User:Louis/Bloomberg and the control of 3D printing

The new laws that put a firearm-file scanner inside your own 3D printer are not a grassroots safety movement. They're the work of one billionaire's organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, founded and funded by Michael Bloomberg, & they fit a documented pattern of Bloomberg deciding how everyone else should live and then spending money to enforce it.

The 3D printer lockdown is real and on the books in New York; they've enacted a law that will require a 3D printer to refuse a print until the file clears a firearms blueprint detection algorithm, once the implementing rules are written (NY S.9005-C, Executive Law 837-aa(1)(c)).

• The group that pushed it calls itself grassroots, more than 11 million people. That is the claim we're testing.It is not grassroots. It is one billionaire's organization, drawn entirely from public records.

Everytown's own grassroots self-description, the claim this piece tests, from its Ways to Give page.

What the New York printer mandate does

• The rule rides inside the FY2026-2027 budget as Part C of S.9005-C, signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on May 27, 2026, now Chapter 55 of the Laws of 2026.
• No printer may be sold or delivered in New York unless it carries blocking technology tied to the detection algorithm (General Business Law 396-eeee(1)).

• The algorithm is defined to scan ordinary maker file types, not some special gun format (Executive Law 837-aa(1)(c)).

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  The firearms blueprint detection algorithm written into the bill text, in New York Senate Bill S9005C.
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  The scan reaches normal STL and CAD files, not a special gun format, per Assembly Bill A10005C.

• New York's Division of Criminal Justice Services is authorized to build a blueprint library to train the algorithm, including scans of seized firearms (Executive Law 837-aa(3)(b)).

• The penalty for selling a non-compliant printer is $5,000 per unit, with Attorney General injunction and restitution power (GBL 396-eeee(2), 396-eeee(3)).

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  A state-maintained blueprint library, including scans of seized firearms, per Assembly Bill A10005C.
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  The five-thousand-dollar civil penalty, charged per non-compliant printer, per Assembly Bill A10005C.

• The state sold it as a first-in-the-nation safety standard.

The official framing and the May 27, 2026 signing, from the Governor's press release.

• The working-group and library provisions took effect at signing, the device-sales ban didn't. The working group convenes within 90 days, has up to a year to recommend standards, then DCJS has up to nine months to write rules, and the ban starts one year after those rules, so the earliest possible date is more than two years past May 27, 2026, and a feasibility clause can shelve it (Executive Law 837-aa(2), Subpart B effective clause).

The sales ban is scheduled, not already happening.

Everytown, founded and funded by Bloomberg

• Everytown launched April 16, 2014 as a merger of two existing Bloomberg-world efforts: Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which Bloomberg co-founded, and Moms Demand Action, founded by Shannon Watts.
• Bloomberg took the title Chair and pledged to spend at least $50 million in the first year.

Bloomberg seeded the group and chaired it: at least fifty million dollars in year one, per Everytown's 2014 launch release.

• Shannon Watts told the Washington Post that Bloomberg gave between a quarter and a third of Everytown's budget in recent years; she separately put his share near 25% of the 2019 cycle.
• Documented foundation grants: the Bloomberg Family Foundation gave the Everytown Support Fund $5,200,000 in 2016 and $5,000,000 in 2017, both marked General Operations (Form 990-PF, Part XV).

• Bloomberg personally gave $1,300,000 to the Everytown Victory Fund on October 9, 2020, in the FEC record (FEC committee C00688655).

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  A $5,200,000 Bloomberg Family Foundation grant, marked General Operations on the 990-PF.
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  A $1,300,000 direct contribution dated October 9, 2020 in the FEC record.

• Named outlets call it Bloomberg's group. Time describes Everytown as Michael Bloomberg's gun control group; the Guardian and the Philadelphia Inquirer use the same framing, calling it Mike Bloomberg's gun control group.

How Everytown moved the bills

• In New York, Everytown Policy Counsel Elisabeth Ryan testified to the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees on February 12, 2026, urging that printers block the execution of any file designed to make guns, core gun components, or illegal gun accessories.

Everytown asking New York, by name, for the printer requirement, in its February 12, 2026 budget testimony.

• Once it passed, Everytown claimed the win publicly, releasing New York Shuts Down the 'Plastic Pipeline' on May 21, 2026, quoting its president and Moms Demand Action's executive director.

Everytown taking credit for the New York mandate, in its 'Plastic Pipeline' release.

• They used the same playbook in other states. Colorado: Everytown representatives Alison Shih and Greg Lickenbrock testified for HB26-1144.

The same group testifying in another statehouse, per the Colorado HB26-1144 hearing summary.

• Washington: Everytown SVP Monisha Henley publicly took credit for ESHB 2320, the digital loophole file-distribution ban. California: Everytown publicly backed AB 2047 and celebrated its Assembly passage.
• The blocking bills in New York, Washington, and California share identical defined terms: the same firearms blueprint detection algorithm and the same STL/CAD/geometric-code clause appear in each text (compare to NY S.9005-C and CA AB 2047).

The identical defined term in Washington's bill, House Bill 2321.

• Taking the budget route dodged a clean up-or-down vote. The New York mandate was not a standalone bill voted on its own where it could be debated on the floor on the merits on its own, it rode inside the all-or-nothing budget. The NRA-ILA called that a strategic move to put divisive legislation into an all-or-nothing budget bill.

The budget-vehicle criticism, attributed to NRA-ILA.

