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3D Printing restrictions and bans

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3D Printing restrictions and bans are legal, technical, and policy limits that governments, platforms, and manufacturers place on how consumer 3D printers may be bought, modified, or used. The most far-reaching example is a New York law, enacted in May 2026, that will require every 3D printer sold in the state to carry blocking technology which checks each print file against a firearms blueprint detection algorithm before the machine will run the job.[1] The Governor's office and the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety described the measure as first-in-the-nation.[2][3] The printer-sales requirement is not yet in force. It takes effect one year after state rules are written, those rules cannot begin until an expert working group reports, and a feasibility clause lets that group shelve the mandate if it finds the scanning technology does not work.[1][4]

How restrictions are imposed

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Restrictions on consumer 3D printers take several forms, often combined:

  • Legislation. State laws and bills can restrict how printers are sold or used. New York's budget law requires printers sold in the state to carry firearm-blocking technology, and Washington and California have advanced similar bills.[1][5][6]
  • Firmware and software locks. Manufacturers can gate printer functionality behind signed firmware, mandatory cloud connections, or authorization checks, as documented with Bambu Lab's Authorization Control System.
  • Platform and service dependency. Printers can depend on a proprietary slicer, a cloud account, or an online authorization server to remain fully functional.
  • Content and model filtering. Software can scan, flag, or refuse particular model files or print jobs. New York's blocking-technology mandate would require this kind of per-file screening by law.[1]
  • Support withdrawal. A manufacturer can declare a device unsupported and disable features through software updates or by shutting down the servers the device depends on, a planned-obsolescence risk for any cloud-tied printer.

Firearm-blocking printer mandates

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In 2026 several states moved to regulate 3D-printed firearms through the printer itself rather than only the design file or the finished weapon. New York enacted the first such law; Washington and California advanced bills along the same lines, and Colorado and the Manhattan District Attorney pursued narrower measures.[1][5][6][7][8]

New York blocking-technology mandate

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Main article: New York 3D printer blocking technology mandate

New York's mandate was enacted as Part C of the FY2026-2027 budget, bills S.9005-C and A.10005-C, and signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on May 27, 2026.[2][1] The operative command is in the new General Business Law section 396-eeee (1):

No person, firm, partnership, association, or corporation shall sell or deliver any three-dimensional printer in the state of New York unless such printer is equipped with blocking technology.[4]

Executive Law section 837-aa (1)(b) defines that blocking technology as integrated measures that keep a printer from running any job unless the file has been evaluated by a firearms blueprint detection algorithm and found not to produce a firearm or illegal firearm parts.[1] The algorithm, defined in section 837-aa (1)(c), reads printing files whether in the form of stereolithography (STL) files or other computer aided design files or geometric code.[1] To supply data for those checks, section 837-aa (3)(b) authorizes the Division of Criminal Justice Services to build a library of firearms blueprint files including scans of seized firearms.[4]

The statute defines the regulated machine in two prongs at Penal Law section 265.00 (38): any machine that renders an object from a digital design file using additive manufacturing, or any machine that modifies an object from a digital file using subtractive manufacturing.[1] Writing in Techdirt, Karl Bode argued that the two-prong definition, drafted without a carve-out for machine size or consumer use, would reach CNC milling machines, offline printers, and open-source firmware projects such as Marlin, Klipper, and RepRap.[9]

The device-sales requirement is not yet in force. Under section 837-aa, the Division of Criminal Justice Services, the Department of State, and the State University of New York must convene a working group within 90 days of enactment; the group has up to one year to recommend minimum safety standards; the Division then has up to nine months to promulgate performance-standard rules; and the section 396-eeee sales requirement takes effect one year after those rules are promulgated.[4] Stacked end to end, those intervals place the earliest possible effective date more than two years after enactment.[4] The chain can also stop entirely. Section 837-aa (2) provides a feasibility off-ramp:

[I]f the working group determines that it is not technologically feasible to require three-dimensional printers sold in the state of New York to include blocking technology, the working group shall so report, and no regulations shall be required to be promulgated pursuant to this section, until such time as the working group determines that it is technologically feasible.[4]

If the working group makes that finding, no rules issue and the sales requirement is deferred indefinitely.[4] Enforcement of the sales requirement is civil and runs through the Attorney General: a gun-industry member found by a court to have violated section 396-eeee is liable for a civil penalty of $5,000 for each qualified product unlawfully sold, and the Attorney General may also sue to enjoin violations and obtain restitution.[4] The requirement does not apply to a buyer who holds both a New York gunsmith license under Penal Law section 400.00 and a federal firearms license, and only after the Attorney General verifies the licenses and issues written authorization.[4]

Alongside the device rule, the budget added digital-file offenses. Penal Law section 265.10 (11) and (12) make it a class A misdemeanor to sell or possess digital firearm manufacturing code outside the licensed channels the statute names.[4] The one felony in the package targets hardware rather than files: under section 265.10 (10), a dealer or gunsmith who, on or after May 31, 2027, sells, transfers, or ships a convertible pistol, defined as a semi-automatic pistol with a cruciform trigger bar that a pistol converter can turn into a machine gun, commits a class D felony.[4]

California blocking-technology mandate

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California's Assembly Bill 2047, the California Firearm Printing Prevention Act, adds Title 21.1, commencing with Section 3273.631, to the Civil Code.[10] Authored by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan and sponsored by Everytown for Gun Safety,[11] it passed the Assembly 58 to 19 on May 26, 2026 and the Senate 29 to 10 on August 31, 2026, the constitutional last day for each house to pass bills.[12][13][14]

The California Senate chamber vote display for AB 2047 on August 31, 2026, showing 29 ayes and 10 noes against a stated vote requirement of 21. The bill appears as file item 52, presented by Senator Blakespear, the item number, threshold and presenting member listed for that day in the Senate Daily File.

