The saga of California’s 3D printer bill, AB2047, has played out in the most unusual fashion.
The bill’s goal is to reduce the possibility of 3D printers in that state being able to print weapons. The bill would require any 3D printers sold in California to be equipped with detection software that would, somehow, prevent weapons from being printed.
The problem is that this automated detection concept is effectively impossible. That’s because the real issue is about the intent of a part, rather than its geometry. How could it distinguish between a replica weapon and an actual weapon? Or a gun barrel and a tube?
The detection system would require all 3D printers to be online and send their print files to an external service for verification, which is an astounding invasion of privacy, and especially of intellectual property.
It’s just a bad concept.
Nevertheless, the bill more or less sailed through various committees in recent weeks. David Tobin, who has been leading the charge against the bill, told us of dozens of testimonials at the most recent committee meeting, all against the bill. In spite of highly visible opposition and detailed explanations of how this could not possibly work, the members of the final committee approved the bill to be passed on to the California Senate for a vote, “with amendments”.
That’s the catch: what exactly were these amendments? They were not presented during the committee meeting.
The Amendments
Now we know the nature of these amendments, and it all becomes perfectly clear. Here’s what happened:
California is no longer directly ordering DOJ to invent a firearm-detection standard and force 3D printer manufacturers to comply by fixed 2028–2029 deadlines. Instead, the bill now waits to see whether ASTM International develops an industry standard first.
ASTM International is an external body that develops a wide range of industrial standards. As of now, they do not have anything that deals with this sort of thing.
The amendment states that once such a standard appears from ASTM, the California DOJ has two years to develop regulations based on it. Additionally, if ASTM has not developed a standard by July 1, 2029, the California DOJ does not have to continue waiting, and thus the bill will not activate.
There are other changes in the amendments. The part that provided a detailed explanation of what the detection algorithm had to do is entirely gone. Also gone are recommendations for methods of implementation, and all lists of 3D printer models are gone. Civil enforcement provisions are also gone, including the US$25K penalty.
Most surprisingly, the exemption for industrial 3D printers (which shockingly did not include quite a number of industries on its list) is also gone.
That means that the bill now applies to ALL 3D printers, including industrial 3D printers.
It’s important to note that the big players in the industry, like Stratasys, 3D Systems, etc., have been silent in this battle up to now, presumably because they believed they were not affected by the bill.
That is no longer the case. If you are an industrial 3D printer manufacturer, particularly those based in the US, you had better get on this ASAP.
Although the bill appears to be considerably diluted, it is still heading to the California Senate floor for a vote. It is in the best interest of the 3D print community that this vote does not pass, regardless of the weakened proposal.
Tobin recommends that anyone concerned about this matter should contact California Senators and the Governor this week, as the Senate will vote soon. All the details you need to know about how to do this are available on Tobin’s excellent AB2047 site.
What Caused the Change?
Now let’s do a bit of analysis on this situation.
The entire process has been quite peculiar. Tobin reports speaking with California committee members that effectively have no proper understanding of 3D printing or how any of this technically works. Some do understand that the bill cannot actually work, yet they still voted in favour of presenting the bill to the Senate.
What’s going on here?
My speculation is that this is simply good politicking.
At the highest level, this is about preventing gun crime, which is a good thing in the minds of most voters.
Those voters have really no understanding of the technical aspects of the situation.
If Senators voted against the bill on technical grounds, they would look bad to their voters, regardless of the technical realities.
So they changed the guts of the bill to move the decision points elsewhere: to ASTM.
ASTM can effectively kill this bill through deactivation, if they so choose. Note that California does not control ASTM, it’s an independent agent here.
Did the Senators kill the bill? Nope, they voted for the bill! Not them! Blame ASTM!
It seems to me that the Senators do understand that the bill simply doesn’t work, but they can’t be publicly seen to be against it. So they shift the blame to another party.
By removing the industrial exemption, they may also hope to generate a fuss from industry that may slow down the bill. (Hint, hint, Stratasys, and others).
