steel bar stock, not to mention a significant time investment. Trying to detect ‘firearm parts’ at any of these steps would seem to be a fool’s errand, even if privacy considerations were not an issue.
And, much like guns, how do they intend to prevent someone bringing an existing printer with them when they move, or purchasing one across borders?
Or flashing/ modifying afterwards. This makes our government’s under 16’s social media ban look well reasoned, (maybe not but along the same lines).
I can’t imagine they actually think it would be effective. Just political theater for the voting base demanding they “do something.”
Don’t underestimate the ignorance of the people making these laws. They’re well intentioned, but completely oblivious to what they’re trying to police.
Fingerprint filament.
Require an additive for all filaments that can be used to manufacture components robust enough for firearms. Require the adaptive be detectable and traceable after being used for printing.
UV ink combinations, radioactive tracers, etc..
Won’t fix anything, but it’ll look performative.
Mark, how do you define a filament that “can be used to manufacture components robust enough for firearms”? This is just silly. Almost as silly as having to have enough intelligence in a 3D printer to recognize critical components.
There’s been some positive stories out of Australia, although how much of that is cherry-picking is anyone’s guess… kids can still find ways to chat etc. online but it does feel like removing the main and most carefully engineered attention vampires might actually have a positive effect.
However, the legislation discussed here is very different – given that governments and networks with their vast resources and ground-breaking AI can’t reliably catch & root out obvious harmful content I struggle to see how anyone can expect a 3D printer to know if the shape it’s printing is a fidget spinner or an offensive weapon.
Yes. Cherry picking stories.
Problem is still the parents.
Both those who refuse accountability and those whose rights the governments keep taking away.
Parenting has been destroyed in the west by successive governments and the drive for “equality” which views the traditional family roles as oppressive.
It could have made roles exchangeable but it didn’t because that’s not how you enable change through victimhood.
Meanwhile nature just getting on with it without social experimentation engineers getting in the way of raising their young.
Nah. “We” humans think somehow we suddenly know better than genetics and thousands of years of male/female roles.
And banning social media will just increase crime with the zero investment that will take place for other outlets like youth clubs etc.
Give it a few years.
The same way any law is expected to prevent anything… (Hint: they don’t, never have, and never will)
Do you still honestly believe criminals will follow the laws?
This law, like most other laws, is to increase the time a caught criminal remains locked up away from the society they are incapable of operating within.
If they are taking notes from Europe it’s likely moot your phone will be constantly scanning what you’re looking at and reporting anything governments want to know about.
Bullshit.
“Bullshit”
Whatever helps you sleep at night…
You don’t need to make VC things up, try being concerned about real things so you can fight them. The only thing close is in the UK and that’s for SMS. Even Apple’s image thing runs entirely on your phone (because that’s actually the cheapest way).against heuristics, it’s invasive but not what you are talking about.
If they can put a handshake in when you fire up your machine that says “don’t do that” they can add anything else to it.
Guess it depends if you could UK as Europe anymore but this is not the position of government.
But this is the official position now. With a threat to make it law depending on the tech industries “progress” under its own steam.
If it sounds dystopian then that’s because it is. Windows Recall will also make this trivial to impose on desktops.
Having worked for 7 years at polish Internal Security Agency (ABW) I can tell you it’s most definitely not bullshit (; (; Can’t tell more (so I don’t lose my job) but if you know what you need to know you know it (;
He is talking about EU chatcontrol, which has now been proposed twice, and just narrowly failed the second time.
The idea is “they aren’t breaking end to end encryption” because they simply read both sides of the conversation before/after encryption/decryption
Not Europe, Britain, maybe learn some geography. It will eventually get overturned.
“Britain”?
Where apparently we jail people for being on Twitter too, yeah? 😂
You don’t.
Why do you think people in Massachusetts like shopping in New Hampshire? The tax savings aren’t the only reason.
They don’t “intend” to do anything. This, like most firearms legislation, is solely about feel-good politics. Actually doing something is irrelevant. All that matters is that they look like they’re doing something…
Idk if this is relevant since I cant add a post so i just found a random page, but why not just turn your printer’s wifi off (if you have wifi) before they add the detection so you just print the old fashioned way, with SD card/USB stick?
God forbid someone tries to print part with 9mm hole in it :-D
..or 5.5 mm, or 7.6 mm, or …
Just drill that hole in metal block. Would they outlaw drill press and 9mm drill bits?
I’ve always thought the 3DP gun argument was odd, given that FDM is one of the worst ways to make the important bits of a gun and people have been making them by traditional means for 100’s of years now with very basic tools & materials.
Perhaps it’s a bit easier to focus on regulating bullets and gunpowder
This.
Or—rather than confiscation, make them impossible to use in self defense lawfully. “How did this robber die?” “Uh, he tripped over a .223 round, your honor.”
Do you not see how dumb this is?
