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California Lawmaker Wants 3-D Printers To Be Regulated
New submitter phrackthat writes with news that California State Senator Leland Yee (D-S.F.) says he wants regulations to track who owns and uses 3-D printers. Yee's comments come in response to the recent news of Defense Distributed's successful test-firing of a 3-D printed gun.
"He's concerned that just about anyone with access to those cutting-edge printers can arm themselves. 'Terrorists can make these guns and do some horrible things to an individual and then walk away scott-free, and that is something that is really dangerous,' said Yee. He said while this new technology is impressive, it must be regulated when it comes to making guns. He says background checks, requiring serial numbers and even registering them could be part of new legislation that he says will protect the public. Yee added, 'This particular gun has no trace whatsoever.'"
I'll bet you get a free gun when you buy one of those 3-D printers in some states.
I don't think doing something horrible to an individual qualifies as terrorism. In my day we call those people criminals.
You can have your god back when you are old enough to handle the responsibility.
You can't tell whose printer printed it, inb4 3d water marking
Wouldn't most "horrible things" that you would do with a gun be illegal? Meaning you wouldn't be able to walk away scott-free.
Unless there is some crazy loophole that says if you kill someone with an unregistered homemade gun it's 100% legal. Which if that's the case I don't think it's the 3D printer that is the problem.
Also, I guess this means it's time to start regulating CNC machines as well.
Lets start with procreation. Having kids can be harmful. You may not be prepared and have m the child. Worse yet,said child my grow up an addict or rapist or terrorist or murderer. Having kids can harm the economy. Having kids can harm the environment. So lets mandate reversible birth control and license procreation.
Silence is a state of mime.
I'd like to thank middle-class crypto-anarchist Cody Wilson from Defense Distributed for ensuring that idiot politicians of every stripe try to clamp down on the most promising new manufacturing technology in a decade.
Nice job! Love the plastic zip gun you made, kid.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Before 3d printers, people that wanted a cheap and lousy gun without buying a real one would just assemble one from some metal pipes and other junk, the old Saturday Night Special, Zip Gun, or Junk Gun.
As to passing through metal detectors, who really cares, after all anyone that can't afford a real gun from illegal sources isn't going to be going into the areas 'protected' by metal detectors.
FUCK YOU!
Guns and explosives are easy to get thanks to America's right to bear arms. The representative would have 3d printer regulation before gun regulation? That makes absolutely no sense at all. Since 3d printers can be made by hobbyists at home, effective regulation is impossible. Not to mention that firing a 3d printed gun as a proof of concept and having an effective weapon are two very different things. A car is a far more dangerous weapon than a 3D printer. Are you afraid to drive?
Why not regulate lathes? They can be used to make a barrel of a high powered rifle.
Why not regulate mills? They can be used to make land mines.
Why not regulate sheet metal? They can be used to make the skin of missiles.
Why not regulate screwdrivers? They can be used to make bombs.
Why not just regulate and put a serial number in each and every bullet manufactured? I doubt that anyone would be able to 3D-print a bullet and its charge for many years to come.
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
Uh, oh - No one tell him about "zip" guns!
More seriously, though - You can get an untraceable "real" gun a hell of a lot cheaper and easier - even in California - than by buying a $1000 machine, finding the plans online, trying to get it to print all the parts un-warped enough to actually fit together, and then will only fire a single shot, perhaps half a dozen times before it deforms too much to use again.
/ You can have my Bic ball-point pen over my cold dead hands, you 2nd (and 1st!) amendment hating scum!
While I agree with the Senator, I believe we must act with comprehensive reform. Laser printers are being used to print counterfeit money. Those too should be regulated and tracked just as strictly as 3d printers. All printer owners should be tracked, registered, and of course, pay a government tax to cover all this tracking.
Goddamn, I'm good at this political bullshit. Block something I don't want under the guise of "comprehensive reform." Being a greasy politician is easy.
It's the same guy that proposed a ban on videogames to minors.
Leland Yee: using the government to protect you from bogeymen that don't exist.
This is the kind of stupidity I see coming from Democrats across the country and its just sickening. Just as the DOD and DOJ are pushing to block the ability to share the plans for these printed guns they seem to forget the fact that these printers are available world-wide; and the US does not have a monopoly on people with engineering experience let alone knowledge in creating firearms.
So by trying to ban this, all they are doing is drawing more attention to it. As if countries like Iran, North Korea or Syria don't have people who know how to acquire a lathe and make a gun of better quality themselves. So this is made out of plastic and not detectable by a radar/magnetometer, you know what; the bullet/shell will be.
The ability to create a plastic/resin based shell casing that can properly detonate and propel a shell as required isn't possible.
He who is always at the bottom of the distribution list, but needs the information first!
...the printer only starts if you put a drop of your blood into a receptacle. With the DNA in it the plastic material is 'signed'. Ok, I am not serious, but who knows...
I've recently been musing on the idea that the reason for the Fermi Paradox and a huge point against Kurweilz's optimism that we'll reach the Singularity in a just couple of decades, is that a civilization's regulatory agencies are so slow to react to technological advances. If lawmakers don't allow 3D printers to flourish, then there won't be the consumer demand that motivates the next generation of printer, and the one after that, etc. Eventually the environment will be too fucked and the natural resources exhausted before humanity can develop the technology to transcend its limitations.
California and New York are engaged in an all out conflict to see which state can erode its citizens' rights the quickest. They'll try anything to regulate what you can and cannot do as an individual. They want to police your every movement, thought, and activity.
Want to smoke cigarettes? Then get ready to pay the government $5 in taxes per pack just for the privilege. They'll throw out regressive and punitive taxes on smoking to create their own vision for America. You can't even open a private club or restaurant that allows smoking without going through extreme legal battles for the permit.
