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Comment by SpicyLemonZest | Hacker News Reader

I just fundamentally don't understand the idea that nobody's allowed to restrict firearms manufacturing unless they can solve complex riddles about the nature of parts. I understand that you perceive this to be a deep and interesting point, but to me it seems enragingly obtuse. Let's start with blacklisting DefCAD and iterate from there, what's wrong with that?

Like, it's true that refrigerators don't maintain a completely uniform temperature, meaning there's some philosophical wiggle room in what it means for a health department to say that raw meat must be stored at 41F. But it would be absurd for a meatpacker to declare that this means food safety is "impossible", and outrageous for them to conclude that they're just not going to bother refrigerating their meat at all.

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How long until people get police showing up at their door because they tried to print something harmless but gun-shaped (like a light gun for retro games, or Nerf-style toys) and were flagged by the AI 'firearm detector'?

If you want to have a voice in how the regulation is implemented, perhaps you should offer suggestions for how to implement it better. That's how it works in most industries; legislators propose to enact regulation X, manufacturers respond that X would have undesirable consequences and Y would be better, and then they discuss to figure out how to best balance all the competing interests.

For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, firearms manufacturers seem to think they're entitled to instead stomp their feet and say "no, no regulation, you have to let me do whatever I want!". I'm never quite sure why they think this foot-stomping would be at all persuasive to people who don't manufacture firearms. Again, I imagine you don't see things this way and I'd be happy to learn more about what I've gotten wrong here.

I would rather just accept more crime than accept draconian regulation telling me what I can do with a piece of hardware I own

Go solve gun crime with boots on the ground instead

Again, it seems like there's a critical insight that's gone missing between the first and second lines of your post. It's unsurprising that a manufacturer might prefer to be regulated less rather than more, and there are a number of cases where I ultimately agree with some manufacturer or another on that. Perhaps it's the case that gun crime would be best resolved with boots on the ground; I could imagine being persuaded by someone who explains where the boots are going to come from and why they're not already there. Maybe I could even be persuaded that 3D printing is more important than crime reduction, although I'm less able to imagine what would convince me of that.

It's incredibly bizarre that you feel entitled to issue commands about what I or the California legislature must do instead of passing the regulations you don't like. What is your mental model of the world, where someone would read the words "Go solve gun crime with boots on the ground instead" and not become more passionate about the idea that we must regulate you whether you like it or not?

Why not focus on the actual gun problem, handguns, and not histrionics about ghost guns and SBRs?

We try! But most California restrictions on handguns have been struck down by the courts, and many of the surviving restrictions manufacturers simply refuse to comply with. They've been boycotting microstamping technology for over a decade, blatantly lying about commercial viability as an excuse for their policy preference not to do it. (I'm slightly sympathetic, because it is true that the first manufacturer to comply will probably themselves get boycotted by anti-gun-regulation zealots.)

> For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, firearms manufacturers seem to think they're entitled to instead stomp their feet and say "no, no regulation, you have to let me do whatever I want!".

Who exactly is the "firearms manufacturer?" I've owned and used 3D printers for years. Not once has anything I've used or seen from any 3D printer manufacturer or other related supplier have anything to do with guns.

Then I'd expect you won't be affected by this ban on manufacturing guns with 3D printers. Perhaps there's some changes we should make to better ensure you won't be affected; if so by all means you should suggest them.

Of course the vast majority of people opposing this bill have zero interest in manufacturing firearms.

I 3D print as a hobby, mostly items related to retro computing/gaming and things like Gridfinity storage boxes.

But I value my privacy, and don't want governments scanning my models before I'm able to print them, just as I wouldn't want them scanning my code before I'm able to compile it (these days, code can potentially be a weapon of war, malware or drone flight controller code being more powerful than a plastic gun)

Which “firearms manufacturers” use 3D printing in their process?

Why do you think they would be opposed to this? (I doubt they care.)

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