Making a victim into a criminal?
bullets and gunpowder? How about firearms parts? In Europe, everything that is part of an firearm is regulated. Especially the most crucial part – the barrel (and other parts needed co contain the explosion). In US? Oh the only part considered “a firearm” is one particular part with serial number on it, which is not the part that keeps the explosion contained, and therefore can be made out of plastic (though guns people don’t like the term “plastic”, they like to say “polymer”). The rest you can buy on amazon.
(Also there are a lot of other ways to kill people other than with gun if somebody really wants to)
A large part of the recent development in self-made firearms is to produce arms which do not require any firearm part, even as defined in the EU laws. ECM barrel manufacturing is a mature technology which has been used in several designs. There are variants of semi-automatic pistol caliber carbines which can be made entirely in an apartment, no welding, no machining beyond ECM and some very limited hand drilling/cutting required.
Equally, there have been extensive developments on producing nitrocellulose and other smokeless powder charges and other aspects of ammunition including casings. Rebels in Myanmar have successfully used designs like the FGC-9, which is wholly self-made, to fight against their military, which should indicate how effective they are.
This is, like most regulatory panic, a series of laws that does nothing but convince voters that legislators are doing something.
First of all – 3D printer is kind of stupid machine to use to make a gun in the first place. Interesting? Yes. Possible? Certainly. But it is mostly a curiosity “look it can be done”. If you really just want to make guns, get mini lathe, angle grinder and something for heat treating – and than maybe 3d printer to make parts, that doesn’t need to be explosion proof.
Like nobody is scared of lathes, or mills, or drill presses – and those are the machines actually used to make guns for ages. And you can get one small enough to fit in a apartment. And it will suffice to make a gun. Why are some people so fixated on 3D printers?
Simple. A lathe required skill (and can kill you) a mill also requires skill. A 3D printer however, we manage to make that “presa button, get part” very little skill involved, so more accessible.
Does not mean regulations like this are stupid, and impossible to implement.
Which is irrelevant because the bill covers both additive and subtractive methods of production. They just focus on 3d printing because it will get the headlines.
A 3D printer can fit and run functionally autonomously in an apartment closet.
Lathes, mills, drill presses are orders of magnitude more cumbersome, audible, visible, messy, and involved in their use.
That’s the point. That’s why it worked in Myanmar, they could run printers anywhere that had power, and with minimal mechanical skill. You can make an ECM mandrel, and cut the rifling for a barrel with a bucket, aquarium pump, and a DC wall wart.
The point isn’t that these solutions replace or supersede extant manufacturing; they do something different. That may be a curiosity to you, but to the fighters in Myanmar, and to those inclined towards proliferation of arms (regardless of your judgement on the morals of that), it’s headless logistics that can turn any shed, closet, apartment, hell, even /van/ into a source of firearms.
You literally cannot stop the signal, that’s the point. When anyone with a highschool education, and internet connection, and some hardware store parts can make a fully working semi-automatic firearm, the math on regulation changes.
Well i would argue that 3D printing may be a “press a button, get part”, 3D printing a functional gun is not. You still need to construct the mechanics that will hold explosion of chosen cartridge – which in exception of some low caliber things is a lot – when you want to make a gun that has significantly higher chance to kill somebody else than you.
You can do rifling with ECM but you need round stock with correct bore in the first place.
Point is, i don’t really think so that 3D printer is that big of a deal when it comes to making guns. Also don’t underestimate level of skill in “3rd world countries”. There are guys in Afghanistan making clones of AK-47 with minimal equipment – without 3D printers.
It’s a matter of ease of use and availability. It’s not hard to understand why 3d printers are targets.
@daid
A cnc mill only requires a minimal upgrade in skillset to a 3d printer. If you already have the files, you are indexing your blank, setting your tools, and “presa button”, wait, flip your blank, “press a button” repeat as often as needed, “get a part”
The only operation a lathe is typically used for in firearm manufacturing is barrel boring, essentially acting as a more stable drill press.
In the Philippines they build pistols nearly indistinguishable from factory produced firearms using a basic welder and handtools. https://youtu.be/eydzQ9kIXMU?si=KR_kXvYZjN0IgFbD&t=429
You cant stop determined people from making firearms.
So Shinzo Abe didn’t get shit in a country with ultra strict gun control?
The EU doesn’t have vehicular/knife attacks
You can’t regulate away people wanting to do harm
Kek “shot”. I meant to write “shot” ha
You kind of can – depends on willingness and amount of harm
If somebody wan’t to do mass shooting or murder than he will always get the gun somewhere somehow. But not your average burglar or thug – if it’s really easy to get a gun, they may as well get one, but if it is rather hard, they may as well not bother and have knifes and such – which i would argue is less bad than guns. In more regulated market guns on black market tends to be more expensive and harder to come by. And if you want to legally own a gun, or many guns, in Europe, you can definitely do so, it’s not that hard. A bit harder than in US but not much really.
To be clear, i am not advocating for banning guns – just making it a bit harder to get one.
My point is make it harder to get a gun, they use a car or a pressure cooker, or a kitchen knife (Asian countries have mass stabbings)
It literally doesn’t matter what you do, those kind of people will find a way.