Want a 20oz soda? Well that's against the law. At least that's how they wanted it in NYC. And no more delivery of 2 liter bottles of soda with pizza takeout. That's another law that they want to pass. Banning pizza companies from delivering a 2 liter soda with your order.
Want to practice the 2nd Amendment? You need fingerprints, background checks, additional invasive background checks, registration to a permanent database, tons of money, and expensive lawyers. And if you get a gun or a concealed carry permit they'll illegally give your information over to the newspapers and blogs to reveal your personal information to everyone. Try getting a concealed carry permit for a pistol in certain cities in CA or NY. You need at least $5,000 for the fees and lawyers. It's prohibitive and costs people right out of their constitutional rights. You need to be wealthy to protect yourself.
3D printers? Why not try to regulate them? Everything else needs to be regulated anyways in our new utopian liberal fantasy. After all we need to protect the children from terrorism and school shootings and violent video games.
Relevant: http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-05/news/mn-913_1_soviet-union. Those who don't study history are condemned to repeat it.
Okay so you can print a gun, but when you think about it, you can turn most every day objects into weapons. So should we regulate everything then?
I wonder if anyone is going to tell him there are cheaper and more efficient ways (for larger numbers) to make homemade guns.
His heart is in the right place, it is just his brain that has a problem...
morcego
Of course, if we're going to go after causes of death, maybe we should work on low-hanging fruit. Oh wait, that's a rational argument and I forgot we were being all hysterical here for a second. Plus, if we put the same amount of resources into reducing heart disease that you were planning to use to regulate 3D printers, we'd have to buy into Obamacare and its associated death panels! Ahh... there we go... that's the stuff...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Corporate need a way to limit peoples ability to cheaply manufacture their own products and replacement parts vs buying new plastic crap with high profit margins.
This excuse will work fine thanks.
That's the difference: skilled backyard machinist .
With those printers every idiot with two left hands can download the plans and print his gun. Probably even kids. So there is a new quality to what was possible for the last 150 years.
Guns are useless without gun powder. Since you can make gun powder in a 3D printer, I think regulating gun powder might be more effective.
Wait until he sees one of the 3D Lego Printers, then he'll want to regulate Legos too. 8 year old kids will have to pass a security check to purchase a set of Legos.
I can assemble a firearm from parts available in a local hardware store. Maybe we should outlaw hardware stores. The fun part is I can assemble a number of even more dangerous devices from the same hardware store, so the hardware store is actually much more dangerous than a 3D printer.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Replace 'Terrorists' with 'Child Porn'. Works better with encryption related fear mongering.
California gun owners have been fighting that ass-hat Leland Yee for years. It is getting expensive and annoying. I'm glad now that all the hackers at Maker Faire are going to be joining us so that Yee doesn't take away our 3D printers, too.
Yee is the enemy of freedom. I hope this allows more people to see that. Yesterday, he came for our guns. Today, he is coming for our 3D printers. Tomorrow, what will it be? Your Dremel tool? Or.... maybe if he finds out that all you need to melt lead for casting bullets is a cast iron pot, some charcoal, and a good blower to get the charcoal hot enough he will ban cookware, charcoal, and shop vacuums.
Lathes: as they can be used to make firearm parts, grinders: as they can be used to make firearm parts, metal: as it is most likely used to make firearm parts, and so on and so on. Lawmakers are morons and know nothing about about reality.
"Protection" is a disease. The government is not obliged to protect you. Congress has upheld that police are not required to protect you. Protecting yourself and your family is your responsibility. Life is dangerous. Be prepared. More folks die in car crashes, we don't ban cars or streets. Zip-Guns made of junk can kill you, hell, a plastic knife can kill you if sharpened properly, a broken window tied to a stick is a lethal weapon of opportunity. Limiting freedom should never be the answer to fear. The answer is to simply be aware of the danger you face in every day life, and protect yourself. Regulations like these are cancerous leaches of tax-payer money.
We really need to change the 2nd amendment, or create a new one clarifying that we have the right to bear technology, cryptography, photography, computers, and firearms included.
it is cheaper to buy a metal lathe and milling machine, that can make a better 'gun', than the mid/high level 3D printer required to build a safe plastic gun. It's all hype!!!
There was an unknown error in the submission.
This is the same person that wants:
Senate Bill 47 (Yee) expands the definition of “assault weapons” to BAN the future sale of rifles that have been designed/sold and are equipped to use the “bullet button” or similar device, requires NEW “assault weapon” registration of ALL those semi-auto rifles that are currently possessed to retain legal possession in the future, and subjects these firearms to all other “assault weapons” restrictions.
http://legiscan.com/CA/bill/SB47/2013
Senate Bill 108 (Yee) requires mandatory locked storage of firearms within a locked house regardless of whether anyone is present.
http://legiscan.com/CA/bill/SB108/2013
My impression of him is that he is a reactionary that responds to any situation in the most forceful way possible to please the pundits who are calling for action that the constituency doesn't actually want. He doesn't actually understand what he's legislating against in many situations, like as mentioned below the ban on video games for minors but because the pundits call for it something needs to be done.
The 3d printer is no different. Damn all the useful things that can be done with it he doesn't understand it and it can do one bad thing so ban it.
Not to mention that you can make tools with other tools. Once you have a 3D printer that can print 3D printers, all bets are off.
Unless they plan on monitoring who downloads what plans and build every printer so it "calls home" and reports what you printed? Who gave government THAT power?
