Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 491 posts

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#381

Post by gsck »

subhobroto wrote: post #8

I don't understand the problem solving mindset that thinks banning guns would solve the problem of a person intent on causing harm. In the U.K., where I feel guns are only showpieces (do even cops have them?), stabbing is a known problem. In India, where ammo is way more expensive than machetes and knives, people are literally murdered with them. The only argument I can understand, when it comes to banning guns, is t…

In the UK to own a gun you need to have a good reason to do so. This is usually by being a member of a gun club, and getting a license to own a gun. Once you have a club membership and a license you then need to start speaking to the police to purchase a gun alongside having a gun box that is secure and certified by the police. Its an awful lot of hassle so the only people with guns are those who are interested in it.

Police dont tend to have guns apart from specially trained units(?) so you only see these quite rarely. Northern Ireland is a bit of an exception all police in NI have a gun, and are trained to quite a high standard to just be able to use it. NI's police actually go over to England reguarly enough to help when police with guns are required.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#382

Post by nz »

horsawlarway wrote: post #38

Personally, I see this as an assault on 3d printing more than any real attempt to regulate guns. I own several 3d printers. If I wanted to make something resembling a firearm I'd go to home depot WAY before I bothered 3d printing parts. You basically just need a metal tube, and well... a pipe from home depot does that much better than trying to 3d print something much less reliable. So given we don't do this regulati…

I mean, the entanglement between technology and politics is difficult to unsee, once one sees it. And the analogy between solar power and grid power, maps cleanly onto 3d printing and manufacturing (trad-printing?). Politics is _most frequently_ about money and the economic surplus, and only rarely about justice or ideology. The funny thing is, that the adjective that is most frequently use to describe markets is "efficient". Yet, whenever technologies that threaten to erode someone's business model appear, the market starts abusing the political infrastructure to introduce inefficiencies and frictions into the adoption of the technologies.

Even though lobbying is not _technically_ illegal, we should probably learn to treat companies that engage in it (to the detriment of society) as if it were. Avoid their products if you can, and get your friend-group to do it as well. Build off-ramps. Maintain and share lists of executives who work at these companies (to put pressure on their reputations -- after all, what is wealth worth, if ordinary people refuse to take your money, or to give you any of their attention?). The market's distinctive feature is that it makes things fungible: currency, goods, and even people. Eliminate or reduce fungibility, and you get a very different kind of dynamic, one that has the potential to reverse the trend of rising inequality (and rent-seeking behavior, and unfair one-sided arrangements, etc) over night.

In fact, the strategy of any company is to find a way to make an entire class of companies/merchants (not competitors) fungible, while making themselves non-fungible. Most moats are built out of the pieces or remnants of someone else's moat.

Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm too hung over to tell.

https://matthewjbrown.net/teaching-files/philtech/winner-art...

https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/Winner.pdf

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#383

Post by cultofmetatron »

I dont' see similar restrictions on Lathes. probably because lathes cost more (but not by much) and need some skill. unlike a 3d printer you can actually make a proper gun on one of those to much higher specs. The hypocracy is unsettling.

This is all at a time when the US desperately needs innovation. China basically owns us on raw manufacturing capability. 3d printers represent an excellent entry point for getting people into hobbyist manufacturing which will be where new ideas ultimately come from. This is just contributing to making is fall behind as a country.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#384

Post by lazide »

AngryData wrote: post #357
lazide wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because those aren't as trendy right now. This is similar to banning nunchucks and throwing stars in the 80's (yes, that was a thing).

My state still has a ban on butterfly knives. As if doing some highly practiced hand flip move makes it more deadly than flipping out any other knife with a far more solid connection.

Getting mugged by a show-off is clearly much worse for my ego, I’ll have you know.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#385

Post by AnthonyMouse »

remarkEon wrote: post #319
giancarlostoro wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised how motivated someone in a gang could get watching a ton of videos on youtube just to get access to a gun police cannot "trace" in a meaningful way.

I would not be surprised at how motivated a gang member is to acquire a firearm, no. So, I guess point taken, however a) I was responding to a claim that's slightly different from 3D printing lower receivers, and b) I thought YouTube banned/got rid of content that actually taught you how to do this? I have not looked in a long time. In any case, milling out a block of material on your own to function as a lower is go…

> Separately, I am always a little confused by the idea that you cannot "trace" these firearms.