How about we actually lock up criminals instead of letting them go free lol. We’ve had guns for a long time and they’ve really only become a problem since rule of law fell to the wayside in favor of sympathy to criminals
This, right here. This is the problem… Criminals and the mentally ill get to roam free while everybody else has to stay “locked up” in their homes on order to be safe. It never used to be that way; you used to be able to let your kids go outside and be kids without worrying that some sicko is going to abduct them or worse.
Like the current President of the USA:
34 convictions for fraud.
Lead an insurrection and tried to get the results of the 2020 invalidated using faked documents.
Found guilty of sexual assault.
Ignoring laws and the constitution of the USA.
Fish stinks starting from the head.
The US has started rotting from the top.
So the solution to untraceable one time use disposable guns, will be to upload the print files for auditing by the government for authorization to print locally. I can see every criminal using unmodified printers to fully comply with this excellent idea by legal geniuses. /sarcasm-off
This is not targeting real criminals, but it will cost consumers money. They will all have to pay for this idea to be implemented and continuously updated.
The same level of idiocy prevention could be achieved by targeting all cloud storage providers (with a gag order). It would be a poor solution, but this is as well.
How do you prove all those imported printers obey these restrictions? You can’t? Better outlaw imported printers then, with only officially “US Dept of Commerce” stamped FDM printers to be purchased by your average consumer. Printers that call home before every print and record each one in Larry Ellison’s cloud.
Tools to bypass these “protections” will be illegal. Not long after that all 3D models will need to go through an approval process to make sure they aren’t too pokey or stabby.l, in addition to making sure they aren’t negatives used in casting or templates.
I used to have a saying, akin to ‘never assume malice when incompetence will suffice.’ I would use it when I heard of a stupid law. I’d kind of roll my eyes and say “geez, politicians are stupid.” No longer. They are very well informed, but they are NOT well intentioned.
Allowing consumers to buy a $300 machine on eBay that can turn cheap filament into about 75% of the garbage sold on Amazon is not a feature of commerce, it is a bug. In their mind it is the equivalent of a CD-RW, but for tangible things. It’s like PIRATING a replacement door handle. You wouldn’t DOWNLOAD a collectible PEZ dispenser, would you?!
Disposable one-time use?? You print the frame and then buy a glock slide and barrel online. It’s not different than any other pistol and is perfectly legal for personal use.
Seems kind of hopeless for someone who is determined and has some basic level of technical know how. As much as I dislike ghost guns and everything adjacent to them, kids in highschool make their own 3d printers. It’s one of those buy fifteen innocuous things read a guide and you’re more or less there kind of projects. Can’t target slicer software effectively either.
With sufficiently advanced technology and availability the solutions to societies ills require it’s participants to step outside of technological answers and work within their communities. Sorry fellow geeks but that’s my belief.
I mean we could require 24/7 entire property surveillance but even then someone could get some solar panels, a few car batteries and find a spot in the woods or something.
Making methamphetamine used to require buying some innocuous chemicals and a few boxes of cold medicine. Very little is domestically produced anymore. Without the importation of hundreds of tons of it every year, the US might not have an excuse to seize Venezuela’s oil fields.
(Yes, I’ve become a cranky conspiracist in the last 18 months).
I see the parallel you are going for. Are you trying to say that, once they try to control the components (which in this case would cripple all manufacturing lol) we will create a lucrative black market? If so then yes, I mostly agree with that as well.
As far as the Venezuela debacle. I see what you’re saying there as well. Black markets especially leading to central or South America are lucrative for psyops, regime changes, and other off the books opportunities for national security operations. It might make you feel better, but those things are not really conspiracy theories. There’s tens of cases in the last 50 years, all of which have documentary evidence and admissions from sources. We live in a crazy world. It’s just not lizard people crazy. More like greed and propaganda crazy
I suggest a new state government department for this brilliant effort: Department of Additive Manufacturing (DAM). Every 3D printer must be tested for compliance and users must be registered with DAM. Fee will be $XX. Starting salary for department personnel will be $49,000–$55,000, the same as the DMV in Washington state.
Dude, don’t give them any ideas!
“That board with a nail in it may have defeated us, but the humans won’t stop there. They’ll make bigger boards and bigger nails. Soon, they’ll make a board with a nail so big, it will destroy them all!”
Wow. This is just complete and utter lunacy, far more so than the “Microstamping” debacle in CA. How could/would this even work, technologically as well as from a legal perspective? Of course it can’t. Did some politician try to copy a $20 bill on a laser copier, see that it failed because the copier recognized the EURion pattern, and get a visit from the “Good Idea Fairy?”
Even worse this gets into free speech rights. Open source printers and software would be banned under this law. Any 3D printer that can be reprogrammed with open source firmware would be banned. Its total Nazism.