... should be illegal. They need to make a law against those horrible things so they don't let people walk away scott-free. We already have such a law against doing horrible things in my state. Why doesn't California have it already?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It's the 'new' mercantilism protecting commercial interests at play. Like the British prohibiting the people of India from making their own salt, or even clothing way back when it was a colony.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"He's concerned that just about anyone with access to those products can arm themselves by tearing out sharp edges as makeshift knives. 'Terrorists can make these knives and do some horrible things to an individual and then walk away scott-free, and that is something that is really dangerous ... it must be regulated when it comes to making knives. He says background checks, requiring serial numbers and even registering them could be part of new legislation that he says will protect the public. Yee added, 'This particular knife has no trace whatsoever.'"
Look, honorable dumbass, just because it's technological doesn't give you a free pass to enforce your own personal brand of oppression.
Just because it's not (easily) traceable doesn't automatically mean they'll get away with it, it just means that police might have to do some actual detective work rather than having the techno-nanny hold their hand. Shocking, I know.
We cannot expel these xenophobes from office soon enough.
If you don't think that criminals are terrorists, then you must be a communist. Or at least a socialist.
How does it feel, comrade?
Even when the person saying it is a gun-controlling liberal Democrat smearing law-abiding gun owners as potential terrorists, you blame this on right-wingers?
Lets regulate those too.
Have gnu, will travel.
You are confused, I am not your mother. For the rest what you said: Yes, high quality 3D printers are very expensive at the moment. But so where computers ~30 years ago. It can be expected that 3D printers will become much cheaper and much better in the next few years.
Quick someone build a zip gun and film firing it, I want to see this senator try to ban plumbing. Unfortunately it seems law makers seem to think the only way to justify their jobs is to make more laws, rather than improve existing and remove old unnecessary ones.
just relax and stop thinking everything is a tool of the terrorist. AMERICANS RELAX ITS OK NOT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS OUT TO DESTROY YOU even though you probably deserve it
Already banned in California.
Have gnu, will travel.
You are clueless. Leland Yee is part of California's looney left.
Not necessary to sign a post here with your real name. 'zedtwitz' is doing fine as nick.
The skill needed is quite little. The instructions are quite complete and easy to follow, and you need a hand drill, a hacksaw, a couple of hand files, and materials you can buy at Home Depot - along with the tools I just listed. Trivial to build, nothing more complex than tracing a paper pattern on thin steel and cutting it. And you end up with a fully-functioning 9mm submachine gun.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Hell, he can take a toysRus plastic gun and modify it for a fraction of the price.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
you will be able to print your own lego pieces
A democracy stops working for the benefit for all as soon as people stop ignoring the constitution.
When the laws are working for the benefit of all, some people will not be happy and some people will not get what they want. I know some of you believe that guns are evil but criminals will always find a way to procure guns. The majority of gun related violence is perpetrated by criminals. When I say gun violence, I am not just talking about deaths but also non-lethal injuries and use of guns for intimidation. The anti-gun people are too focused on individual stats and do not stop to consider armed robberies where nobody gets shot during the robbery. That is still a use of guns as a weapon to intimidate/coerce others into doing something against their will.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Every politician who responds in this way to some new technoloigy needs to be labeled a Knee-Jerk. Immediately calling for legislation for anything they don't understand.
But before you know it, pretty much anything which can be used in the creation of a weapon is being tracked, tagged, limited and reported in some way. It's ridiculous.
And all those soccer moms and people like that need to get a grip on reality. I read a story written in part by an actual Kosovo survivor. The things people consider "for safety" don't even come close to serving that purpose. Credit cards? Mobile phones for calling police?
As a clue as to what might happen, if anyone lives in an area where snow has been known to close down the roads in an area, think of how long after the weather reports air before various grocery items completely disappear from the store shelves. Now imagine when that outage of supplies lasts more than a week. I don't think it's necessary to go into details beyond that, but having the ability to defend one's self against thugs and invaders will mean the difference between surviving and not.
And we're concerned about a few idiots? The food we eat kills more people -- let's get serious about food before we move on to an extreme minority killer like bullets fired from home-made guns which are more likely to kill the user.
Does Leland Lee really not realize you can use a 3D printer to build a 3D printer?!?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I think with the trend going on here that California lawmakers should be replaced with orangutans.
I just don't understand what problems you have with what I wrote. Did I say that I advocate 3D printer regulations? I don't. First I don't see that it can be regulated, second... I want to have one of those myself. Not to print guns, but all the other cool stuff. But a problem does not go away just by ignoring or denying it. Even though I am constantly told here how easy it is to build a working weapon with stuff from a hardware store, it is not easy. Not many people are skilled enough to build their own weapon from scratch. At least not many compared to the numbers when in a few years in almost every home such a printer stands. Unlikely? How many homes had a 2D printer 30 years ago?
And so another salvo was fired in the war on general purpose computing.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Your loud shouting about barely useable guns on 3D printers has become an election issue and fucked it up for the rest of us.
Can we also get Lawmakers regulated? Nobody with an IQ below 135 is allowed to be a lawmaker, and all lawyers are completely dis-allowed from being ablet o do anything as a lawmaker or judge. and make it RETROACTIVE.
I'll support his bill if he adds in my provisions.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You attention whoring shitsack, you fucking happy now?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Take a deep breath and relax ;) This guy isn't in Washington, just Sacramento. He's the same idiot - I mean CA state senator - who sponsored a law to regulate video games until the Federal court told him to piss off (ie ruled it unconstitutional). This legislation isn't going anywhere, and hopefully will just piss off enough people in SF that they finally vote the moron out of office...
Unlike the (beautiful troll as was intended) 3D printed weapon, here and elsewhere you can find plans for the real deal.
http://www.cncguns.com/downloads.html
Note that paper prints are more than sufficient to machine modern firearms. About 2000 bucks gets you a used manual milling machine. About the same gets you a lathe. You can use those to build a machine to cut a rifled bore if you wish. It's very old technology.
