User:Louis/California AB 2047 and the Physna conflict of interest
 | This is a personal, signed analysis by Louis Rossmann, kept in his userspace. It argues a position and is not a neutral mainspace article. |
The California Senate passed Assembly Bill 2047 on August 31, 2026 by 29 votes to 10,[1] after the Assembly passed it 58 to 19 on May 26, 2026.[2] The version that passed requires nothing of any printer maker on its own, because Civil Code section 3273.633(b) conditions every duty in the act on the Department of Justice first determining that ASTM International has published industry standards for firearm blocking technology and that those standards demonstrate that it is technologically feasible to equip three-dimensional printers with firearm blocking technology.[3] ASTM said on August 28, 2026 that its staff do not write standards, and that its additive manufacturing technologies committee has not yet considered voluntary consensus standards for public safety protections on illegally printed 3D parts.[4]
One company has gone on the public record telling lawmakers this kind of detection is ready to deploy: Physna, Inc., the Columbus, Ohio firm that built what it calls the world's first true 3D geometric search engine.[5][6] It is also the company that holds the patents on the matching method a mandate like this would force every printer maker to buy, and its best evidence that the matching works is a set of United States Air Force contracts, where the work runs on enterprise and cloud hardware, not on the controller board inside a desktop printer.[7][8][9] The same company has wired its geometric engine into Palantir's data-fusion platform for defense and commercial customers.[10] Its founder and chief executive, Paul Powers, a former intellectual property lawyer[11][12] and a named inventor on those patents,[8][7] went further on July 1, 2026 and personally urged in public that printers carry the detection where the law requires.[13] I oppose this bill, on the same technical, moral, and philosophical grounds I oppose the New York 3D printer blocking technology mandate.
What AB 2047 requires now
[edit | edit source]The act adds Title 21.1 to the Civil Code, the California Firearm Printing Prevention Act, and nothing at all to the Penal Code.[3] Civil Code section 3273.632(d) defines firearm blocking technology as hardware, firmware, or other integrated technological measures capable of stopping a printer from starting any job until the file has been evaluated by a firearms blueprints detection algorithm and found not to produce a firearm or a machine gun conversion device.[3] The August 28, 2026 amendment narrowed what counts. It struck illegal firearm parts, inserted a machine gun conversion device, and defined the new term by reference to the pistol converter definition at Penal Code section 17015.[3]
What changed between the June 15, 2026 print and the version the Senate passed:
| Provision | June 15, 2026 | Passed August 31, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger for the sales ban | Fixed calendar date. Section 3273.636 was to become operative on December 1, 2029, with no precondition[14] | One year after the Department publishes guidance, a step the act triggers only if the Department determines that ASTM International has published industry standards[3] |
| Criminal penalty | Penal Code section 29187, a misdemeanor for knowingly disabling or circumventing the blocking technology with intent to manufacture firearms[14] | None. The act adds no Penal Code section[3] |
| Manufacturer attestation | Mandatory. An attestation form for each make and model by March 1, 2029, with a false filing exposed to perjury prosecution under Penal Code section 118[14] | Permissive. The Department's guidance may provide for a self-attestation or self-certification process[3] |
| Published list of printers | The Department was to publish a list of attested makes and models by June 1, 2029, updated at least quarterly[14] | Deleted by the August 17, 2026 amendment[15] |
| Civil enforcement | A private right of action, plus an action by the Attorney General, a county counsel, or a city attorney seeking a civil penalty up to $25,000 per violation and attorney fees[14] | Deleted by the August 17, 2026 amendment[15] |
| Files the detection must block | a firearm or illegal firearm parts[14] | a firearm or a machine gun conversion device[3] |
The introduced version added Penal Code section 29187, making it unlawful to knowingly disable, deactivate, uninstall, or otherwise circumvent any firearm blocking technology installed in a printer with intent to manufacture firearms.[14] Writing in April 2026, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that clause reached ordinary owners because it would criminalize the use of open-source alternatives like the Marlin and Klipper firmware that most consumer printers run.[16][17] The July 2, 2026 amendment struck section 29187 from the enacting clause and from the body of the bill, and the act the Senate passed adds no Penal Code section at all.[18][3] EFF was right about the bill it was reading. That bill is gone.
- What AB 2047 said as amended June 15, 2026, before the Senate struck it
-
As amended June 15, 2026, AB 2047 defined a firearm blueprint detection algorithm as a software service that evaluates a printing file, whether an STL mesh, a CAD file, or geometric code. The August 17, 2026 amendment struck that definition. California Legislative Information, AB 2047. -
As amended June 15, 2026, AB 2047 directed the state to periodically review emerging detection techniques, naming volumetric search functionality among them. The word volumetric appears nowhere in the version the Senate passed. California Legislative Information, AB 2047.