Many, MANY 3D printers, and practically all filament printer designs, are designed to be easily and cheaply built. You might as well try to outlaw making paper airplanes. Outlaw stepper motors! Outlaw threaded rods! Outlaw aluminum extrusions! And even if you buy a 3D printer that has the software installed that recognizes and locks out existing firearms parts:
1) There are an infinite number of ways to design a firearm. Detecting an AR-15 lower receiver just means you can’t make AR-15 lower receivers. How many parts does this hypothetical printer have to detect?
2) At its heart, a filament printer is stepper motors and stock materials, and whatever software it has installed can be easily bypassed just by plugging the stepper motors into a different microontroller board.
Outlaw this, Outlaw that! Don’t give them more bad ideas!
The law specifies that this isn’t targeting just actual firearm parts. It is targeting things that appear to be fire arm parts. Meaning that they are going to use AI to censor prints.
You need a thick pipe, a nail, and a spring to make a gun
If anything the average metal shop is better suited to making firearms than 3D printers (which print, you know, plastic)
Some do metal now, but I wouldn’t trust them to be a pressure vessel – which is what a barrel is for a short period of time when the round goes off. To the tune of tens of thousands of PSI, in some cases. Many countries regulate pressure vessels, including gun barrels, which have to go through a “Proof House” to be proven safe for public, or government, use.
“You need a thick pipe, a nail, and a spring to make a gun”
That’s why the bill following this one will likely seek to put Home Depot under control of the ATF, and require a tax stamp for ownership of a click-type ballpoint pen.
This kind on nonsense never ends, but any politician who embraces it should be recalled.
Meanwhile, the people who create laws like this live behind high walls with armed security.
This won’t work
I can just buy.a 3d printer and install a custom firmware
And force it to print me a gun
Only would stop a 3d printing company from printing it for you
You highlight the first ‘click’ in the ratchet. Now we’ve gone from everybody that can get their hands on a 3d printer and press print can do it, to only people who can install custom 3d printer firmware can do it. But don’t worry, I am sure there are many more clicks in the ratchet as they clamp down on your personal freedoms.
At some point only Bambu Labs “cloud only” printers will be legal. In exchange for the monopoly Bambu Labs will happily block 3d printed parts, and perhaps allow local officials/LEO to review your print history, just in case you printed a gun part like object that wasn’t on the ban list. Being caught with a non-cloud printer will be a jailable offence.
This will just nuke WA’s manufacturing business. “All additive and subtractive manufacturing tools need this ethereal impossible software? Well guess I won’t sell HAAS CNC in Washington.” This would kill their aerospace industry.
Read the text of the bill and think about its applications. Completely ludicrous.
No many manufacturers would capitulate and add the technology spurring a whole new group of people to mod firmware and software to remove it.
WA state politicos defy logic more out of habit these days than any real sense of purpose.
As the kids say: Politicians try to understand technology challenge (impossible)
With RepRap one can print a 3D printer that would be untraceable : – ]
25 years behind the Real World, as usual. I can see how the last waar on draags was won in the 1990s by passing gazilion laws, btw. It sure worked as planned/expected (sarcasm).
Next, state legislators will ban 3D printing of razor blades. And decree that Pi = 3.
That last one didn’t quite happen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill
Consider this:
1. No one knows, how many legal firearms are there in the US. Not even mentioning the number of illegal ones.
2. In some states a blind person can get a firearm permit and a firearm just by asking and paying the fee.
3. There is no way to prevent someone from going to firearm show, pay cash for firearm and move that firearm to stricter state.
In my country the gun law is very strict, to the point I can’t get a permit because I’m partially blind. State knows, how many firearms are there and who owns which. If one person wants to sell a firearm to another one, they must go to nearest Police station to transfer ownership. For these reason we had 4 school shootings since WWI. According to data from K-12 SSDB US had over 2800 school shootings between 1970 and 2026. So I’d rather live in my post-communist country in the Europe than risk being shot at by nut with a gun, or a teenage gang-banger. My kids go to the school that doesn’t require metal detectors on entrances, random searches or active shooter drills.
On related note, I wouldn’t 3D print a firearm. I’d use a mill and lathe to make one from metal. Besides, many 3D printers have either native open source firmware, or alternative firmware to closed source manufacturer’s firmware.
In the US it is fully legal to buy spares and put it together by yourself. This is called “shadow gunns”, and it is assumed that the spare makers stamp parts with traceable/known ID numbers.
Having said that, the history tells something else – once cast-iron and lathe-turned iron alloys were made by private enterprises (mostly for the steam engines, but I digress), the government control over the making became impossible to enforce. Because one can cast-iron and lathe-turn his own machines for making other machines.
I don’t think you know anything about US firearms or gun laws. Virtually no aftermarket firearm parts are stamped with any serial number except fot complete frames and receivers which are subject to the same laws as a complete firearm.
I ask around (US citizen). My info may be pre-2022, so I’ll re-ask.
I am not into weapons (unrelated reasons why – even though I served in the military), but it doesn’t take three handshakes to find someone with real information. Pro-NRA, neutral, same difference now.