Four Senate amendments struck the criminal penalty, the civil enforcement scheme, the published compliance list, and the fixed operative dates, and made the remaining sales requirement conditional on a standard published by ASTM International, a private standards-development organization.[10][15][16][17]

AB 2047 as the Assembly passed it and as the Senate passed it
Provision Version passed by the Assembly, amended May 18, 2026 Version passed by the Senate, amended August 28, 2026
What starts the sales ban A date written into the statute: This section shall become operative on March 1, 2029[18] A Department of Justice determination that ASTM International has published a qualifying standard, then departmental guidance, then one more year[10]
Criminal penalty Penal Code section 29187, a misdemeanor to knowingly disable, deactivate, uninstall, or otherwise circumvent any firearm blocking technology installed in a three-dimensional printer with intent to manufacture firearms[18] None. The act adds no Penal Code section; it amends the Civil Code only[10][15]
Manufacturer attestation Mandatory. Every business making printers for California sale had to file an attestation for each make and model[18] Optional. The department's guidance may provide for a self-attestation or self-certification process[10]
Public list of compliant printers Required, maintained by the Department of Justice[18] Removed[16]
Civil enforcement Civil penalty up to twenty-five thousand dollars per violation, with actions by the Attorney General, county counsel, or city attorney[18] Removed[16]
Files a printer must refuse A file that would produce a firearm or illegal firearm parts[18] A file that would produce a firearm or a machine gun conversion device[10]

The ASTM standard the act waits on

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ASTM International entered AB 2047 in two steps. The June 15, 2026 amendment named it as one optional source among several: the department may adopt some or all of any set of performance standards created by a nongovernmental entity, including, but not limited to, an academic consortium or a global standard-setting nonprofit, including, for example, ASTM International.[19] The August 17, 2026 amendment, adopted as the bill came off the Senate Appropriations suspense file, struck the old operative sections and rebuilt the act around the organization.[16][12] The Appropriations committee recorded the change in its August 14, 2026 analysis addendum:

Author Amendments: Require the Attorney General to check on a quarterly basis, whether ASTM International has published standards as specified, and if so, to publish written guidance if ASTM International has published industry standards for firearm blocking technology, as specified.[17]

The act makes the organization a defined term at Civil Code section 3273.632 (a), identifying it as ASTM International, formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials.[10] Every operative duty then runs through it.

The chain the act sets up, in its own order
Step What the act provides Section
1 Beginning no later than July 1, 2027, and quarterly after that, the Department of Justice checks whether ASTM International has published industry standards for equipping three-dimensional printers with firearm blocking technology Civ. Code § 3273.633 (a)[10]
2 The remaining duties apply only if the department determines ASTM has published or adopted industry standards and that those standards demonstrate that it is technologically feasible to equip three-dimensional printers with firearm blocking technology Civ. Code § 3273.633 (b)[10]
3 Only after that determination does the department write anything, and it has within 24 months to do it Civ. Code § 3273.633 (b)(1)[10]
4 The department's guidance shall be informed by the ASTM International industry standards and may incorporate some or all of them Civ. Code § 3273.633 (b)(3)[10]
5 The sales prohibition begins one year after the department has published written guidance or regulations Civ. Code § 3273.633 (c)[10]
6 If ASTM has published nothing by July 1, 2029, the department shall not be required to make any further determinations under this section Civ. Code § 3273.633 (f)[10]


AB 2047, as amended in the Senate on August 28, 2026, would add Civil Code section 3273.633, requiring a check beginning no later than July 1, 2027 and quarterly thereafter for published ASTM International industry standards and providing that if none are published as of July 1, 2029 the department is not required to make any further determinations under the section. California Legislative Information, AB 2047.

The Senate Public Safety Committee analysis of June 28, 2026 records that committee staff were unable to identify any examples of so-called "performance standards" for firearm blueprint detection algorithms or software controls processes.[20] The same analysis records what the committee was told about ASTM's timing:

Moreover, information provided to Committee staff indicates that ASTM International will not publish the relevant standards until a few months prior to the September 2028 deadline, leaving DOJ even less time to make this determination.[20]

Everytown for Gun Safety, the bill's sponsor, told legislators in argument quoted in the Senate Floor analyses that there's good news on this front: the technology already exists to equip printers to identify and block these dangerous firearm print jobs.[11] The feasibility condition in section 3273.633 (b), which makes the mandate depend on ASTM standards demonstrating that such equipment is technologically feasible, was added on August 28, 2026.[10]

ASTM International's response

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ASTM published a statement on August 28, 2026, the same day AB 2047 received its final Senate amendment, describing its role in the legislation. On the bill, it said it is referenced as an example of a standards development organization whose published standard, if any, the state may consider, that it did not advocate or lobby for inclusion in the legislation, and that it takes no position on the legislation or potential related standards development.[21]


ASTM International's statement of August 28, 2026, saying that its staff do not write standards and that its additive manufacturing technologies committee F42 has not yet taken up voluntary consensus standards for public safety protections on illegally printed 3D parts. ASTM International.

