To Punish and Enslave

Incoming rant! Tonight I want to talk about something you may already be familiar with... 3D Printing! Tonight's image with our mascot flexi the dragon may have you thinking this rant is about something else entirely, but I assure you it is very much about 3D printing and it's future.

If you aren't aware, 4 states across the country have just recently introduced what many are calling "manufacturing bans" into their state legislatures. The bills such as 2025-A2228 out of the state of New York and California's AB 2047 seek to not only to just regulate manufacturing devices, but out right criminalize their ownership. All of these bills have been sold to the general public as gun control laws in an effort to curb the "mass production of 3D printed firearms"; however, that message they keep trying to sell the general public on is actually a complete fabrication. In fact in New York a total of less than < 400 3d printed guns were recovered by the NYPD in 2024 which amounted to less than 25% of all ghost guns recovered. What is a ghost gun you ask? Well simply put, it is a broad definition that encompasses any firearm that is un-serialized or has had the serial number removed in some form. Do you have any idea how many ghost guns are recovered yearly in the US? Over the course of five years roughly 92,000. Do you know how many of those guns are 3D printed? Less than a half of a percent. But the state would have you believe that MS-13 gang members are going to microcenter and buying 3D printers to wage war on our city streets from behind a laptop using Orcaslicer.

Now I don't want to turn this into a debate about gun control, because if you asked me if ghost guns should be illegal, I would say yes. The problem with these bills lies in two simple facts. Implementation and government control. Let's start with implementation. Many of these bills are mandating that additive and subtractive manufacturing devices, not just 3D printers but CNC machines, lathes, etc. be pre-programmed with AI to "detect" guns being printed and shut them down. The problem with that? These machines produce nothing more than geometric shapes. They are programmed to go to a point in 3 dimensional space and do something. The fatal flaw in this logic is that for starters, if you wanted to 3D print a firearm or build one with a CNC machine or lathe, you merely could segment it into parts so that the "detection algorithm" that is proposed here could simply be bypassed. The other fatal flaw in an AI detection algorithm is that it does not know what your intention is with what you are printing. What do I mean by that? 3D printed Nerf guns anyone? Cosplay props? That wicked Warhammer 40k blaster? All would be identified as "firearms" by this proposed AI and would not be allowed to print. And if you programmed this AI to detect shapes that resemble gun parts, well you would effectively kill entire businesses that produce anything remotely similar in shape to what the state deems banned under this bill.

But that brings us to the second part of my rant. GOVERNMENT CONTROL. They would have you believe that this is about gun safety, but the simple fact of the matter is this... this is about control. The New York state manufacturing law that was just passed not by votes, but by slipping through a budget measure not only requires you to be registered with the state to own one of these, but requires a license with a fee, training and get this... in some of these proposals? ... an FFL license. Yes that's right, a FEDERAL FIREARMS LICENSE TO OWN A 3D PRINTER. But wait, there's more! Not only would all of these 3D printers have to be connected to a state database via the internet at all times, but it would be a felony to possess one that did not have this software embedded into the firmware of the machine. Yes that's right, you are now a felon for printing flexi toys.

And that brings me to the point of this whole rant. This is something that has been going on for as long as I have been on this world. Legislators creating laws that have no business creating them because they know absolutely nothing about the subject they are creating them for. No experts were consulted on this. No 3D printer manufacturers or shops or creators, none. And with the stroke of a pen, they will make every person who owns a 3D printer making toys and other household parts at home even more of a dangerous felon than the would be criminals they pretend they wanted to stop in the first place; and if you think this ends here, you are wrong, because the AI surveillance future where the government tells you what you can and cannot do is here already and it's not going anywhere.

/end rant