Remember the DeCESS T-shirt? Weapon prints can be protected speech too. They can also be incorporated into fiction as an illustration.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Take Mexico, a country with a 100% ban on guns...
We all agree that government restrictions are to be avoided whenever possible but in the case of gun control there is a clear trade off: either you have strict controls (with strict enforcement) or you have an exceedingly high rate of deaths due to guns. If the US is happy with one of the highest rate of gun deaths in the world then that's its choice: it knows one reliable way to reduce it if it so chooses.
That being said controlling 3D printers because of this is just daft. You can almost certainly make a gun with a CNC machine (in fact a quick Google search turned up this video). They have not controlled these so why should a 3D printer be any different? They can machine plastic just as easily if the sole concern is detectability.
Anyone with a metal lathe can also manufacture a completely untraceable firearm. So perhaps because there's a small chance that someone will do that, then use that firearm to injure another person all metal lathes need to be serialized, registered and tracked.
Or anyone that can buy pipe. All pipes must herefor be sold only after a full background check since it is possible to fill a pipe with explosives and blow up large numbers of people.
Liquid chlorine bleach and ammonia will require 40 hours of intensive training before you may purchase either item, otherwise someone could mix the two and poison an entire building of people.
People killing other people is a social problem. No technology or law will stop it. If making things illegal stopped crime then we would not need the police to clean up after all this crime!
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
FWIW, he's the same state senator that sponsored the bill to ban the sale of violent video games to minors, and has seemed to make harrassment of the video game biz his personal mission...
He's also sponsored legislation to ban any semi-automatics that have conversion kits... I suppose this is the next logical step for him since basically a 3d printer is the ultimate conversion kit.
So can 3-d printers print 3-d printer parts?
"Terrorists can make these guns and do some horrible things to an individual and then walk away scott-free [...]"
Now I'm not an expert on American law and I'm not an American and English is not my native language, but it sounds just a little bit implausible to me that there would be a law that said that it is not illegal to murder people if you make the gun yourself...
Or I guess maybe scott-free means something completely different than scot-free, like you're free like a character in a Scott movie, or something.
Or maybe the senator's best friend owns a gun factory.
Or I guess maybe the senator has a wildly inaccurate idea of what a 3-d printer is. I mean, it's probably easier to get fingerprints and DNA off of a metal gun than a plastic gun. A metal gun is really hard to destroy, but it would not exactly be trivial to destroy a plastic gun without the neighbors noticing.
Unless you have a good quality file and a lot of time...
Apparently, State Senator Yee doesn't readily give up if laws that he supports eventually are declared unconstitutional...
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/07/sensationalist-legal-brief-aims-to-revive-ca-game-law/
This son of a bitch basically wants to ban all guns, and anything tangentially related to guns.
Not only that, but he supports giving convicted murderers parole if they were given sentences of life in prison as juveniles.
As far as I'm concerned, Leland Yee and his family have earned the death penalty. The few remaining Americans in California will be safer as a result.
Mr. Yee, what about banning pressure cookers? We've just proved even morons can make effective explosive devices out of pressure cookers!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
We should also control access to grinding wheels, coz you know, they can be used to make knives that hurt people.
We should also control ownership of screwdrivers and all other tools, because they can be used to make WMDs that are used by terrorists.
I'm really tired of repeating that...
I dislike the idea of the Saturday night specials that these types of printers will make. I can only hope that the courts will finally rule that past regulations are pointless and ineffective and give people their rights back.
3D printers will likely lead to complete real life all plastic firearms which will make metal detectors pointless.
Everywhere concealed carry is permitted crime is much much lower and overall people become more friendly and pleasant. When everyone has the option to carry a gun it truly makes everyone equal. No more advantage for size and no more intimidation.
I guess I can't use an expensive 3d printer to make a cheap gun that will fail very quickly and cost as much or more than a black market gun to make. I guess I will just have to do something like this instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxHVDtD2S5U
Really, these changes will do nothing to stop the criminal, it just makes it harder for the law abiding citizen, but to be honest, I think that is what they are targeting nowadays. Wonder if they are more worried about the citizens as a whole getting fed up and needing guns than actual criminals who this won't effect in the slightest.
Since when is ANYONE having trouble getting a gun in the US? Have these lawmakers even seen a 3D printer, or examples of what it prints? Have they seen how incredibly slow and expensive they are? Do they realize 99% only print in plastic? So stupid.
We need a law that would regulate California lawmakers.
I would go further and extend that to ALL lawmakers, but the California variety are the looniest of the bunch and their crazy shit tends to spread across the country like sewage running downhill.
I think the greatest thing they could do is hire Pelosi if she ever retires from Congress. People love to hate her. The more she talks the more the hate grows.
Is there nothing humanity can do to stop this? We must regulate all those who wear clothes. As a previous president would say, "Wearing clothes supports Terrorisum."
That's a classic article. Do you have anything more recent?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You need to go to the source of the problem and ban women.
Banning children is as pointless as banning ammunition. Because an industrious person can always make more at home.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This idiot might as well regulate sales of metal pipes and stainless steel nails in hardware stores.
I swear you can't have a decent conversation about 3d printing anymore without some retard chiming in, all concerned, about this "Defense Distributed" attention whore doing what can already be done in less time for about 1/1000th of the price because Oh Mah Gawd, it's 3d printed which makes it super easy. (assuming you have 2 - 3 k to spend on a 3d printer)
Does anyone else find it extremely ironic that if the recent school shootings had actually involved these one shot fail 3d printed guns, the death toll would probably have been cut by 99 % , possibly 100 % if he missed his first target ?
