Washington State Bill Seeks to Add Firearms Detection to 3D Printers [pdf]
lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov
lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov
Will the restriction apply to addative manufacturing as well? will they also limit subtractive manufacturing like CNC? CNC is older, and capable of producing actual high quality firearms. Why not start there?
Are they going to limit highend commercial 3d printers? There exist farms of very high end printers that create parts on demand out of plastic and metal. whats going to happen to their business if parts get randomly flagged as a "gun" because some AI halucinates?
Are they going to ban producing toy guns and props?
Ill stop now, i feel like ive already put more thought into this than the legislators have.
The people sponsoring this law certainly have no idea how to implement this gun manufacturing restriction and America’s gun problem isn’t coming from 3D printers anyway. I would like to believe that these 26 representatives aren’t incompetent so I have to assume this bill is entirely performative.
* Gun ownership should be much more tightly regulated in the US.
* Requiring 3D printers to block production of firearms is worse than useless.
How would that even work from a technological perspective? If it did work, why would 3d printer jailbreaks not be the immediate result? I would use jailbroken firmware on principal.
I think Roosevelt had it right when he said talk soflty and carry a big stick.
It's absurd that anyone could pretend to believe that more people having guns is a "deterrent" mild or otherwise to lethal use of force? In every interview about why american cops shoot and kill orders of magnitude more people than most civilized countries, americans always argue it's because their citizenry is armed so the police need to be prepared to make life or death decisions in a split second at every moment on the job.
Guns have been more accessible and readily available for the entire history of the United States. School shootings are a relatively new development.
Access to and availability of guns has been more greatly restricted over that time. With virtually no impact.
Perhaps the desperation and miserable mental health of our population are bigger factors?
Every country you would point to likely has better access to healthcare, education, and much better social safety net than the US. As well as law enforcement and prison systems less focused on restitution/justice and more focused on education and rehabilitation. Other countries also see less recidivism and lower violent crime rates in general.
All available evidence indicates we should be spending much less time and energy focusing on guns and far more focusing on the failures and motivations of our government.
Is a quote from a sibiling comment to the one I replied to.
It seems that at the very least an extraordinarily loud minority of americans believe that arming the general population should somehow result in fewer gun deaths. On the big social media platforms, the larger news networks, and right here on HN, I am always surprised that such an obviously incorrect idea can be so pervasive.
> All available evidence indicates we should be spending much less time and energy focusing on guns and far more focusing on the failures and motivations of our government.
No, it doesn't. You can't just assert that because it's what you think. Societal issues do play a part, but just as you need oxygen and fuel for a fire, removing either one stops the flames. So if changing the individual minds and morals of seemingly half your country seems easier than enacting legislation restricting access to guns... well I don't think you should hold your breath.
Also, the "at best" and mild" are quite important there. I believe that armed civilians might prevent someone like the National Guard from firing on groups of protestors when it gets hairy, out of fear of being shot in response. They aren't suicidal: you don't escalate when you are in a disadvantaged position!
Why does wanting to own a tool for self defense make "us people" the reason for this mess?
I'm pretty certain this mess is due to the on going class war and our racist president that suffers from early onset dementia. Rome is on fire, but i had nothing to do with it.
I completely your point, but unless you're willing to actually start a civil war they aren't going to be very helpful. They are, at best, a mild deterrent against indiscriminate use of lethal force.
At the same time the US is still the only country in the world which regularly sees school shootings. This was the case before Trump, and I see no reason to believe it'll be any different after Trump.
I agree that the timing probably isn't the best right now, but after fixing the completely broken democratic system gun control should probably be placed somewhere near the top of the agenda.
It’s also very disingenuous to pretend that tighter regulation implies disarming everyone.
Also, as others rightly pointed out "much more tightly regulated" ≠ "banned entirely".
[X] I AFFIRM this screw I am printing will not go in a gun under penalty of perjury
If you click the checkbox, It's Legal!(tm)
You don't even need to register it.
Though you can't manufacture it with intent to sell.
Also, check your state laws first, some states have different laws.
I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The comments here have already turned into a spirited discussion about gun control itself. This is a valid discussion, but may be a distraction in this context.
This doesn't bode well for defeating legislation like this. It's directly adjacent to an emotional issue that will drive a wedge between people who otherwise agree on the bill.
If I was more conspiracy minded, I'd even suggest this is intentional.
3-D firmware restriction? Good luck with that. Open-source 3-D printer software makes this next to impossible.
You didnt mention this, but I am also against restricting service members with a dishonorable discharge. For many people, gun ownership is a large part of thier community and thier lives. These folks would have to choose between following every order (legal or not), or going home and being left out of their community and culture for the rest of thier lives. It's a huge amount of leverage to make soldiers shut up and comply.
And government.
If people fundamentally disagree about whether the government should have a total monopoly on violence they are unlikely to come to agreement on the issue of gun control.
I'd rather recognize a fundamental values difference with someone than try to argue a bunch of rational points in bad faith, though. No sense raising blood pressure in a discussion that is doomed to be unproductive for both people.
Full disclosure: I am personally on the "Belt fed machine guns should be dispensed from vending machines in elementary schools" end of the spectrum. My views probably don't matter to my point above, but more openness about bias is better.