It's presumably a misunderstanding of how investigations work. They're paperwork people so the assumption is that the serial number is of vital importance because it's what's on the paperwork, and if something could exist with no serial number then the entire system is in danger.

Meanwhile the serial number is overall not even that helpful. If you catch the suspect with the weapon in their possession then it doesn't matter that much what the serial number is, what matters is if the weapon they had matches the forensics. By contrast, if you don't recover the weapon then you don't have the serial number anyway.

The only case where a serial number would really do anything is if you recover the weapon after the perpetrator already tried to dispose of it and want to try to use the serial number to identify the original owner. But in that case the perpetrator can leave you without a serial number regardless by just filing it off. It doesn't really buy them anything for it to have never had one to begin with.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#386

Post by lrvick »

To any legislators watching, if you successfully pass this I am going to give public workshops teaching people how to make 3D printers from parts found at Home Depot out of pure spite, and separately, how to make a 12 gauge shotgun with almost 0 effort from basic parts also found at Home Depot without even using the 3D printer.

Put DRM on plumbing pipes, I dare you.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#387

Post by raptor99 »

favorited wrote: post #99
horsawlarway wrote: post #38

Personally, I see this as an assault on 3d printing more than any real attempt to regulate guns. I own several 3d printers. If I wanted to make something resembling a firearm I'd go to home depot WAY before I bothered 3d printing parts. You basically just need a metal tube, and well... a pipe from home depot does that much better than trying to 3d print something much less reliable. So given we don't do this regulati…

> You basically just need a metal tube, and well... a pipe from home depot does that much better than trying to 3d print something much less reliable. Why would you buy a pipe at Home Depot? A gun barrel is not a firearm, and is not required to be registered or serialized. You can drive to Arizona or Nevada and buy an actual barrel, with rifling, manufactured to meet well-known specifications, without showing an ID.…

Do you even realize what you just said? Oh hey why even go to a nearby Home Depot when you can drive over to an entirely different state instead. Really?

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#388

Post by herewulf »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #300
remarkEon wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is technically possible, it is not that easy. In other words, someone who is technical and experienced enough to manually create a lower like that is very likely to have extensive experience with firearms anyway (and likely owns many).

You'd be surprised how motivated someone in a gang could get watching a ton of videos on youtube just to get access to a gun police cannot "trace" in a meaningful way.

That is definitely not how gang members are occupying their thoughts and activities. Real firearms are super easy to get in the US, legally or illegally, and it takes much more than "untraceable" firearms to get away with shootings.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#389

Post by hunterpayne »

fasterik wrote: post #239
hunterpayne wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't follow politics in CA very closely if you think that. The way it works in CA is that the party makes sure that only 1 candidate runs in the Dem primary. Then they gerrymander the districts to make sure that they know which party will win in which district. The result of this is that the party insiders choose the politicians, not the voters. PS Nobody in their right mind thinks the Dems support civil liberti…

According to the Princeton Gerrymandering project, California's districts are better than average, with some bias. You can see a map of the entire U.S. on their front page. https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/ Before the recent wave of gerrymandering started by Texas, California had an independent, non-partisan redistricting committee. Could you provide a source for the claim that before 2025, there was significant ger…

When you hit China, stop digging...you clearly have never lived in CA and know nothing of its politics.

Re: The dangers of California's legislation to censor 3D printing

#390

Post by DoctorOetker »

horsawlarway wrote: post #38

Personally, I see this as an assault on 3d printing more than any real attempt to regulate guns. I own several 3d printers. If I wanted to make something resembling a firearm I'd go to home depot WAY before I bothered 3d printing parts. You basically just need a metal tube, and well... a pipe from home depot does that much better than trying to 3d print something much less reliable. So given we don't do this regulati…

I believe such forces are the indirect result of the structure of society and economy.

If legal arms dealers want the state to step in because of some decentralizing technology, then for the government it would be yet another cost center to combat this phenomenon. So lobbyists need to come up with a kind of reward, and design more "palatable" proposals, so that income can be derived by somehow initiating government control into the whole decentralized technology instead of just the illegitimately decentralized subsection...

but punishing "the rest" for actions of a few would mean financing it with taxes, instead of scapegoating the legitimate majority of 3D printer users.

Post reply on HN