Hi there. I'm a Californian, so let me fill y'all in on some information that non-Californians might not be aware of:
Leland Yee is a drooling idiot.
so what about my own home made 3D printer that I put together back in 2005-6 from parts I salvaged from other printers and fax machines and some steel pieces and electrical motors? Will I now have to register my own concoction with the Mr. police state there?
As usual, you missed completely what is going on here. The story mentions a politician who proposed legislation. In a democracy, laws come about by discussion and legislation. Of course, we all know that you openly hate democracy. You want swift concentration of power to bring about prompt laws. You want more power for those who already hold most of the power, and you want fascism for the people.
I, for one, am glad I do not live in the state that you want to see created.
If you're going to crank out cheap guns, you'd do better with a trip to the local hardware store. You can get plans off the internet that will allow you to crank one out a lot faster and cheaper using stuff from the hardware store than shelling out top dollar for a printer that can crank out one of those plastic jobs and, being made of metal, are less likely to blow up in your hand as well.
As for having "no trace whatsoeever" the plans (if he had bothered to look at them) include a big metal block deliberately to make it traceable. Even if you left the block out, the bullets are metal and would still look like bullets in an x-ray. Just another politician trying to show he's up to date by getting panicked about whatever the press it panicking about this week.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
I wondered WTF a "bullet button" was, so I looked it up. Apparently, California has some law banning rifles where you can remove the magazine without using a tool. So someone came up with a magazine release where a bullet would work as a tool. Now as long as you happen to have a bullet with you (and hey, who doesn't?), you can reload quickly. Make stupid bans, people find workarounds.
I don't understand the sudden uproar about 3D printers. Machinists have been able to make their own custom weapons for a very long time now, but I don't see anyone wanting to regulate the sale of metal lathes, welders, or milling machines.
Also, when was the last time a "terrorist" used a gun? The Mass Media, who are the foremost experts on the subject, tell us that terrorists prefer the efficiency of targeting groups of people, and that usually necessitates exploding a bomb or crashing a vehicle. And from what we've seen of these 3D guns, you'd be lucky to kill a handful of people with one.
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
This guy is a total colon-kissing taint lover, grandstanding for media attention. His previous attempts at legislation include trying to ban x-lrg sodas, trying to dictate to McD's what they could serve in their happy meals. I am a resident CA, and while I do applaud some of our states more forward looking legislation, Yee makes me ashamed to be from CA.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Fact: Saying something is a fact doesn't mean it is.
"...just about anyone with access to those cutting-edge printers can arm themselves. 'Terrorists can make these guns and do some horrible things to an individual and then walk away scott-free..."
1) anyone can arm themselves. What the 3d printers can make is nothing more than a zip gun - a single-shot pistol of dubious safety. One can make this easily in ones' garage with pipe, rubber band, and a nail - and no special tools. Perhaps he should offer to ban garages?
2) shooting someone is illegal, no? If someone is going to SHOOT SOMEONE (ie breaking the law) what makes you think he's going to care about some law against owning a 3d printer?
-Styopa
Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended the Soviet Union
Synopsis from Google Books, emphasis added:
Why don't we just go all the way here?
Just regulate ownership of absolutely anything that could conceivably be used as or to create a weapon.
Fucking idiots.
How the hell people this stupid actually manage to wake up in the morning (let alone make it through the day) without dying through their own stupidity is a friggin' miracle. And an absolute tragedy for humanity as a whole.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
yee is worse than biden and feinstein, combined. everything i have heard from that man's mouth has been total rubbish and idiocy. he is an embarrassment to our state.
I am a totally unskilled machinist, its not that hard, kids are just as likely to have unsupervised access to a 3d printer as they are to machine tools, that will rip your fucking hand off available in any high school throughout the country.
You made a point that everyone already knew : that guns are 3D printable, that states would worry about that. 3D printing hobbyists told you that it was a dumb thing to do, not because we dislike guns, but because it would cause too early regulations of a domain that still needs a lot of steam to come up with some useful designs to print (seriously, the guns they make are toys, or rather, proof of concepts. More "bullet detonators" than guns). Seriously, fuck you and fuck everything about this.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
How does it feel to want bro? When users can build 3d printers in their basements, good luck with that. Deal with it.
Sigh. This bill probably won't go anywhere, but it's the beginning of a headache.
Making a sort-of gun entirely out of ABS is a terrible idea. "The pistol can only be fired once before the plastic barrel has to be replaced." If guns like that were useful for anything, third-world shops with injection molders (of which there are many) would have been stamping them out for years. This whole thing is a PR stunt.
Correlation is not causation, son. Also, the US stands in stark contrast. Increase in gun restrictions, and rape has been the fastest declining category of violent crime. Violent crime overall has fallen something like 80% in the last 20-30 years.
Please help metamoderate.
So who is going to bother putting a serial number on a 3D printer thant their 3D printer just printed?
http://reprap.org/
A democracy stops working for the benefit for all as soon as people stop ignoring the constitution.
Please re-read that sentence.
Some great points on El Reg:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plastic_3d_gun/
But, of course, let's not let those prevent a politician from exploiting the issue...
You know it takes only about 5 minutes with one of those babies and a concrete or other hard surface to create a very effective shiv, right?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Sure, when they start regulating machining shops with Lathes. Because you can making much more dangerous weapons with the proper tools... Lately is seems like there has been an increasing level of unintelligent knee jerk reactions to things like this. Put it into perspective and you suddenly start sounding paranoid!
I'm still trying to figure out how being able to print a crappy single-shot pistol using a complicated $1000 will allow terrorists to "walk away scott-free".
(As opposed to using a $10 handgun bought on the streets...or even a $300 handgun bought in a gun shop)
No sig today...
