Modifying firmware or using open-source software would probably become illegal:
A new bill proposed in the California State Assembly could potentially require the makers of 3D printers to confirm that they are using algorithms or other technologies to prevent the printing of firearms.
The new bill is AB-2047, and it mostly mimics Washington's HB 2321 and New York Assembly's S9005/A10005, all proposed recently in 2026. However, California goes one step further by "[banning] the sale or transfer of any 3D printer in California unless it appears on a state-maintained roster of approved makes and models."
If the bill is passed as is, then by July 2027, the California Department of Justice would be required to publish guidance on certifying 3D printers and their software controls to block the printing of gun parts. The department would accept applications for approval before January 2028, and six months later in July 2028, every company intent on making or selling a 3D printer in California would need to attest that they have met those standards. That September, the stated would publish a list of authorized makes and models to be updated quarterly.
Unauthorized printers would be banned from sale beginning on March 1, 2029.
As with the Washington and New York bills, circumvention of these measures would be made illegal. The California bill specifically states the following:
(A) For firmware design, guidance for how vendors are required to demonstrate that their technology will ensure a printer directs potential print jobs to the algorithm before printing can occur.
(B) For integrated preprint software design, guidance for how vendors shall demonstrate that printers will accept print jobs exclusively from a single preprint software and will not accept print jobs from any other preprint software, including from a user seeking to evade a detection algorithm.
Washington's bill, meanwhile, states the measures "cannot be overridden or otherwise defeated by a user with significant technical skill." This could ultimately mean every printer in the state would have a locked bootloader, firmware, and/or slicer.
Adafruit, which sells tools and supplies to makers, points out on its blog that the combination of the three states represents a significant slice of the 3D printing market, for a combined 20% of the U.S.' population, and 24% of the nation's GDP. If all three bills pass, 3D printing vendors could balk at making and maintaining separate product lines for California, Washing, New York state, and the rest of the country.
(Score: 3, Funny) by turgid on Wednesday February 25, @08:04AM (4 children)
First, get a state-approved 3D printer. Second, use it to print a new 3D printer. Third, collect underpants.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hopdevil on Wednesday February 25, @08:15AM (1 child)
Do people still do this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepRap [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday February 25, @08:26AM
Awesome
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday February 25, @08:52AM (1 child)
1. buy a hardware kit from China - just misc hobby spare parts
2. build the open-source firmware and slicer on Linux - source code under freedom of speech protection.
The laws don't make illegal to own whatever 3d printer, it only applies to vendors. For now.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Bentonite on Wednesday February 25, @10:46AM
Unfortunately, if you want the software to actually follow the 10 requirements; https://opensource.org/osd [opensource.org] you cannot use the proprietary Linux.
You'll need to use GNU Linux-libre, but as that's useless by itself, you'll want to include the rest of GNU (using an inferior GNU clone like BusyBox may work, but won't give a good experience).
(Score: 5, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday February 25, @10:47AM (2 children)
This is just CA politicritters trying to distract everyone from something else. I don't know enough about CA's current socipoliticonimic state to pin down what they are trying to distract everyone from. Probably businesses leaving the state or something like that. But I really doubt the politicians in CA are actually stupid enough to believe this kind of ban/restriction BS would work.
Unless it has been changed in the last 20 years since I last looked into this issues It is currently COMPLETELY LEGAL to make your own gun in the USA. As long as it conforms to the laws relating to caliber, barrel and overall length, and it can't be auto unless you get the permit. The only big restriction differentiating a homebuilt from a store bought is you can not sell or transfer a gun you have made, and you accept full liability if the gun fails and you or someone nearby gets hurt.
And lets face it, anyone with enough working brain cells to walk and breath at the same time can walk into a hardware store and for about US$20 buy everything they need to make what was called a "zip gun" back in my younger days. Hells, the instructions are all over the internet in one form or another if you look for it. Funny part is a zip made from steel plumbing hardware would actually be safer than a plastic 3D printed fire arm. I'm actually kind of surprised I haven't heard of anyone making a hybrid zip gun with 3D printed and plumbing hardware parts. Steel pipe, spring, hammer in a 3D printed plastic casing.
So all this bread and circus about how dangerous and Evil 3D printed guns and laws must be passed to protect The People is a distraction from something the Californian government doesn't want people looking at, talking or even thinking about.
Any CA locals have any thoughts about what it might really be about?
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday February 25, @03:27PM
Yeah, it strikes me as strange as well. Considering you can just buy a hand gun from a drug dealer, or other underground source, down the road in CA. Or just drive to the next state and legally buy a gun and illegally bring it into CA. 3d printed guns seems like a lot of effort in comparison. If I were going to make my own firearms, I'd just buy a mazak turing station and a haas mini mill. Why even 3d print? This might just be a DRM issue, where they want to protect profits of some company.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday March 07, @03:03AM
Yes, CA is a liberal cesspit and all of the stereotypes the rest of the country has about CA are true.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Bentonite on Wednesday February 25, @10:51AM
A bill to make 3D printers that run free software illegal and you can't even run a free software slicer either - as the printer also will need to contain digital handcuffs to only work with a proprietary slicer.