The act as passed carries one exception in its operative section, for printers used exclusively for the manufacturing of properties (props) in the entertainment industry, and leaves any further exception to a Department regulation adopted later.[3] Registered opposition as of August 28, 2026 included the Fulu Foundation, iFixit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, the Software Freedom Conservancy, Prusa USA, MatterHackers and 3D Printing Nerd.[19]
ASTM International as the bill's trigger
[edit | edit source]Two amendments that put ASTM in the bill
[edit | edit source]ASTM entered AB 2047 twice, and only the second time changed anything. The June 15, 2026 amendment added one permissive sentence to Civil Code section 3273.633(a)(1):[14]
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.
The mandate still ran on fixed calendar dates, with ASTM as one optional source among many.[14]
The August 17, 2026 amendment, taken up as the bill came off the Senate Appropriations suspense file, struck sections 3273.633 through 3273.636 in their entirety and rebuilt the act around a single new sentence:[15]
Beginning no later than July 1, 2027, and quarterly thereafter, the department shall check whether ASTM International has published industry standards for firearm blocking technology for three-dimensional printers.
The Senate Appropriations Committee's analysis addendum of August 14, 2026, revised to reflect amendments adopted by the committee on August 13, 2026, records the handoff in two lines:[20]
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. Committee Amendments: Delete enforcement provisions and narrow scope of the bill.
The addendum names the amendment. It does not name a reason for ASTM International rather than any other standards body.[20]
Where the act depends on ASTM, section by section
[edit | edit source]Every place the act as passed turns on ASTM International:[3]
| Civil Code section | What it does |
|---|---|
| 3273.632(a) | Makes ASTM International a defined term in the statute |
| 3273.633(a) | Beginning no later than July 1, 2027, and quarterly after that, the Department shall check whether ASTM International has published industry standards |
| 3273.633(b) | Every duty in the act applies only if the Department determines that ASTM has published or adopted such standards and that they demonstrate that it is technologically feasible to equip printers with the technology |
| 3273.633(b)(1) | Once the Department so determines, it has 24 months to publish written guidance or regulations |
| 3273.633(b)(3) | That guidance shall be informed by the ASTM International industry standards and may incorporate some or all of them |
| 3273.633(c) | The sale prohibition begins one year after the Department publishes |
| 3273.633(f) | If ASTM has not published as of July 1, 2029, the Department shall not be required to make any further determinations under this section |
| 3273.634(b) | The Department may update its performance standards to reflect any future updates ASTM International makes to the industry standards |
What ASTM says it does
[edit | edit source]ASTM published a statement on August 28, 2026, the day the Senate adopted the bill's final amendment. It says ASTM did not advocate or lobby for inclusion in the legislation and takes no position on it, and describes ASTM's role in the bill as that of an example of a standards development organization whose published standard, if any, the state may consider.[4] On who writes the standards, the release is direct: The ASTM staff, including the AM CoE team, do not write standards.[4] It puts the responsibility elsewhere:
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.
ASTM's own process pages say the same thing in duller language. A request to start standards work can come from a company, a trade association, a university, a government agency, or a single individual, and technical decisions on that request are made by committee members, not by the ASTM staff.[21] ASTM adds that not all requests ultimately reach fruition.[21] When one does, the organization puts the average development time for a new standard at 18 months.[22] Committee F42's published scope covers the development of standards for additive manufacturing technologies and coordination with other committees; it names no firearm, no weapon, and no public safety subject.[23] F42 was formed in 2009 and runs 8 technical subcommittees.[24]
The Legislature passed a printer mandate and handed the start button to volunteers who decide at their own discretion whether to pick it up,[4] at an organization that averages 18 months to finish a standard once they do.[22] If F42 never opens the work, section 3273.633(f) lets the Department stop checking on July 1, 2029, and nothing in the act ever reaches a printer maker.[3] Kerry Stevenson put it plainly in Fabbaloo on August 21, 2026, a week before ASTM said anything: ASTM can effectively kill this bill through deactivation, if they so choose.[25]
Everytown's claim and the committee's expectation
[edit | edit source]Everytown for Gun Safety, the bill's sponsor, told legislators the hard part was already solved:[19]
And there's good news on this front: the technology already exists to equip printers to identify and block these dangerous firearm print jobs.