I hope you're right. I would hate to think of how crazy he would go, if he knew all you needed was a mil and a lathe to make metal guns.
I'd rather the terrorists have inaccurate plastic pieces of shit that fall apart when it counts... instead of well made mil-spec firearms.
"do some horrible things to an individual and then walk away scott-free"
No, murder is still illegal and whether you use a pressure cooker full of fireworks or a one-shot plastic pistol, the authorities are going to chase you down for as long as it takes.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If you're going to regulate 3D printers, you might as well regulate machine tools as well.
They can be used to build weapons too.
Australia says you're wrong. Many Aussies bitched a storm when the conservative Howard government said enough with the mass shootings and introduced wide ranging gun control. Now, they see the world didn't end, and you can still buy (most) firearms. Aussies attitudes aren't really that different from Americans, so I call BS on the other posts suggesting it's apple (pie) and oranges.
As for criminals and laws: 1) we have laws against murder, yet murders still occur. Thus, we shouldn't regulate murders? 2) criminal gun ownership is a dynamic process. Unlike law-abiding citizens, criminals engage in conduct which puts them in regular contact with the legal system. About 700k guns are recovered from US criminals annually. *If* the US required an adequate gun safe (like Oz), *if* current gun sales laws actually got enforced, and *if* there were adequate registration of sales, the main conduits for criminals' firearms would dry up: sales from gun shops, and thefts from homes.
Luke, help me take this mask off
...and fitting numbers into your bias without thinking about what they mean.
So, while there may be no conscious "deception" from your side - there is plenty of delusion.
One - you use only 2 points of data with over a decade in between.
The fact that you would go out of your way to make a deliberate spreadsheet WHILE at the same time omitting all that data points out your (possibly subconscious) bias.
You're presenting a very distorted image of the real situation - and making false conclusions based on that.
Because...
Two - you are ignoring trends.
Rise in assaults fits BOTH Australian gun regulation laws. There were TWO. One in 1996 and another one in 2002.
Which should be reflected in both your data AND in the trends - it doesn't.
And that one REALLY breaks your entire argument.
Because three...
1996 law "banned all semi-automatic rifles and all semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns".
So that thing about assault and sexual assault going up and correlating with gun regulation only makes sense if all those assaulted people were prancing around with "semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns" prior to the ban.
Which they very probably weren't.
The 2002 law further regulated handguns - but again NO GUN BAN.
Changes included a 10-round magazine capacity limit, a calibre limit of not more than .38 inches (9.65 mm), a barrel length limit of not less than 120 mm (4.72 inches) for semi-automatic pistols and 100 mm (3.94 inches) for revolvers, and even stricter probation and attendance requirements for sporting target shooters.
Gun regulation does NOT mean "no guns at all".
Your logic (and spreadsheet) only work under the assumption that gun_regulation == gun_ban.
So, all your further logic, data interpretation and even your data acquisition suffer - starting from that FALSE assumption.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Would you prefer to be raped or dead ?
Not having suffered as a victim of violent crime I cannot say for sure, but having known a victim ov violent sexual assult, I would say that many of them feel they would rather have been murdered, especally quickly with a gun, because the pain and suffering would be over much sooner.
Furthermore, if a rapist is fatally shot then not only could the victim have aat least a chance to avoid the rape itself, they could also avoid the prospect of facing their attacker in court during trial, appeals, victim impact statements, parole hearings, release from prison, being stalked via phone and email, etc.
So, the answer to the question is not so obvious.
"Terrorists can"
I'mma let you finish, Yee, but...no, wait, I'm not going to let you finish. Shut the fuck up.
Unfortunately, this is being framed as a gun control issue, which is almost impossible to have a reasonable discussion about in the United States. What's actually happening here is that a lawmaker wants to regulate a revolutionary small-scale manufacturing technology. This technology is not specifically designed to make firearms, and it isn't particularly good at it. But, because it could possibly be used to produce an "undetectable" gun, you're going to see more politicians try to strangle 3D printing in the cradle.
Ok.. Congress can't come to grips with regulating guns but they can printers that happen to print guns. When they do this only outlaws will have 3d printers
Wait until he finds out you can build your own 3d printer.
Privacy is terrorism.
If anyone can print a cannon, Cannon can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm I couldn't find the link now, but don't all commercial printers print a tracking code on every print made in order to prevent and track counterfeit money? This is already done on regular printers so there is a very high likelihood this could get passed.
Printers can be used to print fake money, fax machines can be used to send death threats, steel pieces can be carved into knifes and electrical motors are the enemy of oil companies.
And now you can print plastic guns in your own home.
You're a terrorist, five times over!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
If this senator would like to erradicate crime from the streets, maybe he should start supporting public health and education up to university level with big tax deductions for them whom finish their degrees... crime is a way to get easy money, like..em...belong to a Govt institution for life....or receive insane pension plans for 3 years in politics, without any evaluation of results....
In Britain, since guns have been pretty much removed from the culture, people use knives and clubs for their violent crime.
So much so that they have now made knives with pointy ends illegal, in theory to make it harder to kill people with the, Never heard of the dreaded straight razor, I suppose. So comparing just gun deaths in Britain to gun deaths in the US isn't helpful; what's the picture if you compare violent crimes with severe bodily injury?
I carry a Leatherman multi-tool on my belt most every day that would get me arrested in Britain. It has like 20 different tools, including pliers, file, nail scissors, screwdrivers, wire cutter, a saw, and two knife blades, one pointy and straight, and the other blunt-ended with a serrated edge. That will get you arrested, I suspect.
Canes to help oldsters walk can be used as a club, probably next on the list to go.
Senator Leland Yee is proof that the vast majority of elected officials are useless buffoons. They are in excess of humanity's requirement survive and therefore redundant except as raw material to create soylent green.