(as a side note, local demographic has been stocking things during Obama – so it simply went into overdrive during the First Term; I am guessing it is in its over-overdrive now, and I know few preppers who don’t even bother with explaining their actions – same ones who told me not to waste my time and look for a quiet place in Appalachia, preferably with no visible roads leading to/fro).
In all states a blind person can get a firearm. You can’t deny them their rights because they are blind.
Is the right to drive denied in the US to blind people?
Maybe having weapons should not be a right at all.
In my country you need to be:
1. In good physical health.
2. In good mental health.
3. Without criminal record.
4. be part of hunter’s organization, sports soother’s club or in dire need of firearm for self-defense.
5. Have a positive opinion from local police chief/commander.
The physical and mental health examination follows the same rules as for commercial drivers, that is people responsible for safety and health of other people on the roads.
I don’t qualify due to bad eyesight. And I think that people with eyesight as bad (or worse) as mine should not have firearms just to keep others safe. USA has plenty of dangerous nuts with guns, do you seriously think you also need blind nuts with guns?
Side note: “Blind nuts with guns” is a great band name…
You have a greater chance of dying in a car crash than a school shooting. Vehicular deaths occur more than 2.23 times more often.
You down for banning those too?
In the USA statistically there is 1,14 deaths per 10000 people on roads per year. In my country that’s 0,44 deaths. ~2,6 times less. Also in my country I have a robust public transport system and sidewalks in every town or bigger village, while in the US you can’t move around anywhere without a car. I can’t have a driver’s license and many visually impaired people from the USA are either dependent on their friends or families to get around, or are spending fortune on taxis or Uber. One bloke wrote a story he can’t get to the store that is half a mile away because there is no sidewalk or path, and the only way is a highway. No wonder you have more car accidents than my country…
Really trying to use per capita numbers instead of actual deaths? Wow you people really skew things any way you can.
For reference more than 30,000 people dies each year due to cars. There aren’t anywhere close to that many school shooting deaths. Kthxbye
The nice thing about per capita numbers is that it makes easy to compare between countries of different sizes. My country, Poland, is much safer than USA, especially when it comes to gun violence. On average in Poland there are 80-100 deaths caused by guns per year. In the USA there are on average 45000-48000 deaths per year. Converting them to numbers per 10000 citizens we get 0,024 deaths in Poland, and 1,350 in the US. It is 56 times more likely to die in the US because of guns than in Poland. Gun violence is so rare in Poland, it often makes national news. In past two years every accidental death caused by hunters is exposed as those people are often old, drunk and usually tell that they mistook something for a wild boar…
“So I’d rather live in my post-communist country in the Europe”
I’d rather you did, too. As it is, there are too many people here, already, who pretend the U.S. Constitution is nothing more than a list of suggestions.
By the way, I’m pretty sure North Korea has had ZERO “school shootings.” That must be quite the paradise, eh?
You know, other countries also have Constitutions. And most of them didn’t need amendments to make them work. So I don’t see your point about having piece of legal document that every other country has, too. By the way, Poland had first written Constitution in Europe, and second in the world.
Now I’m waiting for some myths Americans believe, like “Land of the free” myth or “Our democracy is a gold standard” myth. You have 48 different brands of cereal but only two parties, that’s your democracy standard. As for being the land of the free, you are 57th in World Press Freedom Index, while Poland is 31th. 0,58% of US population is in prisons, while in Poland it’s 0,2%.
To sum it all up: you are less free than you think, you are more likely to die in random shooting or in a car accident, you have plenty of choice when it comes to breakfast, but no choice when it comes to government, and your Constitution was amended so many times, it has appendicitis. And you landed on the moon thanks to Nazi scientist…
Social problem: fix the people.
Engineering problem: fix the physical.
Neither of which we know how to do.
I hear that the next bill in the works is one that will require “stupid” detection on anyone who plans to conceive a child.
This is an idea that also was tried in the past
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell
Good luck passing any such law in Texas, btw. (the number of registered stuffs is larger than the number of residents – which means everyone, even newborns, own a thing or two).
No wonder Lone Star wanted to cede from the US as its own country, and I suspect they may try again this time, setting up a precedence that hasn’t happened since 1950s to say the least (Quebec will be second in row, btw). Texas is one of the few economy-shaping US states that has enough resources to survive on its own, btw, and I’ll stop at that.
” enough resources to survive on its own ”
Except when it gets cold…
I’ll counter that with “mismanagement happens all the time – BOTH government and for-profit enterprises”. Actually for-profit entities do major snafus and crawl on their knees asking for the tax-paid government handouts all the times, whereas failed government programs won’t attract anything but ridicule. I’ve also encountered government projects outsourced to the for-profit entities failing rather miserably, and nobody held accountable. I know because I am one of the few who gets to plug the gaping holes after the fact the best I can (and I don’t have pleasant words for those quacks who regularly siphon taxpayer moneys that rather were spent paying better teachers’ salaries).
