yeah, 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!)?

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cucumber3732842 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

>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).

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simplyluke 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

	▲	remarkEon 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The law is vague enough that a states attorney trying to make a name for themselves could interpret it that way, yes. However, the law is very likely to be challenged on constitutional grounds. I would not be at all shocked if a proper 1A challenge effectively nullifies it.
	▲	tekknik a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Interestingly the ATF themselves have no issue with homemade firearms so long as you register a serial number

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lq9AJ8yrfs 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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nine_k 3 days ago | parent [-]

> need to stop and reprogram to stop and start according to fluctuating rules

Or just move to Texas. Or even Idaho or Dakotas. Which, under a certain angle, is good, it would lessen the wealth and expertise disbalance between states.

I still hope that California comes to senses before they would need to accept the moniker The Footgun State.

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engineer_22 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Machine shops like to be close to customers, moving might not be acceptable compromise.

	▲	bluGill 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		They do for reasons, but if those reasons are not compelling they will move. There are already machine stops all over - many tiny near ghost towns have one (often not in city limits - farmers often have a side business and this is one option). If those machine shops can compete better because they don't have the regulation the customes will find them.

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Ferret7446 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I think California already has a suitable moniker: the (fool's) gold state.

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lazide 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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).

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AngryData 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

My state still has a ban on butterfly knives. As if doing some highly practiced hand flip move makes it more deadly than flipping out any other knife with a far more solid connection.

	▲	lazide 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Getting mugged by a show-off is clearly much worse for my ego, I’ll have you know.

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mjmas 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> was a thing

Still a thing in Australia.

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_carbyau_ 3 days ago | parent [-]

I never understood banning nunchucks. They kind of ban themselves.

If you've ever been a kid copying TMNT Michelangelo with home made nunchucks you've almost certainly smacked yourself in the face.

Y'know what's martially better than two sticks with a string between them? A single big stick.

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bluGill 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The reason is slaves needed a stick for rice - putting a chain between two stick sill works fine for rice work - but makes it a much worse weapon.

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thaumasiotes 2 days ago | parent [-]

That reasoning makes no sense. There was no significant production of rice by slaves.

But also, threshing flails were used outside of rice-growing regions.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Battage_...

Considering that they must be hundreds of times more expensive than long sticks with no hinge, I would say the reason must be that they're better at threshing.

	▲	bluGill 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Slaves was probably the wrong term, my understanding is more like oppressed farmers as opposed to slaves? In the end though, I'm not an expert. I'm repeating what people who seem to be experts have told me and it makes sense - but I can't judge who is an expert. (either you random hacker news commenter, or whatever other "expert"). I'll gladly stand corrected if anyone can show they really are an expert.

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alterom 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>I never understood banning nunchucks. They kind of ban themselves.

I mean, that's a solid reason to ban them :-)

In countries where healthcare is socialized at least. As a cost-saving measure.

They're melee equivalents of footguns.

>If you've ever been a kid copying TMNT Michelangelo with home made nunchucks you've almost certainly smacked yourself in the face.

I've seen qualified users train with metal nunchucks as a kid in the early 90s.

Even then I thought, if I had those, I'd knock my own brains out so fast ಠ , _ ಠ

>Y'know what's martially better than two sticks with a string between them? A single big stick.

Also an order of magnitude safer for the user.

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lazide 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Cuz ninja, of course.

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tim-tday 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Manufacturing a firearm is already regulated by state law in California. (Be it by cnc, 3d print, or drill press)

	▲	esseph 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It is also regulated by federal law and enforced by a whole ass branch of the federal government called the ATF. :P

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Aurornis 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> yeah, but at some point you're just banning "manufacturing".

I mean I’m not in favor of this 3D printing law but manufacturing guns without appropriate licenses is illegal already. They’re trying to target consumer 3D printers for the same reason your paper printer refuses to print currency. Anyone with any engineering knowledge can see why the 3D printing analogy doesn’t work because there isn’t a fixed set of models being banned.

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alterom 2 days ago | parent [-]

>Anyone with any engineering knowledge can see why the 3D printing analogy doesn’t work because there isn’t a fixed set of models being banned.

Also because you can manufacture the exact thing with a lump that you just saw off later (or with a hole you fill with epoxy), or slightly larger / smaller / bent / etc., and it'll be functionally the same.

A functional piece of counterfeit currency needs to be identical to legal currency by the definition of currency; being indistinguishable from the real thing is the only function (otherwise, what you have is a piece of paper).

That doesn't apply to anything whose function isn't "looking exactly like this specific thing".

If the legislation aimed to by museum-grade visual replicas of certain shapes (e.g. an exact scaled down copy of Michelangelo's David), it'd be a technically challenging, but feasible problem.

But the problem they're trying to solve amounts to detecting the manufacturing of pieces with a certain function algorithmically, and forcing that spyware into every machine.

To boot, any form of algorithmic inference of the sort will require much more computing power than a 3D printer ever had.

That's ignoring the feasibility of solving the problem of "can this be a part of a gun", or even the much simpler one "is this part functionally the same as this other part" without giving a false positive on everything (as the saying goes, anything thing is a dildo if you are brave enough; guns aren't much different).

What I'm saying is that zero engineering knowledge is required to understand that requiring machines to refuse to make exact visual replicas of objects isn't the same as trying to restrict function.

I.e. that checking if two flat designs look the same is not hard, but checking if two designs will function somewhat similarly if manufactured is a God-tier problem.

_____

TL;DR: the only thing you can check by looking is looks.

And while that's all that matters for currency, it's irrelevant for guns.

Hope someone explains it to them legal folls. Ain't no engineering knowledge required for it.

	▲	yehoshuapw 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		"It takes zero knowledge to" is sadly a statement that works only given common sense, which too many people are sorely lacking