The version that passed conditions everything on a demonstration of exactly that. Section 3273.633(b) requires the ASTM standards to demonstrate that it is technologically feasible to equip printers with the technology before any duty attaches, and that clause was added on August 28, 2026.[3]
The Senate Public Safety Committee's June 28, 2026 analysis records what its staff had been told about the timing:[26]
However, it is unclear whether DOJ possesses the technical capacity to develop and publish such standards internally, or even determine whether those developed by ASTM International, for instance, comply with the requirements of the bill. 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.
The September 2028 deadline that passage refers to no longer exists. The August 17, 2026 amendment struck the section that carried it.[15]
Physna's on-record feasibility claim
[edit | edit source]At an online seminar on this legislation, a Physna technical account manager named Julian Chultarsky told the audience the technology is ready. His exact words, as reported by the Associated Press, were Geometric search is mature, it's deployed, it is ready to be applied to this problem.[5] Solomon Diamond, an associate engineering professor at Dartmouth who was on the same panel, described the idea as a bit like a phone app that identifies a tree or a flower from a photo.[5]
On July 1, 2026 the pitch moved up from a technical account manager to the founder. Paul Powers, Physna's founder and chief executive and a named inventor on both patents discussed below, posted a public defense of the mandate on LinkedIn, casting it as adding a narrowly targeted safety feature comparable to the counterfeit-currency detection built into copiers, to car airbags, to drone no-fly zones, and to laser interlocks.[13] On the question that decides whether the filter is usable, whether it wrongly blocks ordinary parts, he pointed to Physna's own testing:
Modern physical AI can distinguish between firearm components and ordinary industrial parts with very high precision because it analyzes the actual three-dimensional geometry rather than relying on filenames or keywords. ... At Physna, we've demonstrated that this approach works in real-world testing. Our testing showed that ordinary industrial parts were not incorrectly identified as prohibited firearm components.
That is the interested party grading its own exam. The testing is Physna's, the result is Physna's, and no methodology, dataset, error rate, or independent replication is attached to it. It also answers only half the question. Powers reports that ordinary parts were not flagged as guns, a false-positive result; he says nothing about the false negative, the split file or the sub-visibly-edited receiver the filter has to catch and does not, and nothing about whether any of this runs on the controller board of a consumer printer instead of on Physna's servers. Those two gaps are the subject of the next two sections.
In its 2023 Air Force contract abstract, Physna calls its platform the world's first true 3D geometric search engine and deep learning platform, built to search by geometry and label and retrieve 3D models by shape.[6] Geometric search of 3D files is exactly the category AB 2047 would have the state set the standard for and then mandate.
Patents Physna holds on the matching method
[edit | edit source]Physna holds the foundational patents on the method. United States Patent 11,422,531, System and methods for 3D model evaluation, was granted on August 23, 2022, and United States Patent 12,147,736, System and methods for 3D model evaluation using triangle mesh hashing, was granted on November 19, 2024.[8][7] Both are assigned to Physna Inc., and both name Paul Powers, Physna's founder,[27] and Glenn Warner as the inventors.[8][7] The 2024 patent describes hashing a model's triangle mesh into a fingerprint and comparing it against reference models, including detecting added or removed sub-parts.[7]
Powers is a former intellectual property lawyer,[11] a law graduate of Heidelberg University, who founded Physna in 2015 to stop the unauthorized copying of physical parts.[12] The print-blocking checkpoint the bill describes is the one he has pitched since the company's first beta. In a January 2017 interview he described the mechanism directly:
So once the model is in our database any other model will automatically be matched to that and if it includes a certain threshold and being matched for 3D printing, our software will be able to block that and say you cannot print this or develop this anyway without having authorization to do so.
AB 2047 would take that private authorization checkpoint, swap the blocklist from patented parts to firearm files, and require it by statute.
A bill that forces every printer maker to ship a geometric detection algorithm builds a captive market for exactly this patented method. The incentive is documented and structural: the state would require a category of technology, and one company holds the patents and the on-record sales pitch for that category. That is a conflict of interest whether or not a single email ever passed between Physna and the bill's author.
Why the Air Force proof does not run on a desktop printer
[edit | edit source]Physna's strongest evidence that its matching works is its federal record, and that record is a defense and enterprise record. The Air Force awarded Physna a Small Business Innovation Research Phase II contract, FA8649-23-P-0450, Geometric Deep Learning Technology for Supply Chain, for $1,040,000 in 2023.[9][6] It followed with FA7014-25-C-0023, Physna SBIR III Technology of Supply, for $1,500,000, and a $1,900,000 award for multimodal image search supporting Air Force Digital Material Management.[28][29] A separate Air Force order, FA7014-24-P-0043, paid Physna to identify alternate sources of supply through comparison of digital files.[30] The company also carries a General Services Administration schedule contract, 47QTCA24D00BN, for federal information-technology buyers.[31] This is geometric matching run on cloud and enterprise hardware, against catalogs of aerospace parts.