Actually, a LOT of for-profit companies NEED my tax money to have their business models sustained properly – telcos, prime example, so are all the power generating companies. When/if one of those short-sighted/myopic entities fail to build fail-safe modes operation – frozen wind turbines happen, because they refuse to cooperate with their competitors WHEN/IF needed.
I regularly work with both kinds, government and for-profit, and the rate of idiocy is about equal. Non-profits don’t fare any better, btw, just they can quietly fail without fanfares, nobody would notice, not even the news.
They don’t need to pass it in Texas. The fascists in Washington want to trample rights of people in TX with their laws. No 3D printer company is going to make separate lines of printers to comply with laws in 50 different states they are just going to make them all to the strictest standards. The 3D printers available in TX will be restricted to Washington and NY standards.
Texas is one example I know, but there are less known places where nothing of a kind would fly. I’ve already mentioned Appalachia, but West Virginia and rural KY are the other two I’ve personally seen/known, and neither one would care about regulations. Ah, forgot south NJ, and, of course, upper NY, two other places that won’t be an easy fix. Actually, I’ve learned southern NJ quite well, and good luck with all those places ignored by the politicians.
Born and raised in WA, lived most of my life there, and ideas this stupid from the legislature stopped surprising me a long time ago.
There is a funny little detail that makes this law even more ridiculous: it doesn’t stop at 3d printers.
“”Three-dimensional printer” means (a) any machine capable of rendering a three-dimensional object from a digital design file using additive manufacturing or (b) any machine capable of making three-
dimensional modifications to an object from a digital design file
using subtractive manufacturing”
If passed as it is right now, it will regulate any CNC machine: mills, lathes, laser cutters. Anything that can add or remove material from a part.
(page 2 lines 13-17 btw)
In the UK, the quantity of 3d printed firearms that were sized by the metropolitan police increased 300% from 2021 to 2022, then levelled off to a plateau in 2024. It is believed that the total seized may reach as many as 20 by the year 2030
https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclosure-2025/january-2025/3d-printed-guns/
I laughed out loud on seeing the data. “4 guns Jeremy? Four? That’s insane!”
I wonder how many normal guns they seized. I’d bet it’s at least 10x more!
If you’ve ever been bitten by a dog with no teeth, you know how much it tickles. That’s basically what they’re doing with this bill. No bite, all fluff. In an era when any LLM can walk a 4 year old through jail-breaking an iPhone, bills like this only exist so some politician can do the “I told you so” finger wag the next time something happens. No infringement means no infringement. Manufacturing accessibility has revolutionized the game. I’m like George Carlin just waiting for the news to break about what “thousands of people in the streets” are doing. ;)
Washington State is in a race with California to see who can ruin a state faster. The governor is pushing a “one time millionaire tax” which will throw a broader net than the proposed CA billionaire tax. Businesses are leaving the state. Fuel is nearly twice the national average, etc. Currently there are 6 new “gun control” bills scheduled for submission which is usually only the beginning.
In WA, county sheriffs are elected locally. There is a bill to create an appointed committee that can remove any sheriff. Apparently those who refuse to cooperate with the executive branch. There have recently been some high profile busts with “ghost guns” found. I have seen the photos and what they lay out is 3D printed frames for Glock type pieces. The frame is the part that gets serial numbered and is the only regulated part – the “receiver”. These were not assembled and there were no barrels or trigger groups or bolts or springs, etc. evident. And no indication they could actually function.
States like Washington with their Draconian unconstitutional gun laws have created 3D printed guns. Now they are going to create software and firmware hacks for 3D printers. Stupid politicians never ever learn.
No common sense. Guns/3D guns/blow guns/knifes/clubs/etc. don’t kill people. People kill people…. And there is already laws on the books to handle that situation. The whole idea of gun control is flawed from the start. Glad I live where I do.
Bible makes a clear distinction between killing and murder so people should be allowed to own guns.
All people should be able to defend themselves (and others) whatever convictions you hold dear. That is why there is castle laws in place. There are and always will be bad people out there. Removing the true equalizer won’t help. This really isn’t hard to understand. Why some think guns should be registered/restricted is beyond me. Fear though makes people think irrationally and create some strange laws.
fact 1: fully 3d printed guns suck and are almost as dangerous for the user as the intended target.
fact 2: most gun parts are not counted as guns, only the receiver.
fact 3: using real gun parts in printed guns makes them significantly better.
solution: instead of babysitting printers, maybe the other essential gun parts need to be called “guns” too, especially the barrels.
im definitely pro 2A, its the only thing keeping the us government from looking like the uk government. most people who want guns are just going to buy guns the legal way, and that should be expanded for parts.
You mean like CA AB 1263?
Let’s not forget the hypocrisy of the gun grabbers !
During the L.A. riots, they (gun grabbers) were the first ones in the gun stores
demanding – you guessed it – GUNS ! – and of course the FFL licensee said
tough – 3 day wait, and fill out these forms – and get in line.
Notice how the mob stayed away from the Korean grocers who were
armed with AR’s – (not sure if they were CA compliant, but who cares?
in an SHTF situation – the deterrence value was evident).