Bloomberg's record of control measures

Michael Bloomberg is a billionaire who regularly and repeatedly decides how other people live their lives, who bases his actions on his own fear.

• In 2011, at the program's peak, the NYPD made 685,724 stops under stop-and-frisk. 88% of the people stopped were innocent, neither arrested nor issued a summons. Nearly nine of every ten people thrown against a wall had done nothing the police could charge them with.
• Stop and frisk peaked at 685,724 stops in 2011, and 88% of those stopped were innocent, neither arrested nor summonsed. Of the 2011 stops, 53% were Black New Yorkers and 34% were Latino, 87% combined.

• A federal court ruled it unconstitutional. Floyd v. City of New York, August 12, 2013, Judge Shira Scheindlin found Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment violations, a policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups (959 F. Supp. 2d 540).

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  The scale of stop and frisk and the 88% innocent rate, per NYCLU data.
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  The program ruled unconstitutional on racial-targeting grounds, in Floyd v. City of New York.

• The soda ban was the Sugary Drinks Portion Cap Rule: a 16 fluid ounce cap on cup and container size for sugary drinks at restaurants, theaters, and stadiums. It never took effect.
• New York's highest court struck it down on June 26, 2014, 4-2, on separation-of-powers and non-delegation grounds. The Board of Health exceeded the scope of its regulatory authority.

The 16-ounce portion cap struck down by the New York Court of Appeals.

• Latch On NYC, the 2012 hospital program that put infant formula under lock and sign-out logs. An initiative under Mayor Michael Bloomberg that asked New York City hospitals to keep infant formula under lock and key and stop distributing promotional formula gift bags to new mothers. Under this program, formula was stored in secure rooms or locked boxes, requiring nurses to sign it out like medication if a mother needed it.
  • This shamed & humiliated new moms. Critics argued the policy stigmatized & caused guilt for mothers who chose to bottle-feed or were physically unable to breastfeed. Locking formula away and requiring staff to track it like a regulated substance added unnecessary barriers & stress for new parents trying to feed their children during a vulnerable time.

• Bloomberg decides he knows how everyone should live, then uses power and money to enforce it. The 3D-printer mandate is the same instinct pointed at a new target.

Feinblatt, the unpaid president, and Bloomberg's people

• John Feinblatt is president of both Everytown entities and takes $0 in compensation; the Action Fund 990 lists him at 15 hours a week at $0 (Action Fund Form 990 FY2024, Part VII).

The president listed at $0 compensation, on the Action Fund Form 990.

• The senior staff who actually run the operation are paid well, in contrast to Feinblatt's $0. The Action Fund's Form 990 Schedule J for fiscal year 2024 lists Charles Kelly, Political Affairs Senior Vice President, at total compensation of $455,831; Matthew McTighe, COO and Executive Vice President, at $444,213; and Nicholas Suplina, Law and Policy Senior Vice President, at $386,048.

• Everytown's own release says Feinblatt previously served as Chief Policy Advisor to New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and leads former Mayor Bloomberg's national coalition on gun violence prevention.

The president is Bloomberg's former policy advisor, in Everytown's own words.

• The board is stacked with Bloomberg-administration and Bloomberg-LP alumni. The Action Fund chairperson, Howard Wolfson, runs Bloomberg's super PAC and leads education at Bloomberg Philanthropies.

The board chair runs Bloomberg's super PAC, per his Bloomberg Philanthropies bio.

• Other directors carry Bloomberg-administration roles: Dennis Walcott, his schools chancellor and a deputy mayor, and Fatima Shama, his commissioner of immigrant affairs, both sit on the Everytown board.
• The books run through Geller & Company, the same firm that served as Bloomberg LP's CFO operation; its founder was Bloomberg LP's CFO and sat on its board. The Action Fund 990 names Geller & Company LLC as the firm that prepared its return.

• Geller & Company was Everytown's highest-paid contractor in FY2024 at $4,573,246 (Action Fund Form 990 FY2024, contractor schedule).

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  Everytown's return prepared by Bloomberg LP's CFO firm, per the Action Fund Form 990.
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  $4,573,246 to Bloomberg LP's former CFO firm, the top contractor line, per the Action Fund Form 990.

• Who pays for this, staffs it & who keeps the books all tie back to Bloomberg. When the same operation turns its attention to 3D printers, that looks like Bloomberg's right hand moving on his own fear of 3D printers. This isn't a grassroots groundswell.

What the mandate does to makers

• The printer definition is broad by its own text: it covers additive or subtractive machines with no carve-out for size or consumer use, so an ordinary desktop printer is covered (Penal Law 265.00(38)).
• The enforcement teeth land on the seller: $5,000 per printer sold without the scanning software, plus AG injunction and restitution. A compliant printer has to run the file-scanner or the sale is unlawful (GBL 396-eeee).
• The EFF calls the approach unworkable and anti-consumer: censorware that surveils every print, repeating the mistakes of DRM.

The consumer-rights objection, attributed to EFF.

• The technical reach, per Adafruit's Phillip Torrone via Techdirt: the mandate would touch open-source firmware and machines like Marlin, Klipper, and RepRap, even offline printers, because G-code describes tool paths, not labeled parts.

The mandate reaching ordinary open-source printers like Marlin.

• The stated rationale does not match the most-cited printed-gun case: only the low-stress frame was 3D printed, the working metal parts were not, so a print-scanner would not have stopped that build.
• A hobbyist's general-purpose tool gets a mandatory file-scanner inside it to chase a threat that, in the headline case, did not even come from the printed parts.