On who writes ASTM standards, and whether this work has begun, the statement runs four consecutive sentences:

The ASTM staff, including the AM CoE team, do not write standards. The ASTM AM CoE work generates data, best practices, roadmaps, and early stakeholder alignment that technical committees may draw on if their members choose to pursue standardization, helping shorten that path without influencing consensus standards development. That responsibility is the purview of ASTM's technical committees, whose volunteer members can choose to take up standardization work at their discretion using an open, balanced, consensus-driven process. ASTM's additive manufacturing technologies committee (F42) has not yet considered the development of voluntary consensus standards related to public safety protections on illegally printed 3D parts.[21]

The statement describes ASTM's Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence as intending to host a pre-competitive consortium to explore potential safety measures for 3D printing of regulated firearms and firearm parts, with a role focused on gathering data, developing and testing candidate methods, and building early consensus among stakeholders on potential frameworks and methods, not developing standards for implementation.[21]

ASTM's public record matches that description. The published scope of Committee F42 is the promotion of knowledge, stimulation of research and implementation of technology through the development of standards for additive manufacturing technologies, and names no public-safety, firearms, or screening subject.[22] A search of ASTM's standards catalog on August 31, 2026 for machine gun conversion device returned no results under Products and Services, and a search for firearm returned 52 records, none of them concerning additive manufacturing.[23] ASTM's two firearm standards, F2369 on non-integral firearm locking devices and F2456 on youth-resistant firearms containers, are gun locks and storage containers under Committee F15 on Consumer Products, subcommittees F15.53 and F15.55.[23][24][25][26]

ASTM also describes who may start such work and how long it takes. Its guidance on new standards development states that requests to form a new ASTM standards development activity may be initiated by a company, organization, trade association, professional society, university, government agency, or a single individual, that all technical decisions regarding a proposed activity are made by the appropriate committee members who are technical experts from industry, government, academia, and consumers, not by the ASTM staff, and that not all requests ultimately reach fruition.[27] ASTM puts the average development time for a new standard at 18 months.[28]

Trade coverage of the August 2026 amendments read the contingency the same way. Writing in Fabbaloo on August 21, 2026, Kerry Stevenson said of ASTM that as of now, they do not have anything that deals with this sort of thing, and that the organization can effectively kill this bill through deactivation, if they so choose.[29] Tom Knighton, writing in Bearing Arms on August 25, 2026, put it as: If they simply decline to create standards, California has no regulation to speak of, and no one is impacted.[30] VoxelMatters reported on August 24, 2026 that under the amended bill the Department of Justice should check in quarterly with standards organization ASTM International to see whether it has published guidance on firearm blocking technology for 3D printers.[31]

Other state and local efforts

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Measure Year Jurisdiction Status and substance
HB 2321 2025-26 Washington Bill titled Requiring three-dimensional printers be equipped with certain blocking technologies. As reported by Tom's Hardware, it would bar printer sales after July 1, 2027 and set penalties as a class C felony carrying up to five years in prison and a $15,000 fine.[5][32] This bill did not pass out of the Civil Rights & Judiciary committee.
HB 2320 2025-26 Washington Companion measure addressing 3D-printed firearms in the same session, and prohibiting distribution of "Digital firearm manufacturing code".[33] This has been signed into law, but the relevant portion does not take effect until June 30, 2027.
AB-2047 2026 California Authored by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan and sponsored by Everytown for Gun Safety.[11] Passed the Assembly 58 to 19 on May 26, 2026 and the Senate 29 to 10 on August 31, 2026.[12][13] Senate amendments removed the Penal Code section 29187 circumvention misdemeanor, the civil penalties, and the fixed compliance dates, and conditioned the remaining sales requirement on ASTM International publishing an industry standard for firearm blocking technology.[18][10][34] See above.
HB26-1144 2026 Colorado Proposed bill that would prohibit using a 3D printer to manufacture a firearm, frame, receiver, large-capacity magazine, or rapid-fire device.[7]
Letter to Creality 2025 New York County On March 26, 2025, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent a letter to the printer manufacturer Creality urging it to make firearm-detection software a default, remove gun blueprints from its cloud platform, and ban illicit-weapon files in its user agreement; the letter cited Print&Go's "3D GUN'T" software as a model.[8]

Advocacy & Legislative Support: Everytown for Gun Safety

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Everytown for Gun Safety has served as a principal advocate for upstream regulations that target 3D printer hardware and file distribution. Since 2024, the organization has led advocacy in ten separate bills across eight states, supporting both printer-blocking mandates and manufacturing bans. New York's S.9005-C/A.10005-C, signed into law in May 2026, represents a model of printer-blocking regulation.[3] Everytown championed the measure through direct testimony to budget committees, framing the requirement as shutting down the plastic pipeline of do-it-yourself firearms.[35] California's AB 2047 passed the Assembly in May 2026 with Everytown as its sponsor, and cleared the Senate on August 31, 2026 in a form that conditions its printer requirement on a standard ASTM International has not published.[36][11][13][10][21][23]

Washington pursued two approaches: a blocking-technology bill, HB 2321, which was referred to committee in January 2026 and did not advance,[37] and a manufacturing ban, ESHB 2320, signed into law in March 2026, which Everytown supported.[38] Colorado's HB26-1144, a manufacturing ban on 3D-printed firearm components, received Everytown advocacy and was signed into law in May 2026.[39]

Everytown also supported manufacturing bans and Glock switch restrictions in Connecticut, Illinois, and Maryland through coalition advocacy with Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action.[40] Vermont's S. 209, a ghost gun prohibition signed into law in May 2024, received written testimony from gun violence prevention advocates.[41]

For a comprehensive state-by-state breakdown of Everytown-supported 3D printer and manufacturing-restriction bills, including bill status and Everytown's specific role in each jurisdiction, see the companion page User:Louis/Everytown for Gun Safety and the 3D printer blocking mandates.

