What does this accomplish?
In the USA it's easier to buy an ar-15 than configuring a multi material 3d printer to print a fidget spinner
And btw if someone really needs to 3d print a weapon they would CNC a receiver from a metal block using a $500 AliExpress contraption rather than making a single use plastic thingy that will probably amputate your fingers at first shot
What does this accomplish?
Spies on people who are printing large quantities of whistles.
This is America, wouldn’t it be easier just to buy a gun? I get that 3D printers can make ghost guns that aren’t traceable but how many crimes have occurred where that is the murder weapon?
Not as much as you think. The thing is even in countries with strict gun laws 3D printed firearms are a negligible part of firearm crime.
This isn't to say that they don't exist. I saw images of criminal gun factories in Australia (which have been around well before 3D printing) that had integrated 3D printing into their stuff, but they still do a lot of metal work, too.
One CEO. More important than every dead schoolchild.
They asked about crimes.
Thats the neat part: they can make weapons the same way I can theoretically make a bomb from enriched uranium in my backyard.
Agreed. Every time I've looked into printing one I look at the process and just buy it. All the ghost guns I've made were from hollowed-out 80% lowers. And one time a hardware store slamfire shotgun.
I fully support one's right to print a gat, but it sure ain't for me.
It's also pretty much a technical impossibility if you know anything about 3D printers.
3D printers can't read CAD. They aren't fed STLs or any other kind of 3D model. They're fed G-Code, which contains no geometrical details. It's a list of instructions saying "turn these 4 motors this speed this for this amount of time while heating that part to this temperature and turning this other motor this speed, then heat this part while tunlrning that motor that fast...." with hundreds or thousands of instructions, and then new instructions for the next layer.
In order to print a model, you first have to run it through a program called a slicer that generates that G-code by slicing it into layers with instructions for how to move, heat and cool the nozzle, build plate, and chamber, feed the filament, etc.
The printers just follow those instructions with minimal on-board processing and zero information regarding the final model's structure.
to comply, vendors would need to require printers sold in california to be locked (presumably by encryption) to a proprietary slicer with ai vision that could try to determine if the thing being printed looked like a gun. Maybe if there was a bullet sized barrel and access around the striker area.
Makerbot more or less did this. It was a pain in the ass to use a non-makerbot-desktop slicer with a 2/2x series.
But that actually wouldn't meet the law. The law requires the printer to do the check.
The software becomes part of the printer. They are linked in a way that one cannot operate without the other.
I didn't say the law was well written, I find the the most likely way to comply.
I wouldn't be that hard to read the g-code and reconstruct the model programatically checking for bores and firing pin access, feed that data into a model with some RAG about internal gun dimensions, but the printers are generally too underpowered to do such a calculation.
it's all a fools errand really, guns can be made out of a handfull of hardware store parts and a drill.
I’m sorry you can’t print a garden hose nozzle because AI thinks it is a gun.
I’m sorry you can’t print a caulking gun because AI thinks it is a gun.
I’m sorry you can’t print a water pistol because it’s a gun.
I have a stupid glock fidget toy that would almost certainly set this thing off. God forbid I make myself a toy.
They really must take every single last one source of joy from everyone who hasn't turned into sheep at this point.
I read the article and what a load of shit. So you can't 3D print a cosplay gun? How far will this go? Water pistols? Ray gun props? Children's toys. Plastic guns are not illegal, just certain ones.
If I lived in California, I think I would invest in a really good 3d printer now-ish and just never update the software. Big brother is watching everything.
Guns are just a weak excuse, as if it's hard to get a gun in the US.
They want to monitor what you print. This means trademarked toys and figures, or copies of parts used in self-repair projects. The next stage is to charge fees to print copyright, or patented objects, or parts to repair. This also means they can spy on your designs and intellectual property.
It's almost like governments of all sizes have been captured by companies and now protect them against the evil consumer which is completely backwards to what governmental organizations were originally created for.
My favorite irony of all of this is that it's very possible to build a 3D printer from scratch (hell that's how the hobby got started in the first place) with open source software that never talks to the Internet. It's more work, but not to the extent that it'd stop anybody determined.
Sure, one of the best printers is a Voron. People build those all of the time.
Same California that is supposedly against the federal government's assaults on people's rights and freedoms...?
Same California governor that wants to run for president to end fascism in the country...?
The real fascists are usually the ones calling everyone else fascists, as that in itself is a means of control.
It's two right wing parties who are both heavily engaged in fascism. The average American democrat is right wing by the European standards.
What's to stop anyone from driving out of state to buy the printer, or having it shipped from out of state? I swear to dog legislators are virtue signaling dip-shits.
Eventually they will all fall in line.
Authoritarians just doing what authoritarians do.
Printing companies should stop selling in California.
Everybody should also stop considering the US like one country, because it functions less than one country than the EU and the EU isn't and the US is.
What's next? Monitoring ink printers? you gonna stop me from printing out an image of (insert copyright charater here)? Oh yha, they would of they could. Many wernt going to make weapons, but now they might just to defend themselves. Good job. /s
Can't regulate the parts as they are used in many many many devices. So as far as I'm concerned this is worthless. I can build a fucking 3d printer from an old VCR and a hot glue gun.
my interest is who is PAYING to fund the bill, i wouldnt be surprised if its gun companies or palantir.
Everytown for Gun Safety says recoveries of 3D-printed crime guns across 20 cities have risen nearly 1,000% over the past five years,
So... They found a total of ten 3d printed guns in the last 5 years?
Percentages without a baseline are useless.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