The idiot does not realize that to do so would require sales enforcement to regulate the sale of servo motors, items that contain servo motors, all-thread rod, timing belts, gears, bare circuit boards, solder...
The list is endless. Such a person should also consider banning libraries since I can use one to learn the procedure to produce nitro-cellulose. And let's not forget that we must also permanently incarcerate all of the specops guys since they could train everyday citizens to become insurgents.
The best use for politicians is to fill abandoned mine shafts.
This is just a opening salvo in the war against replicators. After all, 3D printers are the path to eventual full-scale replication. Better nip it in the bud now, with a hot-button topic like guns.
...
They commit crimes.
They break laws.
They can kill if left unchecked.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Seems to me a 3D printer has more in common with a printing press. What you do with it is whatever, and I could see the same issues with government wanting to control printing presses. Which is more dangerous, the pen or the sword? The written word has proven capable of changing and steering countries and civilizations, not to mention inciting people to violence (though spoken seems more likely to do that).
Should we ban those as well? Oh... some countries already do ban free speech and publishing.. and most forms of media are already state controlled...
People need to stop looking at the printing of a gun as being some sort of big deal. It's like building a gun. Period. Is it really a big deal? It's been done millions of times throughout history. The fact that a 3d printers lower the costs for home production of anything, is likely what is more at issue. If you can produce a gun, why not a bicycle or a car? Sure, you might have to go down to the 3d-printer center to borrow some time on a large-printer for some parts, but the idea that manufacturing wouldn't be locked away from home users or the masses? Why isn't that as radical an idea as the home printer -- or the home computer? Couldn't those easily have societal altering effects far beyond the ability to make weapons?
Should we have background checks for metal pipes and nails too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Va87gB_4AI
This guy is reactionary and ignorant, he should not be in public office.
3-D printers have enormous possibility and it's very important that they are left unregulated and unfettered. So what's the first thing these idiots do? Proof of concept home made guns during the government's gun-control-spree. For interesting fiction regarding 3-D printers read the following stories by Cory Doctorow:
Makers A lengthy and excellent novel which you can download for free in any format.
Printcrime a short story about copywrite on printed goods which is very to the point. It is contained entirely on this short page along with its license.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
Hell, why stop there. Carbon is the problem!
Criminals use guns, politicians use laws, the two won't meet eye to eye but I'd say they have a lot in common, my belief is politicians killed more people in the end with failed diplomacy and resultant war. Trouble is normal folks use guns too, guns are a tool, it is people that kill people and if they don't use guns they'll just resort to something else, and it'd probably be worse.
Greetings and Salutations;
Well, if this fellow is going to register a printer, perhaps he should also insist that lathes, drill presses, files, and other hand tools be registered too. He apparently does not realize that I could go into the shop, and in fairly short order turn out weapons that would be far more accurate than the plastic ones from the printers, and, will last for thousands of rounds.
Beyond that, it is also not that hard to make ceramic weapons that are equally hard to find and have the same abilities.
I would suggest that the better course of action would be to work on making America a place where people do not think of guns as the first course of action to resolve a situation.
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
I disagree with the premise. I strongly believe that suicide is a fundamental human right. It's the one decision that is fundamentally yours.
Who should have the right to force me to keep living if I don't want to?
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Bottom line.. Has nothing to do with printers but has everything to do with the governments inability to regulate how they are used. If they had a meter on them reporting what and footage of material was passed through them this wouldnt even be an issue. I mean realistically we all know how great the judgement of the gov. is where gun control is concerned... the last lot they felt needed to have guns crashed a plane into a building and used the guns to kill US soldiers when we said something about it. So MAYBE if they stepped out of this one they might actually have a positive result. Hell look at the funds they spend every year on policing immigrants and drug control and we all know how effective all that has been.
My 2 cents
Know thine enemy.
If you've been having trouble sleeping too soundly, or getting scammed because you're too trusting, I recommend the book: Without Conscience.
http://www.amazon.com/Without-Conscience-Disturbing-World-Psychopaths/dp/1572304510
Written by a shrink, he explains what happens (and doesn't happen) in the mind of a sociopath, with plenty of examples.
The rapist mentality is covered too.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
In the least damaging forcible rape you're going to encounter,
Please imagine being bent over by someone approximately twice your body mass, pressed face first into asphalt, then having a baseball bat repeatedly shoved in and pulled out of your ass for about five minutes.
As your asshole rips the blood will provide a lubricant. So will the shit, which will also, unfortunately, get rubbed deeply into your ripped rectum, providing you with infections.
Then, the baseball bat dumps a load of ejaculate, which will quite possibly contain any of a host of diseases.
Oh, and you're also pregnant now.
A long time ago I knew and loved a woman who had been gang raped as a 14 year old girl, lost her front teeth from the punching, and 9 months later gave birth to a baby girl, who went up for adoption.
20 minutes of inconvienence?
Go Fuck Yourself
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
The guy is an uninformed clown who constantly makes ignorant statements about firearms. Needs to be voted out of office.
Leland Yee has never met a gun law that he doesn't like and has made himself a reputation among gun-hating Californians as a dependable source of irritation for liberty-loving Americans. The printable gun is his worst nightmare; therefore he must control the means of producing it. It's a good thing the weather is so nice in California. Otherwise, I would never be able to stand living here.