Commiefornia cannot help but turn it all into the land of the nonfree can they? (proprietary software is extremely communist).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday February 25, @11:34AM (2 children)
Can't you just take your car then up to Oregon (they might become a real hotspot squeezed in between Ca and Wa), or over to Arizona or Nevada or even down to Mexico and buy a 3D printer there without the California-Gun-DRM?
How will it distinguish between a real printed "gun" or a part that might be put in a gun or say a cosplay gun or one I printed for my awesome real life, yet to scale, Battletech robot?
Are "Ghost-guns" that are 3D printed now an epidemic problem? Don't you have enough real normal guns?
One would think other companies would be more concerned like say Disney would be up in arms about people being able to print toys with their figures at home, almost for free. There are, probably, great free or almost free or at least not paying Disney for it models available for download or purchase. Hollywood should be more up in arms for this, I seem to recall seeing lots of Star Wars and Star Trek items available as STL.
Still waiting for them or someone to come up with some kind of working STL-DRM so they can sell their files. The only systems I have seen so far have been convoluted with hash values, cloud storage and phoning home to see that you are printing approved things and those well those printers fail.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 25, @12:32PM
It would be a substantial investment and they're waiting on AI LLMs to output STL files, making the whole thing irrelevant.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Deep Blue on Wednesday February 25, @03:31PM
Isn't Oregon trying the same kind of totalitarian regime? Maybe not 3D printers yet, but that's what i remember hearing of Oregon.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday February 25, @02:12PM (6 children)
Without a 3D printer people use drills, saws, files, etc etc etc. Are we going to outlaw those too? Some people drive drunk, shall we get rid of cars?
Trying to outlaw tools instead of how some people use them is seriously stupid.
Trump's Grave will be the world's most popular open air toilet.
(Score: 4, Touché) by turgid on Wednesday February 25, @02:25PM (1 child)
Also, if you make the world a better place, people commit less crime.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday February 25, @06:37PM
...besides, one man"s "better place" is another man's shithole.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday February 25, @06:08PM (3 children)
The other thing is that that CA lacks the enforcement mechanism to prevent people from importing from other states. So, the absolute best case scenario in terms of enforcement, would be that they would have to find the illicit 3d printers while investigating something else.
I can't see this not violating the 1st amendment given that it seems to require software to work.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday February 25, @08:28PM (2 children)
"The other thing is that that CA lacks the enforcement mechanism to prevent people from importing from other states."
When it comes to understanding its borders, (not surprisingly) California is incredibly "challenged". They don't seem to have any clue that in spite of their draconian and economy-killing clean air standards, the air polluted by China's 1,100 coal fired power plants blows right across the California state line, into Californian lungs.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Thursday February 26, @03:12AM
It's not normally this challenged and this hasn't even passed. The reason for things like the emissions things being doable in CA is that the state is so large that it's possible for manufacturers to do and other states wind up going along with it.
(Score: 2) by weirsbaski on Saturday February 28, @02:08AM
What makes you think they don't know?
Maybe it's a case of "we want cleaner air, but we can only clean up sources within our borders"? That's certainly a better answer than "foreign sources are f*cking our air, so we should let local companies f*ck our air also!".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 25, @02:37PM (1 child)
This sounds like draconian restrictions on a useful industrial product (a 3D printer) that will stifle competition in order to clamp down on a small amount of potential misuse.
Very like abolishing privacy to implement age restrictions, but potentially musch more expensive in terms of suppressing valuable future technological development.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Wednesday February 25, @08:28PM
It's not about guns, that's just the "think of the children" argument to get the camel's nose in the tent. Looorg hit on the real reason here [soylentnews.org].
Once they have a lockdown on the printers it will be rapidly expanded to exclude printing anything that will infringe on imaginary property.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 3, Touché) by VLM on Wednesday February 25, @02:43PM (2 children)
evil people gotta do evil stuff, its their culture, and for whatever reason California is like a giant magnet for evil. Truly an awful state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25, @03:51PM
Stupid is as stupid does.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25, @04:01PM
"California is like a giant magnet for evil"
not compared to TexAss
(Score: 5, Interesting) by istartedi on Wednesday February 25, @05:41PM (3 children)
Probably 20 years ago on the green site I said something about how gun control getting too tight would lead us to "lathe control". I'm not a hard core 2A person either; but I recognize the law as a hammer, where not everything is a nail. We need to revisit 2A, and make an amendment that clarifies the right in a practical way. That's the proper way to address this issue; but advocacy organizations have made that out as a bogeyman that would strip the right. So instead we get laws that are ineffective, and always under the threat of being overturned by a more pro-2A SCOTUS. We also get insane, paranoid laws like this 3d printer proposal. OMG! They could make a gun with that!!! Meanwhile propane, gasoline and oxy-acetylene are readily available. The legislative mentality is hopelessly broken, but these days it's not even the biggest thing on the list.
Apart from laws, when your society is broken in such a way that people crave firearms, you need to look at what drives the craving. The same applies to drugs.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25, @08:57PM (2 children)
I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL!
(Score: 2) by crm114 on Wednesday February 25, @09:45PM
Alice's Restaurant
And we play this song every time we go on a road trip. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 25, @10:35PM
Could be worse. You could want to make unpaid copies of the mouse with a 3D printer.
(Score: 2) by sfm on Friday February 27, @07:54PM
There are many tools that can be used to make firearms.
Should we expect CA to ban lathes and mills next session?