Sage words from a Knight without armor in a savage land –
Paladin: You say nobody can carry guns in this town, so the only people who have guns are the outlaw scum who will continue to come through here. You can’t protect the people in this town. But you take away the only means they have of defending themselves.
Uhh
How exactly do they intend on doing this? You can print anything in any shape. Like… it doesn’t need to look anything like a gun. You could have square bullets or fire crossbow-esque bolts. You could create a simplistic railgun using magnets. Like.
There’s no way. Lmao.
When they start talking about printing the parts that are the defining component of a gun, this is just code for “AR-15 lower receivers”. The AR-15 is the most popular DIY gun in the world, and the only value in this legislation is that it COULD reduce the number of AR-15 lower receivers being made by or for people who want to make their own untraceable AR-15s. They’re trying to stick a finger in one hole in the dam, which will only cause new leaks to spring up elsewhere.
Do you know why “bump stocks” exist? Because these exploit a loophole in the laws that were written to eliminate guns that shoot continuous streams of bullets. For every regulation there is a loophole.
It has always been legal to manufacture your own guns in America. You didn’t even need to put a serial number on them up until a couple years ago, provided you weren’t going to sell or transfer the finished arm. This law is just more pearl clutching from certain types of people in the government, and the ignorant masses that follow them.
It cannot be done, by law an individual is allowed to make them for themselves which is Personal Manufacturing and Rights have been paid to print them legally. This is another Constitutional Right We Have under the Untied States Constitution.
If they want to make it, then they have to ban 3D printers. Ofc its completely ridiculous.
The bigger issue is the question of the sanity and compenance of the individuals responsible for writing up that proposed legislation in the first place, they should be retired immediately on mental fitness grounds.
Scary how clueless the legislators are about tech. Regulating the availability of ammo would be far more effective, without collateral damage.
It’s a mystery to me why they have not been able to regulate ammunition. This is the point Michael Moore made in “Bowling for Columbine”. Smokeless powder is the one thing they need to control.
Mystery to me, why people would even think of regulating ammo and supplies, or guns, etc.
A friend sent me this interesting explanation of the bill – NOT just 3D printers
No Longer Fiction. The 3D Printing Ban Is Here
Washington State House Bill 2321 proposes a ban on 3D printers without blocking software. In this video, I break down the legislation, the impact on the maker community, and why my fictional short films are becoming reality.
WA HB-2321
https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?B…
WA Contact your representative
https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/bill/2321
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvBVZIJWejs
There are so many comments on this and I doubt that anybody’s going to get around to reading mine, but I feel my experience is actually quite important. Some of you may have a similar perspective, but I had the good pleasure of being on a Federal grand jury in California last year and I can tell you that statistically speaking 3D printed guns do not exist. I can also tell you that convicted felons and people who cannot legally own guns have no problems whatsoever procuring one if not dozens of firearms that they’re not supposed to have. Semi-Automatic, fully automatic, serial numbers sanded off, silencers from China, short barrel weapons, incendiaries, every type of ammunition you could ever even dream of short of depleted uranium, and on and on and on and on. Nobody is using a 3D printed gun because they can’t get a real one, and for every weird one-off that somebody can find, I assure you there’s at least a thousand guns of the usual sort that have been taken away from people. I promise you nobody is going to go in and try to rob another drug dealer with a 3D printed gun.
What this smells like to me is a bunch of lawmakers that can’t get their act together to do something meaningful with their time in office so they found some bipartisan nonsense that they can brag about in the midterms and spout gibberish about consensus when in fact the bill wouldn’t solve a problem even if it could get passed. Of course there is a danger, although hypothetical and down the road that the move to really combat this so-called problem would be to make 3D printers illegal. Never say never.
Aren’t there laws against having unregistered firearms already? I’m not happy with some government body knowing what I’m making in my shop with my own tools. Laws like these would not hinder a criminal from making their own 3D printer or CNC machine to make guns. It sure would not stop other gunsmiths from using traditional gun making methods. There are so many guns in the USA already, criminals can easily buy them anyway. Besides, I need to be able to print a few guns in case the “Revolution” pops off.
This crap is getting out of hand. The biggest problem is the fact that those creating these unconstitutional and ridiculous laws,know absolutely nothing about firearms. Do you really think that a criminal is going to invest the time and money to produce a undocumented firearm? No! Criminals just steal guns or buy them off the streets. The only people these stupid laws affect is the law abiding citizens. If you idiots actually ban firearms then it will be just like illegal drugs. Mexico and other foreign countries will start shipping firearms into the country along with the boatloads of cocaine. The 2nd amendment is for the right of the citizens to have the same firepower as the government so when they start pulling shit like they are constantly doing, we can stand up against them and say “I don’t think so.” We have nothing that can compare to the governments arsenal. Turning into a communist country really quickly don’t you think???
Yeah, make laws like this… meanwhile the American People…
I am no libertarian…I support publicly funded science…am pro-labor, etc.
This is a stupid law made by stupid people—-and is unenforceable.
