alt Hacker Newsyeah, but at some point you're just banning "manufacturing".
if someone wants to make a gun... they can. It's not complex to manufacturer simple firearms - we managed it as far back as the freaking 10th century.
So why freak out over this, for example, and not CNCs? Or Power tools? Or forges (CHF barrels are a thing too!)?
Replies
Washington's legislation that just passed includes a vague ban on possession of any files/instructions on 3d printing and CNC/milling/basically any manufacturing. As far as I can tell it's potentially illegal to own a book on gun manufacturing processes in the state of Washington now if you're not a federally licensed firearms manufacture.
Manufacturing a firearm is already regulated by state law in California. (Be it by cnc, 3d print, or drill press)
Because those aren't as trendy right now. This is similar to banning nunchucks and throwing stars in the 80's (yes, that was a thing).
>yeah, but at some point you're just banning "manufacturing".
That's kind of the point. Look at the way industry is regulated in any "high touch" state. Beyond the most basic of home businesses just about everything industrial is "illegal without a license".
Like I can't just park a tub grinder on my property and start taking tree waste from tree services and landscapers and selling truck loads of chips to the local pulp mill. I need to bend over and spread 'em for a state license.
They would be overjoyed for all manufacturing to be like that. They would love to ban your CNC plasma table or laser cutter and then sell you back the right to use it so long as you shell out $$$ to some compliance industry (that invariably is owned by a bunch of people well connected to the legislature, if environmental and weed are anything to go by).
CNC milling is typically included in the bans being considered in various states.
While poetically consistent, it enlarges the crater around these bad laws if they are passed and enforced. Basically all new manufacturing setups will need to stop and reprogram to stop and start according to fluctuating rules designed by committee, and will need to be made brittle to prevent circumvention.
It is a debacle.