This one of the most ridiculous, knee-jerk reactions to new technology I have ever heard of. He must have never heard of "zip guns," that any punk on the street can build from less than a dollar's worth of parts without needing a $3000+ 3D printer, knowledge of 3D modeling, and the principals of gun smithy. I suppose he will want background checks and registration for buying PVC plumbing parts and potatoes least someone fashion a potato gun. At the time of the American Revolution, authors, publishers, and printers were regularly imprisoned for seditious speech. The framers of our constitution apparently felt so strongly about freedom of expression and the press that it became the subject of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. If every "disruptive" technology were so highly regulated we would not have cameras, phonographs, radio, television, audio recording, photocopiers, VCRs, personal computers, let alone the Internet itself.
/steve
Pregnant from the ass?
You have some pretty magic body!
More seriously, those things are extreme cases and are not necessary for an act to be qualified as being rape. Thankfully, not all rape cases are that violent.
Yet another lawmaker who doesn't understand guns and how easy it is to "fire" a projectile. ..and these are the people that lead us and make decisions that affect our lives.
I think in the future elected officials must answer a pop quiz (multiple choice to make it easy for them) in order to make their vote on a political motion.
- http://www.livepoliticalchat.com/
So they regulate the purchase of 3d printers. Someone with no criminal record, etc, buys one and prints a gun, uses the gun and burns it. How does regulation help? It doesn't. The plastic fun is untraceable.
More likely, isn't going to let that stop an idiot like him.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Actually you CAN own a .22 in mexico. It's just that it's heavily regulated. Obligitory wikipedia link and quote.
" Weapons may be kept in the home for security and legitimate defense of its dwellers. Their possession imposes the duty to manifest them to the Secretariat of National Defense for their registration. For every weapon, record of its registration will be issued."
And a secondary quote from wikipedia
"Under these two articles, private citizens are generally restricted to semi-automatic handguns or revolvers of a caliber no greater than .380 (for home defense),[28] rifles no greater than .22, and shotguns no greater than a 12-gauge (hunting and shooting when a member of a club). Anything bigger than those calibers is considered for exclusive use of the military and strictly forbidden for civilian possession, as defined by Article 11 of the Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives.[29] "
As far as I know, Aguila Ammunition is still manufactured in mexico, including .22 LR.
So the 100% Mexico ban you stated is little less than 100% imho.
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
Muggers and burglars in the UK almost *never* use guns; apart from anything else that means maybe 10 years instead of 6 months.
As a result you have far more violent crime; If that's what you were after, good job! However it means that I went from traveling from the U.S. to London once a year, to pretty much never unless I'm going somewhere outside the city. Too unsafe.
However that's not my main point; my point is this. What you are talking about is not regulation, i.e. not laws designed to regulate how lawful people own and use guns. Instead it's a byproduct of criminal law, i.e. laws that govern punishment that in no way effect legal gun owners.
So leave legal owners alone, and ramp up punishment greatly for criminals who use guns if you must.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While they are at it, they need to regulate Lathes and other machine tools that are used to make metal guns. Or not..... Either Lathes or 3D printers..... -ww
Gun control works fairly well in most parts of Western Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea, and Canada.
It (admittedly) doesn't seem to work in places like Pakistan's Tribal Areas, Afghanistan, Somalia, Chad, Mexico, Colombia, or the US.
I just wonder why that is.
If nothing else, this shows that gun control can work fairly well ... it just depend on who you're dealing with.
HairyFeet, you always state things so much better than I could. I don't know how many people say thank you to you for taking the time to express your opinions (and it must be a fair amount of time from the amount that you write), but I'd like to say it now: Thank you. You almost always save me a lot of trouble writing things I'd like to say. This kind of stuff needs to be said and you almost always do a great job.
Either this legislator is not very bright, or his voters are not very bright (and that is not an XOR).
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
That idiot would like to ban tools altogether. California: the land of sticks and rocks.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
While the Liberator may be pretty much a toy gun, it's still a sign of things to come. The day will soon arrive when anyone with a 3D printer and Internet connection will be able to download a schematic and print just about anything they want. People won't have to buy anything at all anymore except the base materials to make what they want. We will be able to make our own cars, clothes, computers, smartphones/tablets, weapons, toys, etc. Commerce as we know it will either cease to exist or be radically altered.
I charge forward recklessly, leaving chaos in my wake.
You just need to be quiet. Seriously. You started off shoving your foot in your mouth, it's now halfway down your throat. Call it a day and give up before your foot goes any further.
I think the world governments have reason to be terrified about this; it could eventually supplant certain people's need for currency, given the right circumstances. That would be bad for our greedy corporately-owned governments. I would hope that the advent of the 3d printer ushers in an era in which useful building supplies supplant useless fiat currency. Then it doesn't matter if you know how to mnufacture your own building supplies - they're still useful. There would be no such thing as 'counterfeit' currency except for imitation building materials that are of poorer quality than they may have claimed. Eh - it probably wouldn't work, but it would make a helluvalot more sense than the USD/GBP/Euro/Yen/etc which derive value from a load of useless-to-people-in-the-real-world fomulae and artificial currency manipulation.
You've got very confused there with some sort of "deny by default" mentality creeping in. It's up to those that propose to regulate something that has not been regulated before to push their case. With 3D printers they got nothing to push other than the hype surrounding what looks like no more than a dangerous toy made on one of the things. Under adult supervision of a legal system that's something that will be thrown out as a waste of time, but once it goes into the spin cycle of batshit insane Californian electoral politics it's a convenient windmill to charge and get votes. Now do you get my first post?
For reference you should note that most types of wood are stronger than the plastic used in 3D printers. Take that in mind when you try to bluff with made up numbers.
Sorry kid, you've tried faking stupidity, why do you think you have enough credibility after that to think that lies are going to work?
A moderately competent machinist using those devilish tools and with blueprints pirated from evil hacker's sites on the internets could even create a perfect metal replica of an AR-15, or uranium-enrichment centrifugue! Let's ban the screw-driver!
Your ad could be here!