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California’s New Bill Requires DOJ-Approved 3D Printers That Report on Themselves
(blog.adafruit.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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So in other words, what else is new?
The danger if this passes isn't that someone will be able to successfully implement some manner of system for identifying gun parts which will, apparently, rely on pixie dust and magic. In reality this will effectively prohibit 3D printer sales in California entirely because compliance is literally impossible. And it'll and give overreaching cops and prosecutors yet another nonsense charge they can arbitrarily slap people with over "circumventing" this mystical technology which does not in fact exist if they, ye gods forbid, build their own printer.
It's the same horseshit rationale as the spent casing "microstamping" fantasy that legislators have been salivating about for decades. It doesn't work, it'll never work, but that's not going to stop them from wishing it does and therefore turning it into a defacto ban.
Keep in mind, California also has the precedent of their infamous approved handguns list, which notoriously does things like arbitrarily declaring that the black version of some model of gun is legal, but possession of the stainless version of the exact same gun is a felony. We're not dealing with people in possession of any type of rationality, here.
It seems they are rationally putting pressure upon those willing to own guns or 3d printers.
Like most of rifle shots fired in WWI didn't kill anyone and were meant for suppression.
Making you afraid of everything that can be a legal trap. Thus possibly dropping the thought of even owning this or that thing.
I haven't read the bill, but from the description I think you could actually get around this by building your own. They can't sell a printer that doesn't have this, and you can disable it, but it doesn't say here that you can't build your own that never had the software. In that case, I assume we'll see kits that are totally not meant to be assembled into printers with all their parts you need, and then unrelated documentation online somewhere on how to assemble it.
I was just talking with a friend about the microstamping idea. I’d never heard of it before.