Reactions

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Supporters framed the New York law as a public-safety floor. The Governor's office said the budget set first-in-the-nation minimum safety standards for 3D printers sold in New York to be equipped with basic technology that prevents the unlicensed, illegal production of lethal firearms and firearm parts.[2] Everytown for Gun Safety praised the package as nation-leading action and described it as shutting down the plastic pipeline of do-it-yourself firearms.[3] The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action objected to enacting the measure through the budget, calling it a strategic move to put divisive legislation into an all-or-nothing budget bill rather than a standalone vote.[42]

Maker and digital-rights groups opposed the printer-side approach. The Electronic Frontier Foundation campaigned against the proposal under the banner Stop New York's Attack on 3D Printing, calling the requirement an unfeasible tech solution and describing print-blocking as censorware that surveils every print.[43] Writing in Techdirt, Karl Bode relayed analysis from Phillip Torrone of the open-source hardware company Adafruit, who argued that detection from raw geometry is a classification problem with high error rates.[9]

Technical feasibility

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What 3D printers can and cannot make

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A firearm concentrates the force of a fired cartridge in a small set of metal parts. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute sets the maximum average pressure for the 9mm Luger cartridge at 35,000 pounds per square inch, contained on every shot by the barrel, chamber, bolt, and slide.[44] The frame or lower receiver, which houses the trigger group and keeps the metal parts aligned, bears far less. In its assessment of 3D-printed firearm components, the Small Arms Survey described the division of labor in the AR-15:

In the AR-15 design, for example, the thermal and mechanical stresses of firing are borne mainly by the barrel, bolt, and upper-receiver assemblies. The lower receiver is primarily intended to ensure the correct alignment and interface of the operating parts of the firearm, and to house the trigger and fire selector and safety mechanisms.[45]

Consumer fused-deposition printers can make that low-stress frame in thermoplastic. They cannot make a barrel or chamber that survives a centerfire cartridge.[45] Under federal law the frame or receiver is the regulated part: 18 U.S.C. section 921 (a)(3) includes the frame or receiver of any such weapon, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives defines a handgun frame at 27 CFR section 478.12 (a)(1).[46][47] The pressure-bearing barrel and slide carry no such status and are sold online as ordinary parts; a California legislative committee analysis, citing a Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General estimate, put the cost of 3D-printing a 9mm handgun frame and adding unregulated metal components at around $700.[48]

Because the printer makes only the frame, the firearms tied to harm are hybrids. A 2024 study in Forensic Science International: Synergy catalogued 186 law-enforcement encounters with 3D-printed firearms and recorded only 14 in the fully-3D-printed category, the smallest of its object types, with no discharged firearms among the seizures.[49] The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point described hybrid designs as weapons that incorporate 3D-printed components with readily available and unregulated components such as steel tubing, metal bar stocks, and springs.[50] WIRED's Andy Greenberg built and test-fired a clone of the firearm allegedly used by Luigi Mangione and reported that only the frame was printed while the slide, barrel, and trigger parts were purchased metal components; the cycling faults he encountered traced to the purchased slide, not the printed frame.[51]

Machine-gun conversion devices, often called Glock switches, are the category with the largest documented harm record. The ATF reported that recoveries of conversion devices rose from 814 in the 2012 through 2016 period to 5,454 in 2017 through 2021, a 570 percent increase.[52] New York's budget reflected that category by making convertible-pistol sales a class D felony.[4] At national scale, the Department of Justice reported in January 2025 that Between 2017 and 2023, 92,702 suspected PMFs, untraceable privately made firearms, were recovered and reported to the ATF.[53]

Detection methods and their failure modes

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The central technical objection to the scanning mandate is that a printing file describes geometry, not purpose, so a scanner cannot reliably separate a restricted part from an ordinary one. Phillip Torrone of Adafruit, whose analysis Techdirt reproduced, framed the task as a classification problem:

A firearms blueprint detection algorithm would need to identify every possible firearm component from raw STL/GCODE files, while not flagging pipes, tubes, blocks, brackets, gears, or any of the millions of legitimate shapes that happen to share geometric properties with gun parts. This is a classification problem with enormous false positive and false negative rates.[9]

Techdirt also noted that many printers run offline or on community-maintained firmware that no state library reaches, so a scanning requirement could not be enforced on them.[9] The Electronic Frontier Foundation summarized the approach as an unfeasible tech solution.[43]

Legitimate prints wrongly flagged as firearm parts

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Critics argue that setting a scanner wide enough to catch a firearm part necessarily flags benign objects built to the same proportions. Torrone's list of shapes that share geometry with gun parts named pipes, tubes, blocks, brackets, and gears.[9] One illustration, developed in a companion essay, pairs a firearm sound-suppressor baffle, drawn in US Patent 7,987,944 as a conical bell with a central aperture, with the internal cones of Nikola Tesla's 1920 valvular conduit, US Patent 1,329,559.[54][55] Critics likewise argue that a per-file scan is easily defeated by editing a file slightly or splitting a part into pieces that each resemble nothing in particular.[9][43]

