alt Hacker NewsSorry 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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California already has background checks for bullets, you typically can't buy ammo if you haven't bought a gun at your current address.
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 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.
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.
Some states do already and it's not enough, you can manufacture cartridges as well it's just annoying.