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Laws blocking 3D printing of guns will also restrict open-source hardware
“California’s bill, AB 2047, will not only mandate censorware on all 3D printers; it will also criminalize the use of open-source alternatives,” say Cliff Braun and Rory Mir for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in this article. Last week, Assembly Bill 2047 was approved in committee on a 9–3 vote, and now moves to the Appropriations Committee in the State Assembly.
The California bill is similar to legislation in New York, Washington and Colorado and while they have a common intent, their legal approaches vary. The backers of these bills are anti-gun lobbyists who want to crack down on illegal firearms by mandating that 3D printers be able to block the printing of such guns.
The advocacy group behind the bill, Everytown for Gun Safety, recommends “stopping the spread of 3D-printed firearms by prohibiting the distribution of gun blueprints and requiring newly sold printers to recognize and prevent 3D gun printing.” Everytown’s own white paper says that, based on data from two dozen police departments reporting, 32 3D-printed guns were recovered from crime scenes in 2020 and by 2024, the number increased to 325. While that’s a tenfold increase, the number of 3D-printed guns are estimated to be below 1% of all guns recovered.
Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, the sponsor of AB 2047, explained her justification for the Firearm Printing Prevention Act at the April 14th hearing.
Law enforcement really needs us to take a stand and prevent these firearms, so the firearms do not get into the hands of people who should not have them. This bill does so by requiring that all 3D printers sold in California are equipped with firearm blocking features, which will prohibit the printing of dangerous gun parts.
Statistics show about half of 1.7 million traced crime guns (2019–2023) were originally sold legally and then diverted, so the already illegal transfer of guns is how guns really “get into the hands of people who should not have them.”
Criminalizing possession of design files and implementing algorithmic print-blocking
There are two approaches in these bills. One is to criminalize possession of the 3D files, the instructions set for printing a gun; the other is to require software or firmware in 3D printers be able to algorithmically detect gun designs and reject them.
Perhaps the most curious thing about the bill is that it demands the Department of Justice to investigate “known firearm blueprint design files and existing firearm blueprint detection algorithms.” Ask ChatGPT if that technology exists and it says that it does not — it’s just a concept. If the bill passes, the DOJ will have one year to review, recommend, and implement this technology. The EFF article continues:
AB 2047 goes further than any other legislation on algorithmic print-blocking by making it a misdemeanor for the owners of these devices to disable, deactivate, or otherwise circumvent these mandated algorithms. Not only does this effectively criminalize use of any third-party, open-source 3D printer firmware, but it also enables print-blocking algorithms to parallel anti-consumer behaviors seen with DRM.
At the April 14 committee hearing, David Tobin of the YouTube channel 3D Printing Nerd spoke in opposition to the bill, which he said “mandates blocking software that defies the laws of physics. 3D printers read G-code — numerical coordinates — not shapes. It’s a mathematical impossibility for these machines to detect intent by mandating a software gatekeeper that does not exist.”
Cliff Braun, a technologist with the EFF and a co-author of the above article, said that “distinguishing between firearms parts and everyday repair, toy, and model parts is impossible.” Braun also brought up the point that larger manufacturers are incentivized to comply with legislation because it can lock out competition.
AB 2047 entrenches the market power of the largest manufacturers who can trivially absorb the cost of compliance. Smaller competitors will not have this capacity, and the result will be stifled competition, increased prices, and fewer competitors while exposing Californians to criminal liability if they break out of a manufacturer's surveillance of what they're printing.
Steve Peterson of the Voron Project was also at the hearing and stated his opposition. This bill can really harm open-source 3D-printing projects like Voron, and anyone who wants to tinker with or modify their 3D printer.
Steve Peterson of the Voron Project at the hearing (screenshot from video)
I spoke to Rory Mir, the other co-author of the EFF article, who has written about New York’s bill in Stop New York's Attack on 3D Printing. The New York bill is buried in a larger budget bill, which could be approved early next week. “In New York, there’s the risk of the bill being rubber stamped as part of a larger bill,” said Mir, adding that it was important to get it pulled out of the budget bill. In California, there’s more time to act, as the bill has gone to the Appropriations Committee, and won’t be voted on until August. “It’s not too late to write your state representatives,” said Mir.
“However well-intentioned the backers of the bill are,” said Mir, “they aren’t dealing with the fundamental impossibility of technology doing what they want.” It’s a law trying to design software to do what its backers want, I remarked, in our conversation. Why not at least design the software and understand how it works before passing a bill requiring it in every 3D printer? It seems the legislators have it all backwards.
Mir also suggested that there will be people who will find workarounds to any restrictions that the law imposes. He mentioned that guns can be made from silicone molds, which are built from LEGOs with no 3D printing involved. Braun and Mir’s article adds:
Someone intent on illegally printing a firearm is already subject to charges for that act. Adding felony liability for simply possessing a file or design piles on additional charges while doing nothing to stop printing.
The legislators and the backers of this bill do not understand 3D printing, nor do they respect its community of users. 3D printers are widely used in makerspaces at colleges, universities, and K–12 schools, as well as in industry and for many innovative maker projects.
Please take the time to write your legislator, especially if you live in California or New York. See the EFF article if you’d like to send a template of a letter oppositing these bills. If you are part of a makerspace, please encourage your members to organize a petition in opposition to these bills and send it to the legislator in that makerspace’s district. Help get the word out about the real harms this bill could do.
We made quite a splash!
The first Maker Faire took place twenty years ago. Can you believe it? One of the makers, Bruce Gee, brought a Dump Tank he made with a basketball hoop. Do you know who got wet in the Dump Tank? Yes, it’s Woz. (And the Dump Tank was a fundraiser for EFF!)
Woz (Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)
That year, we put Bruce Gee and the Dump Tank next to John Guy and his BBQ Pool Heater.
BBQ Pool Heater by John Guy (Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)
It wasn’t long before Bruce and John started talking and the BBQ Pool Heater was warming up the water that was used in the Dump Tank. So, I’m pretty sure Woz got a warm bath, but I can’t tell by his reaction.
But that says a lot about the magic of Maker Faire, bringing makers together to meet each other and talk to lots of people about what they do.
Twenty years of Maker Faire
On Make: Live this week, we’ll be recognizing the 20th anniversary of the first Maker Faire, which took place in San Mateo, Calif. in 2006. I’ll be joined by Bruce Gee and a group of makers who were part of the first Maker Faire and helped make it such a special and memorable event. Its impact lives on!
Register here to join us on April 22 at 4pm PT.
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