Consumer rights and ownership concerns

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The consumer-rights objection is that a blocking mandate puts a state-defined filter between owners and hardware they bought. The Electronic Frontier Foundation framed print-blocking as a return of digital rights management, writing that the New York approach repeats the mistakes of DRM.[43] In its Permission to Print series the group tied the tactic to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which it said made bypassing code that restricts the use of copyrighted content a federal crime, and treated a mandated filter on an owner's machine as a restriction on lawful use of property.[56]

A second concern is loss of functionality through server dependency. The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that restricting a device to manufacturer-provided software leaves owners dependent on the vendor and able to use the hardware only on the manufacturer's terms, a dependency illustrated by the cloud-authorization model documented in the Bambu Lab Authorization Control System.[56]

A third concern is copyleft compliance. The slicer and firmware that drive most consumer printers are open-source projects under copyleft licenses. PrusaSlicer and Bambu Studio are released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3), and the firmware projects Marlin and Klipper are released under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3).[57][58][59][60] GPLv3 Section 6 requires a distributor of a consumer product to provide the Installation Information needed to install and run a modified version of the covered software on that product, and AGPLv3 Section 13 requires that users interacting with modified software over a network be offered its source.[61][62] Those source-disclosure obligations have been enforced against printer makers: in August 2018 the US distributor Printed Solid stopped selling Creality machines over an unreleased Marlin source violation, and on May 18, 2026 the Software Freedom Conservancy alleged that Bambu Lab violated AGPLv3 by combining Bambu Studio with a proprietary library.[63][64] A separate dispute over compiled binary modules on Creality's K1 and K2 printers is documented in the Creality K2 series GPLv3 violation article.

Another concern is tracking and loss of privacy. Print&Go's "3D GUN'T" software to block printing firearm parts spells out this potential under "How does 3D GUN'T work?"

3. Complete print traceability The system keeps a record of everything that's printed, including who printed it, what was printed, and even where they were when it was printed. If someone does manage to print a gun, the authorities will be able to identify and trace any instances of printing gun-related material.[65]

While the system is aimed at tracking firearm parts, there is no regard given for any other use of 3D printers.

Court cases

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Whether a firearm design file is protected speech has been litigated apart from the printer mandates.[66] In Defense Distributed v. Attorney General New Jersey, No. 23-3058, decided February 12, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a challenge by Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation to New Jersey's restrictions on distributing 3D-printed gun code.[66][67] The court held that Purely functional code with no expressive purpose, use, or intent is simply not covered by the First Amendment, and affirmed because the plaintiffs had not pleaded that their files were expressive.[66]

A related question, the federal status of an unfinished frame or receiver, reached the Supreme Court the year before. In Bondi v. VanDerStok, No. 23-852, decided March 26, 2025, the Court upheld the ATF's 2022 frame-or-receiver rule and restated the statutory scheme, writing that under 18 U.S.C. section 921 (a)(3)(B), a frame or receiver is, even when sold separately, subject to the Act's requirements.[68]

Manufacturer and platform policies

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Some companies market the kind of filtering that the state mandates would require. Print&Go, a 3D-printing workflow company, sells a product called "3D GUN'T" that it describes as a solution to prevent the printing of 3D-printed ghost guns, and the Manhattan District Attorney's 2025 letter pointed to that software as a model for printer makers to adopt.[65][8] Other restrictive practices come from the printer makers themselves rather than from third-party filters: cloud-authorization and firmware locks are documented in the Bambu Lab Authorization Control System, and a copyleft-compliance dispute over locked firmware in the Creality K2 series GPLv3 violation.

