California really wants to regulate 3D printers. The reason is that people can use those to make firearms, and anti-gun lawmakers whet themselves at the thought that someone might make a gun without their approval. They've even been looking at a bill that would require technology to specifically block people from making firearms.
Or, well, they were and still sort of are.
First, they amended the bill to offer an exemption to the entertainment industry, where they could make whatever they wanted. At the same time, the rest of the population wouldn't be able to, because of course they'd kiss Hollywood's keister.
Now, though, they've taken steps that all but render the bill meaningless.
As the bill currently stands, however, these provisions have basically all been changed. Now, the bill proposes that starting July 1, 2027 the Department of Justice should check in quarterly with standards organization ASTM International to see whether it has published guidance on firearm blocking technology for 3D printers. According to the bill, if ASTM International does publish or adopt standards related to 3D printed gun control, the department will have 24 months to itself publish written guidance or regulations.
According to the bill: “The written guidance or regulations shall describe minimum performance standards for three-dimensional printer firearm blocking technology necessary to safely, fairly, and effectively implement the technology at a statewide level.” If, however, ASTM International has not published any standards related to firearm blocking technology for 3D printers by July 1, 2029, the “department shall not be required to make any further determinations under this section.”
The amended bill changes both the requirements of the original law proposal as well as the timeline, and puts the onus on ASTM International to first develop standards related to a technology for stopping 3D printed firearms from being made. This weakened stance will surely be a relief to 3D printer manufacturers operating in the state as well as 3D printer users, who were wary about how the original AM2047 bill would impact their ability to design and innovate. The bill itself now effectively covers how the Department of Justice should go about legislating based on industry standards, rather than setting a standard itself. Presently, the bill has passed in the First Chamber and is awaiting a Second Chamber vote. If the bill passes without amendments in the Second Chamber, then it will progress to the governor to sign it into law. If more amendments are made, the bill must go back through the First Chamber.
ASTM International deals with additive manufacturing, which is just a fancy-pants way of describing things like 3-D printing. If they simply decline to create standards, California has no regulation to speak of, and no one is impacted.
That sounds like good news.
The problem is that as an international organization, those standards will probably happen, and then the California DOJ will be tasked with creating the law, rather than the lawmakers themselves. While the attorney general can be held responsible for whatever form that takes, individual lawmakers won't. Considering how California tends to vote, particularly with so many large urban areas, a lot of swing district Democrat lawmakers will get shielded from their votes on this bill specifically because they didn't create any actual rules.
The truth is that this whole idea of legislation by regulation via bureaucrats is as undemocratic as it gets, which is funny from the crowd that keeps screaming about threats to democracy, don't you think?
The bill, even as it stands, with filed-down teeth for at least the short term, needs to die a horrible, fiery death in an abandoned dumpster that even the heroin addicts avoid. The fact that this is California, though, means there's a very good chance this will come to pass.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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