Prohibition and drug war thinking
Kids here don’t even need 3D printing:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fna9WEO6BjE
At this point—for gun control to work would mean 10 times the BATF agents as there are ICE agents and that would result in more deaths not less with more Waco events.
Eric Garner (I can’t breathe) was choked by nuisance laws like those against loosie cigarettes that was intended to promote lung health.
I would say “ban bans,” but like Daddy Bush wanting to exterminate Coca plants, some do-gooder will try to splice a powder eating bug and it will go grey goo on us.
Atomic power doesn’t scare me.
This does:
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-golden-gate-method-enables-fully.html
All such Frankenstein-DNA stuff needs to be done OFF PLANET.
However bad gang bangers are—THE STAND is worse.
Creating a database of blocked parts will be a game of whack-a-mole. People will just keep publishing modified designs.
Anyone who is moderately tech savvy will probably just use open source printer firmware to avoid the block. There are plenty of printer designs out there that you can build from scratch too. That’s how the entire hobby began.
Even if this could hypothetically get passed 3D printers and CNC machines can also be “assembled from spare parts, from kits, from home-made components, or a combination of these” and the user can simply install open source firmware releases from before these features got implemented (again if they hypothetically were implemented at all).
Timely enforcement would be impossible against the intended targets, it would only inconvenience/hurt commercial interests and legitimate users, like every other anti-2A legislation.
Gun control politicians allways seem to be missing a fundamental understanding of technology in general. No just guns. Nevermind their blindness to human nature. You’re average grade school teacher has a better grip on man’s inhumaniry to itself than most elected officials.
I hate strawman arguments as much as the next rational person, but in all seriousness where does thier plan for controlling human nature eventually end?
I lived in WA state for ten years. While the state has many redeeming qualities the death grip the Seattle elitist politicos have on the state government isn’t one of them. They’ve abandoned all logic for a race to the bottom to see who can virture signal the hardest.
This whole thing smells like a political stunt to gain votes for the next cycle.
Man’s inhumanity*
I really shouldn’t comment from my phone. I’d turn the autocorrect back on but it’s almost as bad at guessing as I am typing on a touch screen.
Politicians have no clue about technology. A number of tools and one of the very known ones is Cura is open source. It is written in Python and it is very easy to patch it to remove anything relating that block. It’s just they’re just idiots. They have no clue about technology.
Good luck regulating LinuxCNC.
I hope all the other 51+ comments come back.
I was just trying to figure that out too… I was about half way through them and was going to reply to one, but all the “Reply” links were gone. So I just reloaded the page, and now there are only 4 comments (none of which are really as much of the “make you think” variety as many that vanished).
This happened 2 minute ago, but I guess I originally opened this HaD article a couple hours ago and just now read it, so it has been sitting in an idle tab for a bit. But still…wtf? Given what a lot of the comments were discussing, this hardly seems accidental or the fault of a bug.
If this was a HaD decision, is just validation that no one at management here is really a hacker. No true hacker would take part in censorship like this. It’s as stupid as the bill at the heart of this article.
Makes me want to write a hackaday comment archiver script that archives comments and looks for deletions…
In the meantime, take a wayback link
https://web.archive.org/web/20260119144842/https://hackaday.com/2026/01/19/washington-state-bill-seeks-to-add-firearms-detection-to-3d-printers/#comments
As of 1768889754
There are a bunch of restored comments here, somewhere in the 40s.
However, a lot of the ones recorded on the archive list are not restored.
What is going on here?!?
This sits somewhere between social engineering, manipulation, and censorship. Hard to say what value of each.
It’s almost definitely in response to reports, and this isn’t any of the things you are saying, especially censorship. You might want to learn what these writers mean.
There are browser apps that save the contents of forms.
Maybe while they’re at it they should outlaw LLMs that hallucinate too.
Gottem. I
I can name quite a few talking heads who can out-hallucinate any LLM. I think they are competing with them, too.
Will the software be able to tell the difference between a real firearm pattern and a custom Nerf Gun? It’s a popular modding practice to make your own parts so your Nerf gun is more powerful and accurate.I’ve seen neighborhood kids with custom printed Nerf guns in neon colors. They can bullseye a soda can at 30m with their creations and modded toy guns. Airsoft guns are popular too. Will they be under scrutiny by the proposed software?
Strange enough, nobody yet mentioned coil guns.
I don’t need to print guns on my 3D printer. I have two gun stores in my small town and can easily buy any gun I want. If I want a gun from out of state, they can send the gun to one of the two local gun stores and I can buy it there. There qre also gun shows and I go every year and spend money.
Thats beside the point. I don’t want the government to tell me how I use my 3D printer. My printer has the memory equivalency of an Arduino. It reads only gcode. There is no online to it. How is it supposed to phone home and compare my gcode to gun parts?
Maybe the slicer program could do it, but what if I use a different slicer? Will Debian have a newer compliant version of Cura or will it be years behind as always?
What’s next? Require ink pen makers to prevent the use of their pens to prevent hate speech?