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 "Senate Bill S9005C, FY2026-2027 budget (Public Protection and General Government), Part C". New York State Senate. 2026-05-27. Archived from the original on 2026-05-29. Retrieved 2026-06-02. The two-prong three-dimensional printer definition (Penal Law section 265.00(38)), the section 837-aa(1)(b) blocking-technology definition, the section 837-aa(1)(c) firearms blueprint detection algorithm and STL/CAD/geometric-code clause, and the May 27, 2026 signing status appear on this page.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Keeping New Yorkers Safe: Governor Hochul Signs Legislation to Strengthen Public Safety". Office of Governor Kathy Hochul. 2026-05-27. Archived from the original on 2026-06-02. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "New York Shuts Down the 'Plastic Pipeline': Governor Hochul and Lawmakers Pass Nation-Leading Measures to Stop the Spread of DIY Machine Guns and 3D-Printed Firearms in FY27 Budget". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2026-05-21. Archived from the original on 2026-06-03. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 "Enacted text of A. 10005-C / S. 9005-C, FY2026-2027 budget, Part C" (PDF). New York State Assembly. 2026-05-27. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2026-06-03. Retrieved 2026-06-02. The enacted text contains the General Business Law section 396-eeee(1) sales prohibition; the section 396-eeee(5) gunsmith-and-federal-license exemption with written Attorney General authorization; the section 396-eeee(3) $5,000-per-qualified-product civil penalty against a gun industry member and the section 396-eeee(2) Attorney General injunction and restitution authority; the section 837-aa(2) working group, its 90-day convening and one-year recommendation intervals and feasibility clause; the section 837-aa(3) nine-month rulemaking duty and section 837-aa(3)(b) library "including scans of seized firearms"; the Subpart B clause providing that section 396-eeee "shall take effect one year after the promulgation of rules"; and the criminal provisions at Penal Law section 265.10(10)-(12), including the class D felony for convertible-pistol sales on or after May 31, 2027.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Stephen Warwick (2026-01-19). "Washington state proposes new 3D-printed gun controls with blocking features and blueprint detection algorithm". Tom's Hardware. Archived from the original on 2026-06-05. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Luke James (2026-05-30). "California Assembly passes 3D printer bill that would criminalize bypassing mandated gun-blocking software". Tom's Hardware. Archived from the original on 2026-05-31. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "HB26-1144: Prohibit Three-Dimensional Printing Firearms and Components". Colorado General Assembly. 2026. Archived from the original on 2026-05-23. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. (2025-03-26). "Letter to Shenzhen Creality 3D Technology Co" (PDF). New York County District Attorney's Office. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2026-03-19. Retrieved 2026-06-02. The March 26, 2025 letter urges Creality to make firearm-detection software a default, remove gun blueprints from its cloud platform, and ban illicit-weapon files in its user agreement, and cites Print&GO's "3D GUN'T" software as a model.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Karl Bode (2026-02-19). "New York's New 3D Printing Law, As Written, Is Extremely Harmful And Annoying". Techdirt. Archived from the original on 2026-03-01. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Reproduces Phillip Torrone of Adafruit on detection as "a classification problem with enormous false positive and false negative rates," on G-code as tool paths, and on the law reaching open-source firmware such as Marlin, Klipper, and RepRap and offline machines.
  10. ↑ 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05 10.06 10.07 10.08 10.09 10.10 10.11 10.12 10.13 10.14 10.15 "AB-2047 Firearms: 3-dimensional printing blocking technology, as amended in Senate August 28, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-08-28. Archived from the original on 2026-08-31. Retrieved 2026-08-31. The August 28, 2026 text adds Title 21.1 (commencing with Section 3273.631) to Part 4 of Division 3 of the Civil Code and adds no Penal Code section. It contains the section 3273.632(a) definition of ASTM International, the section 3273.633(a) quarterly check beginning no later than July 1, 2027, the section 3273.633(b) conditional trigger and technological-feasibility finding, the section 3273.633(b)(1) 24-month guidance deadline, the section 3273.633(b)(3) provision that guidance be informed by the ASTM standards, the section 3273.633(b)(6) permissive self-attestation, the section 3273.633(c) sales prohibition commencing one year after guidance is published, the section 3273.633(d) entertainment-props exception, the section 3273.633(f) July 1, 2029 provision, and the section 3273.632(d) definition blocking files that would produce a firearm or a machine gun conversion device.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 "AB 2047 (Bauer-Kahan), Senate Floor Analyses". California Senate Rules Committee, Office of Senate Floor Analyses. 2026-08-30. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) Carries the argument submitted by Everytown for Gun Safety, the bill's sponsor, and the registered support and opposition lists.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 "AB-2047 Bill History". California Legislative Information. Archived from the original on 2026-08-31. Retrieved 2026-08-31. Records the May 26, 2026 Assembly floor vote, 58 ayes and 19 noes, and the Senate committee actions.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 California State Senate, floor session of Monday, August 31, 2026: the chamber vote display for AB 2047 recorded 29 ayes and 10 noes, with one member not voting (vote display). The measure's file item number, its 21-vote requirement and its presenting member are listed in "Senate Daily File No. 247, Monday, August 31, 2026" (PDF). California State Senate. 2026-08-31. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2026-08-31. Retrieved 2026-08-31. at page 72, which lists AB 2047 at item 52 of the Assembly Bills Third Reading File, presented by Senator Blakespear.
  14. ↑ "2026 Senate Legislative Deadlines Calendar". California State Senate. 2026. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) Lists August 31, 2026 as the last day for each house to pass bills under Article IV, Section 10(c) of the California Constitution and Joint Rule 61(b)(17).
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "AB 2047, as amended in Senate July 2, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-07-02. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) This version strikes Section 29187 of the Penal Code from the bill, removing the phrase adding that section from the enacting clause.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 "AB 2047, as amended in Senate August 17, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-08-17. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) This version replaces the former sections 3273.633 through 3273.636 with a new section 3273.633 built on the ASTM International check, and removes the Department of Justice list of compliant printers, the private right of action, the Attorney General, county counsel and city attorney actions, the civil penalty, and the attorney-fee provision.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "AB 2047 (Bauer-Kahan), Senate Appropriations Committee analysis addendum, Suspense File". California Senate Committee on Appropriations. 2026-08-14. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) Records the amendments adopted by the committee on August 13, 2026, listing the author amendments requiring the quarterly ASTM International check and the committee amendments deleting the enforcement provisions and narrowing the scope of the bill.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 "AB-2047 Firearms: 3-dimensional printing blocking technology". California Legislative Information. 2026-05-18. Archived from the original on 2026-06-01. Retrieved 2026-06-02. The archived snapshot captures the May 18, 2026 text, the version the Assembly passed. It contains Section 29187 of the Penal Code, the March 1, 2029 operative date, the mandatory manufacturer attestation, the Department of Justice list of eligible printers, the civil penalty of up to twenty-five thousand dollars per violation, and the definition blocking files that would produce a firearm or illegal firearm parts. It does not mention ASTM International.
