California passes bill declaring death-by-algorithm to 3D-printed ghost guns

6/1/2026 at 5:18:05 PM

This has been discussed already and we all know it is impossible to implement. It's also perplexing[1] that suddenly the government care bout ghost guns when we have tons of illegal firearms responsible for thousands of deaths every year in the USA which were legally manufactured right here in the good ol US of A.

A better question is how do we fight these stupid laws and the idiots who implement them? Voting doesn't seem to work and writing your representative also seems like it doesn't work.

[1] We know this is because of the killing of Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione. Clearly the rich people are scared if this is suddenly being pushed but it puzzles me why they are now scared of ghost guns when I can get a gun off the street and buy or make a suppressor. Hell, there are suppressor adapters that let you screw a new automotive oil filter on the end which works well. To me, ghost guns are a nothingburger.

by MisterTea

6/1/2026 at 6:04:58 PM

Maybe because it is a different type of person who would prefer to use a 3d printed gun. She or he isn't seen obtaining a gun, isn't posting about it on social media, or heard firing rounds 'to test it out'. Might not even have a criminal record, history of violence, etcetera. In other words, someone who wouldn't be (easily) flagged as a dangerous individual could be planning and executing a murder. Also - there is no organization necessary to go from idea to planning to execution. There would be no warning until the attempt.

by fpalmans

6/1/2026 at 6:28:06 PM

Or they could make a zip gun with materials purchased from any hardware store, right down to the necessary ingredients for making black powder. In fact, if you make a muzzle-loading black powder firearm you're not even required to register it federally.

by adiabatichottub

6/1/2026 at 6:40:57 PM

> we have tons of illegal firearms responsible for thousands of deaths every year in the USA

What firearms exactly are illegal that are causing thousands of deaths? We should quantify that.

by exabrial

6/1/2026 at 8:46:13 PM

Rich people aren't scared of plastic guns, that's completely unrelated. This is drone legislation in disguise. They passed a bunch of import laws on new parts, motors, etc from overseas within the last year or so too. The US is wholly unprepared for the drone warfare of 2020, let alone 2030, and is playing catchup, but cannot come out and say as much, because then everyone would get ideas. Just as "think of the children" is understood by all to be a fabricated excuse for what is actually "systematically deanonymize and surveil all inconvenient adults", this is using a less objectionable goal they don't care about as a foothold for a thing that would be difficult to argue for directly.

by RickS

6/1/2026 at 7:18:12 PM

It's California. Not the first time they've gone bonkers with firearms dreams. (Microstamping--the firing pin is a wear item! Biometric--ever see a system that's fast enough authenticating the user?)

There is exactly one use case for a home 3D printed gun: get it past a metal detector. It's bulky, inaccurate, fires only once and even then with some risk to the person firing it. And I can't imagine a filter that could remotely reliably distinguish "gun" if an effort is made to disguise the parts.

The actual ghost gun issue is with CNC milling machines, not 3D printing. It used to be that while building a zip gun wasn't a big deal but building anything resembling a modern semiauto (or even full auto) firearm was in the skilled machinist realm. Now CNC machines can bring this down to merely requiring someone who knows their way around tools--which comprises an awful lot of people.

Unfortunately, the politicians routinely treat these two radically different things as if they are one.

by LorenPechtel

6/1/2026 at 5:10:14 PM

If you’re in CA, definitely leave messages for your state senator and assemblyperson. I already did and their staffers replied that they got the message.

This and AB1043/AB1856 just make me so mad. These politicians apparently think they can threaten fines upon the open source community and coerce us into implementing their poorly researched laws.

It’s like in a toxic workplace when a non-technical manager agrees to a questionable assignment on your behalf, without your consent, and tells the stakeholder oh yeah, no problem, that’ll take 2 weeks.

by tangotaylor

6/1/2026 at 5:19:25 PM

> If you’re in CA, definitely leave messages for your state senator and assemblyperson.

What communication did you use? Phone, fax, email, twitter?

by MisterTea

6/2/2026 at 12:14:05 AM

I first used the contact form on their website and sent a written message so they have my position in writing.

Since they might get a flood of written correspondence, I also called their district office and either talked to a staffer or left a voicemail telling them the same thing.

The key is the district office phone number, not the capitol phone number. One of my reps said the capitol phone line was understaffed and they missed one of my voicemails.

by tangotaylor

6/1/2026 at 5:54:10 PM

Just bought a CNC mill, tehehe.

While I'm a gun owner, I'm not a gun enthusiast, so I don't really have plans to do anything firearm related. I hope these laws don't become prevalent, because a good way to get me interested in something to tell me that the tools capable of doing it are prohibited, and I'd much rather work on more constructive things.

Ultimately I think a lot of these communities (by which I mean 3d printing itself) need to run far far away from centrally hosted jank like Github et al, which is the only real nexus California has when trying to police technical speech like slicers. Just take the hit, move to self-hosted servers on onion sites, and have automation that copies out the relevant products to the centralized watering holes to attract noobs.

by mindslight

6/1/2026 at 6:19:50 PM

Luckily the California bill seems to only apply to additive manufacturing processes.

It's both sad and amusing to think of the thousands of legacy machines that will become legally untransferrable because their controllers are incapable of supporting the mandated controls.

by adiabatichottub