Another US state has proposed laws governing the use of 3D printing.
In the past weeks, we’ve seen rather aggressive — and wholly impractical — legislation proposed by the US states of New York and Washington. These new proposed laws attempt to shut down the production of 3D-printed weapons, or at least the critical parts of them.
The two proposed laws were largely considered infeasible by numerous experts, who believe the legitimate 3D print industry would be crippled by the new rules, which include a requirement for 3D printer sales “face to face” only in New York, among other problematic concepts.
Last week, we also learned that California was suing two websites that are alleged to have distributed 3D models of weapons, which could have been used by perps to produce unlicensed weapons.
Now there’s another state getting in on this trend: Colorado.
Colorado House Bill 26-1144 is titled a “Bill for an Act to prohibit the use of three-dimensional printing to manufacture firearms”, and it’s not very lengthy.
26-1144 is surprisingly light compared to the previous two proposed bills. This one simply prohibits the following:
- Manufacturing a firearm or certain parts thereof
- Possessing digital instructions for doing so with intent
- Distributing digital instructions to produce firearms
One more thing: the rules apply to not only “three-dimensional printers”, but also “CNC milling machines” or “similar”. This is notable, as many other jurisdictions seem to forget that CNC tech, older than 3D printing, can produce better weapons in pure metal.
The proposed Colorado laws seem practical and implementable, and could be far less troublesome than some of the other proposed bills.
At least so far. There is clearly a trend emerging here, where states are leaning into bans, rules, restrictions, and more, essentially blaming 3D printers and their manufacturers for the problem.
My concern is that if this trend continues, it might catch on with many other states, and momentum might even push some of them to become actual law in certain states. If so, then the fears of many could be realized as normal, legitimate operators of 3D printers — including industrial users — may be severely affected.
That would be tremendously bad news for the industry, and for the USA’s long-hoped-for repatriation of manufacturing to domestic companies. 3D print technology is likely to be a key part of that repatriation, and creating more friction would simply slow it all down. Other countries without such constraints would have an advantage over the US when setting up print farms and 3D digital manufacturing.
Of course, the original problem remains: illegal 3D-printed weapons. Would they be eliminated by these rules, making the tradeoff worth the trouble? That seems highly unlikely to me, as there will be countless ways to get around all of the proposed laws. In other words, make a lot of trouble for legitimate 3D print operators while not really solving much of any other problems.
There must be a better approach to solve this issue.
Via Colorado