  19. ↑ "AB 2047, as amended in Senate June 15, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-06-15. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) This version first names ASTM International, in a discretionary clause permitting the department to adopt performance standards created by a nongovernmental entity.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "AB 2047 (Bauer-Kahan), Senate Public Safety Committee analysis". California Senate Committee on Public Safety. 2026-06-28. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) Page 11 records that committee staff were unable to identify any examples of performance standards for firearm blueprint detection algorithms, and that information provided to committee staff indicated ASTM International would not publish the relevant standards until a few months before the September 2028 deadline then in the bill.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 "Outlining ASTM International's Role Related to Additive Manufacturing Policy Initiatives". ASTM International. 2026-08-28. Archived from the original on 2026-08-31. Retrieved 2026-08-31.
  22. ↑ "Committee Scope, F42 on Additive Manufacturing Technologies". ASTM International. Archived from the original on 2026-08-31. Retrieved 2026-08-31.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 "ASTM standards catalog search results for machine gun conversion device". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) Searches run August 31, 2026 against the ASTM store catalog. The term machine gun conversion device returned no records under Products and Services. The term firearm returned 52 records (archived), of which none concern additive manufacturing; ASTM's active firearm standards F2456 on youth-resistant firearms containers and F2369 on non-integral firearm locking devices fall under Committee F15 on Consumer Products, subcommittees F15.53 and F15.55.
  24. ↑ "F2369 Standard Safety Specification for Non-Integral Firearm Locking Devices". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) The standard page lists Committee F15 and Subcommittee F15.53.
  25. ↑ "F2456 Standard Specification for Youth-Resistant Firearms Containers". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) The standard page lists Committee F15 and Subcommittee F15.55.
  26. ↑ "Committee F15 on Consumer Products". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-09-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  27. ↑ "New Standards Development". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  28. ↑ "What to Expect". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) States that the average time for development of a new standard is 18 months.
  29. ↑ Kerry Stevenson (2026-08-21). "California's AB 2047 3D Printer Bill Is Weakened, But Expands To Industrial Machines". Fabbaloo. Archived from the original on 2026-08-27. Retrieved 2026-08-31.
  30. ↑ Tom Knighton (2026-08-25). "California Amends 3D Printer Bill To Shield Swing District Lawmakers". Bearing Arms. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  31. ↑ Tess Boissonneault (2026-08-24). "California amends 3D printed firearm blocking bill". VoxelMatters. Archived from the original on 2026-08-31. Retrieved 2026-08-31.
  32. ↑ "HB 2321 - Requiring three-dimensional printers be equipped with certain blocking technologies". Washington State Legislature. 2026. Archived from the original on 2026-03-10. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  33. ↑ "HB 2320 - 2025-26". Washington State Legislature. 2026. Archived from the original on 2026-03-17. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  34. ↑ "AB-2047 Firearms: 3-dimensional printing blocking technology, version comparison". California Legislative Information. 2026-08-18. Retrieved 2026-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  35. ↑ Elisabeth Ryan (2026-02-12). "Testimony of Everytown for Gun Safety to the Senate Finance Committee and Assembly Ways and Means Committee in Support of PPGG Part C" (PDF). Everytown for Gun Safety. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2026-06-05. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Policy counsel Elisabeth Ryan's written testimony on behalf of Everytown for Gun Safety supporting New York's 3D printer blocking mandate.
  36. ↑ "California Assembly Passes Landmark Bill to Stop the Rise of 3D-Printed Ghost Guns". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2026-05-27. Archived from the original on 2026-06-16. Retrieved 2026-06-02. States that AB 2047 "would require that consumer 3D printers sold in California include existing technology capable of blocking attempts to print firearms and illegal gun parts."
  37. ↑ "HB 2321 - Requiring three-dimensional printers be equipped with certain blocking technologies". Washington State Legislature. Archived from the original on 2026-03-10. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  38. ↑ "Washington Legislature Passes Critical Bill to Address Threat of 3D-Printed Ghost Guns". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2026-03-11. Archived from the original on 2026-04-12. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  39. ↑ "Governor Polis Signs HB 1144 Into Law, Marking Step Forward on Tackling the Spread of 3D-Printed Guns as Advocates Push for Stronger Action". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2026-05-04. Archived from the original on 2026-05-20. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  40. ↑ "Connecticut Chapters of Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action Applaud Governor Ned Lamont's Bold Move to Stop the Spread of DIY Machine Guns". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2026. Archived from the original on 2026-06-16. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  41. ↑ "Victory for Gun Safety: Vermont Governor Phil Scott Allows Bill to Prohibit Unserialized Ghost Guns to Become Law". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2024-05-28. Archived from the original on 2026-03-08. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  42. ↑ "New York: Gov. Kathy Hochul Signs Gun Ban in State Budget Process". NRA Institute for Legislative Action. 2026-05-27. Archived from the original on 2026-06-03. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  43. ↑ 43.0 43.1 43.2 43.3 Rory Mir and Nathan Sheard (2026-04-16). "Stop New York's Attack on 3D Printing". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Archived from the original on 2026-05-20. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Calls the requirement "an unfeasible tech solution," describes print-blocking "censorware" that "surveils every print," and writes that the approach repeats "the mistakes of DRM."
