www.slashgear.com: As 3D printers from a number of brands get better and less expensive, there's always the question of 3D-printed guns. After all, 3D printers are showing up in combat roles. To counter this, at least in California, Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan introduced a bill that would mandate that every 3D printer sold in California be coded with "firearm blocking features designed to prevent the printing of dangerous gun parts and ghost guns."
3 comments:
This whole law seems like a seemly obvious thing that should be passed, considering that tracking 3d printed weapons has become increasingly difficult the more readily available 3d printers become. This sort of prevention technology prevents people from circumnavigating typical firearm laws that already exist. It's just a natural progression that if people should be prevented from buying a weapon. There should also be preventions from people creating their own. I saw an article about this whole topic, about the increase in weapons that aren't registered or "ghost weapons" and how without proper tracking, it has become increasingly difficult to follow the flow of weapons to specific people. Theres obviously the problem that ghost weapons aren't outlawed, you can construct your own weapons theres no prevention in doing so its really difficult to say where a law like this will go, because theres obviously the problem off it potentially being a violation of the second amendment.
I do understand the concern that people have if anybody could just print a fully working gun without any oversight. But my issue with all these laws around 3D printed guns is that lawmakers are not working nearly as hard to place general firearm laws that would reduce the cause of all mass shootings. Because the real issue of guns in America is not with 3D printed guns, the majority of people who die from gun violence are dying from actual guns. It feels disingenuous that lawmakers are talking about constituent safety around 3D printed firearms but not making enough effort to actually keep constituents safe from real guns. It feels ridiculous to play the blame game around only 3D printed guns while ignoring the extreme harm that comes from real guns where they can cause mass shootings that 3D printed guns currently don't have the capability of doing.
This is a good idea, but I fear it might not be enough. If people can still 3D print parts of guns (and are motivated enough to do so), they will do that. Seemingly, lawmakers don’t know how the programming would work to prevent people from printing parts or even whole firearms. It’s horrifying, on a moral and practical level, that 3D printers are ‘showing up in combat roles’. I’m a little surprised that federally speaking, it’s perfectly legal to make one’s own firearm without a serial number (or any other approval or knowledge?), given that it is not going to be sold and given that it would be detectable by metal detectors. I’m wondering what alternatives there might be to this bill, and what other restrictive or preventative measures could be taken to avoid a plethora of untracked, homemade guns. Can anything be done federally? Perhaps not under this government, but in a future administration and perhaps with different technological/software advancement.
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