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Comment by codedokode | Hacker News Reader

Sorry if it is a dumb question, but why in USA people try to regulate 3D printing instead of banning sale of bullets without a firearm owner license? What stops people from buying Chinese printers or components on AliExpress? Or using an open source printer? At the same time, if you cannot buy bullets, your plastic gun is worthless.

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US basically has a firearms license but by exclusion. Anyone with felonies or DV violations can't have guns, neither can illegal immigrants, neither can drug users . There are probably fewer Americans that can legally buy ammo and guns than Canadians by %.

If you use the ATFs guidelines on what is considered a prohibited person, it likely applies to about half of all US adults that are prohibited from buying ammunition. This when you consider ~30+% of US has used cannabis/fentanyl/etc or misused a prescription drug in the past year, the insane number of people we've made felons, the fact that restraining orders are now practically part and parcel of divorce negotiations as leverage (permanent restraining order bars you from owning guns), and then the fact that DV convictions are incredibly common in USA (police automatically arrest someone if they show up on a domestic complaint), then add the illegal immigrant population on top of that.

> US basically has a firearms license but by exclusion.

The essential quality of a license is that you have to affirmatively apply for it, so it operates by inclusion, not exclusion. You're like saying "We basically have an opt-in system, but it operates by opting out." I get your point that it has a similar effect, but words have meaning.

Yes of course. My point is we've gotten around the contentious aspects of calling it a 'license' by basically doing a similar thing but evading challenge by disqualifying anyone that wouldn't qualify for the 'license.' If you exclude everyone that wouldn't qualify for the 'inclusion' you can emulate a license with pretty good approximation.

California already has background checks for bullets, you typically can't buy ammo if you haven't bought a gun at your current address.

Thankfully that was recently overturned.

You can make bullets yourself just like you can make the gun. You may remember the assassination of Shinzo Abe.

In the US low powerd black powder is super easy to get you don't even have to take fireworks apart or do home lab chemicals stuff.

But you need something better than a 3D printer for bullets. So if bullet sales are regulated, there is no need to regulate 3D printing.

Making bullets is trivial. It's black powder, a case of metal (brass, aluminum, etc), and some molten lead.

This doesn't even address the constitutional right. You can't ban the printing press and claim it doesn't affect the freedom of speech.

How about blasting caps? Those are integrated into modern brass cartridges, and I think making them that way would require more precision than you'd be able to achieve with simple hand tools and an anvil.

19th century revolvers tended to require separate blasting caps, but you still had to buy them even if you could make the bullets.

Electronic firing is an option. It’s well proven on aircraft autocannons.

Tiny objects are harder to regulate. Many drugs are illegal but are still easily accessible due to their small size and transportability.

The correct action at this point in a society that wanted to keep guns legal but better regulated would be regulation of barrels. They are the only item left that are truly difficult to make in quantity and hide easily.

Shotguns don't need rifling.

Aside form high powered stuff you can get away with pure lead bullet.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47771707 for the rest.

They do that too, but they still let people buy motor vehicles, with which they can drive to Nevada or Arizona to purchase ammunition.

You can re-use the shells, so all you need to do is cast the bullet, which is really easy, then load the gunpowder into the shells and use a simple machine to crimp the bullet on, and you're done. There's lots of off-the-shelf hardware to do it that is pretty common throughout the US.

Many people already load and reload their own bullets in the US because it is significantly cheaper. Good brass can be used many times over and loading equipment consists of an arbor press and some dies. Regulation would make getting it harder and more expensive, but all you would be doing is creating an ammunition black market that funds criminal enterprise with a supply still too large to do much in hampering gun crime.

Responsible gun owners and hunter who practice regularly would be harmed the most because they use tons of ammo. Criminals won't because they might only shoot a few bullets in their life and usually from close range.

> but why in USA people try to regulate 3D printing instead of banning sale of bullets without a firearm owner license

I mean we're talking about CA, so they kinda already tried to do that

https://giffords.org/lawcenter/state-laws/ammunition-regulat...

But, it may not be constitutional:

https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/07/gun-law-ammunition-ba...

So the real reason is that the ultimate law on the books on gun regulation was written by a band of, you know, armed revolutionaries, who were pretty big fans of the whole armed revolution-ing thing. And it still hasn't been amended.

I bet if you went with a simple majority vote today, you wouldn't get the 2nd amendment. But amendments are pretty difficult to pass, much higher requirements than a simple majority.

> What stops people from buying Chinese printers

Exactly the same thing that stops you from buying a generic inkjet printers.

Go check Amazon. There are none.

Some say the inkjet printer head is the secret sauce, but then yousearch for generic laser printers and there are none either.

Is every printer technology an uncrackable tech that has resisted decades of reverse engineering?

Some states do already and it's not enough, you can manufacture cartridges as well it's just annoying.

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