  44. ↑ "What Is +P Ammo?". Outdoor Life. 2021-06-01. Archived from the original on 2026-01-23. Retrieved 2026-06-02. States the SAAMI maximum average pressure of 35,000 psi for the 9mm Luger cartridge.
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 N.R. Jenzen-Jones (2015). "Behind the Curve: New Technologies, New Control Challenges (Occasional Paper 32)" (PDF). Small Arms Survey. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2026-06-02. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Page 68 states that the AR-15 lower receiver "is primarily intended to ensure the correct alignment and interface of the operating parts of the firearm, and to house the trigger and fire selector and safety mechanisms."
  46. ↑ "18 U.S.C. section 921, Definitions". Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. 2024. Archived from the original on 2026-05-29. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Defines a firearm to include "(B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon."
  47. ↑ "27 CFR section 478.12, Definition of frame or receiver". Code of Federal Regulations. 2022. Archived from the original on 2026-06-16. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  48. ↑ "Assembly Bill 1089 committee analysis" (PDF). California State Assembly Committee on Public Safety. 2023. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2026-06-02. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Page 5 states that the Office of the Inspector General "estimated that the full cost for 3D printing a 9 millimeter handgun frame and adding unregulated firearm components (such as the barrel, trigger, slide, magazine, etc.) was around $700."
  49. ↑ "The emergence of 3D-printed firearms: a forensic and criminological overview". Forensic Science International: Synergy. 2024. Archived from the original on 2026-03-26. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Catalogues 186 law-enforcement encounters; records 14 cases in the fully-3D-printed (F3DP) category, the fewest of its object types, and reports no discharged firearms among the seizures.
  50. ↑ "Printing Terror: An Empirical Overview of the Use of 3D-Printed Firearms by Right-Wing Extremists". Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. 2024. Archived from the original on 2026-04-10. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  51. ↑ Andy Greenberg (2025-05-19). "We Built the Ghost Gun Luigi Mangione Allegedly Used, and Tested It". WIRED. Archived from the original on 2026-05-30. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Reports that only the frame was printed while the slide, barrel, and trigger components were purchased metal parts, and that cycling faults traced to the purchased slide rather than the printed frame.
  52. ↑ Erik Avanier (2023-02-14). "ATF: Number of confiscated illegal machine gun conversion devices jump 570% in 5 years". News4JAX (WJXT). Archived from the original on 2026-06-02. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Reports the ATF figures of 814 conversion devices confiscated 2012 to 2016 and 5,454 in 2017 to 2021, a 570% increase.
  53. ↑ "Justice Department Announces ATF's Publication of the Final Volume of the National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment". United States Department of Justice. 2025-01-16. Archived from the original on 2026-05-24. Retrieved 2026-06-02. States that "Between 2017 and 2023, 92,702 suspected PMFs ... were recovered and reported."
  54. ↑ "US Patent 7,987,944 B1, Firearm sound suppressor baffle". United States Patent and Trademark Office. 2011-08-02. Archived from the original on 2026-06-16. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Figures show a conical bell with a central aperture and a rear plate within an outer tube.
  55. ↑ Nikola Tesla (1920-02-03). "US Patent 1,329,559, Valvular Conduit". United States Patent and Trademark Office. Archived from the original on 2026-02-17. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Drawings show internal cones that pass fluid one way and resist it the other.
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 "Print Blocking is Anti-Consumer: Permission to Print Part 1". Electronic Frontier Foundation. 2026-04-02. Archived from the original on 2026-05-06. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  57. ↑ "PrusaSlicer LICENSE file". Prusa Research (GitHub). Archived from the original on 2026-05-20. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Identifies PrusaSlicer as licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.
  58. ↑ "BambuStudio LICENSE file". Bambu Lab (GitHub). Archived from the original on 2025-12-02. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Identifies bambulab/BambuStudio as licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.
  59. ↑ "Marlin LICENSE file". MarlinFirmware (GitHub). Archived from the original on 2026-06-19. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Reproduces the GNU General Public License Version 3.
  60. ↑ "Klipper COPYING file". Klipper3d (GitHub). Archived from the original on 2026-04-24. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Reproduces the GNU General Public License Version 3.
  61. ↑ "GNU General Public License, version 3". Free Software Foundation. 2007-06-29. Archived from the original on 2026-06-02. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Section 6 defines the Installation Information a distributor must provide with a User Product and defines a User Product to include a consumer product.
  62. ↑ "GNU Affero General Public License, version 3". Free Software Foundation. 2007-11-19. Archived from the original on 2026-06-02. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Section 13 requires a modified version that supports remote network interaction to offer interacting users an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source.
  63. ↑ Tom Nardi (2018-08-27). "GPL Violations Cost Creality A US Distributor". Hackaday. Archived from the original on 2026-05-26. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Reports that US distributor Printed Solid stopped selling Creality printers over unreleased Marlin (GPLv3) corresponding source on the CR-10 line.
  64. ↑ "Comprehensive Response to Bambu's AGPLv3 Violations". Software Freedom Conservancy. 2026-05-18. Archived from the original on 2026-05-29. Retrieved 2026-06-02. States that Bambu does not provide the complete Corresponding Source for Bambu Studio and combines it with a proprietary library.
  65. ↑ 65.0 65.1 "3D GUN'T: Print&Go's solution to prevent 3D printed 'Ghost Guns'". Print&Go. 2024-11-04. Archived from the original on 2026-02-09. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  66. ↑ 66.0 66.1 66.2 "Defense Distributed v. Attorney General New Jersey, No. 23-3058" (PDF). United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. 2026-02-12. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2026-06-05. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Page 30 states "Purely functional code with no expressive purpose, use, or intent is simply not covered by the First Amendment"; the court affirmed dismissal because the plaintiffs failed to plead that their files were expressive.
  67. ↑ "Third Circuit backs New Jersey's crackdown on 3D-printed gun code". Courthouse News Service. 2026-02-12. Archived from the original on 2026-06-03. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  68. ↑ "Bondi v. VanDerStok, No. 23-852" (PDF). Supreme Court of the United States. 2025-03-26. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2026-05-25. Retrieved 2026-06-02. Page 7 states that "a frame or receiver is, even when sold separately, subject to the Act's requirements"; the Court upheld the ATF's 2022 frame-or-receiver rule.
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