A consumer printer is not that. The board that drives a $200 printer's motors does not have the memory or the processor to reconstruct a model from a stream of G-code and hash it against a live national database of firearm files before every job. So the mandate forces one of two outcomes. Either the print file gets uploaded to a server for the check, which turns every printer in the state into a reporting device and puts home fabrication under surveillance, a harm the EFF says the bill would create.[16] Or the printer carries enough added hardware to do the work locally, which raises the price of the cheapest machines, the ones in schools, libraries, and makerspaces. The June 15, 2026 print exempted printers sold to licensed firearms makers, to law enforcement, and to aerospace, automotive, biomedical, and propmaking buyers.[14] The act as passed keeps only the entertainment-props exception, and it still writes no exemption for the consumer machine on a classroom bench.[3] Tom's Hardware noted the same gap: detection capable enough to catch a gun part may exceed the compute available on consumer printers, pushing checks to remote servers.[17]
Physna's Palantir partnership
[edit | edit source]If the check cannot run on the printer, it runs in a cloud, and the vendor with the on-record pitch to run it is not a neutral utility. In December 2024 Physna announced a strategic partnership with Palantir Technologies. In his own post announcing it, Powers wrote that Physna's cutting-edge 3D insights will seamlessly integrate into Palantir Foundry's Ontology and that once Physna's 3D data is integrated into Palantir's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), customers could query it, for both Department of Defense (DoD) and commercial customers.[10] Physna's product is a cloud service built to be queried by outside software. Powers said in 2026 that the company works closely with Palantir, AWS, Google and many others, and that a customer's AI agent can ask Physna to tell the agent everything it knows.[32]
Palantir is the data-fusion contractor that privacy and civil-liberties groups have spent years documenting at the center of government surveillance. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, writing about a Palantir tool that hands Immigration and Customs Enforcement home addresses pulled from Medicaid records, called Palantir a company that has a shaky-at-best record on privacy and human rights and likened the broader push to merge government databases into one searchable interface to the Total Information Awareness programs of the early 2000s.[33] Palantir rejects the charge. Answering the EFF, it said the narrative that it is leading an effort to spy on Americans and run roughshod over the privacy of our fellow citizens is not happening, and it denied proposing any government master list for the surveillance of citizens.[34]
I am not claiming that a print of a phone case gets shipped to Palantir. I am pointing at what the bill leaves open and who is standing in the gap. AB 2047 mandates the checkpoint and says nothing about where the scan runs or what becomes of the file. The EFF reads the bill to render all 3D printer users vulnerable to surveillance, either by forcing a cloud scan or by chaining printers to first-party software that has to phone home.[16] The company telling legislators the scan is ready is a cloud vendor whose other flagship relationship is with a firm the EFF says has a shaky-at-best record on privacy and human rights.[33] For an audience that cares about who gets to see what you build in your own home, that is the part of this bill that should not be waved past.
Shared geometry and the industry's own verdict
[edit | edit source]The detection cannot be made reliable, because a firearm part is a geometric signature shared with ordinary objects. A suppressor baffle is the same stack of cones as a Tesla fluid valve; a pistol conversion device is the same dovetailed block as a camera flash shoe; an AR-15 lower is the same hollowed box as an electronics enclosure; a suppressor tube is the same threaded cylinder as a flashlight body. I documented these geometric twins, file format by file format, in a companion essay, and the chokepoint problem behind them in another. Set the filter wide enough to catch the gun part and it flags pipes and brackets; set it narrow and a sub-visible edit or a split file walks straight through.
Adafruit's Phillip Torrone laid out the same problem in Techdirt:
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.
The EFF called the requirement censorware that is doomed to fail for its intended purpose.[16]
The Senate Public Safety Committee went looking for a working example of the standards the bill would require. Its June 28, 2026 analysis reports the result:[26]
Committee staff were unable to identify any examples of so-called "performance standards" for firearm blueprint detection algorithms or software controls processes, but as with any new technology, despite the granularity and accuracy with which such software is able to discern prohibited vs. permissible print jobs, the Committee should be cognizant that there will likely be some number of both false positives (i.e. preventing a job that is not intended to produce a firearm or firearm parts) and false negatives (allowing a job that produces a firearm or firearm part).
Bill Decker, executive chairman of the Association of 3D Printing, whose organization supports the New York and California laws, says of the technology: It's not going to work. It's more of a political statement than anything else.[5]
No lobbying paper trail to Physna
[edit | edit source]I went looking for a paper trail tying Physna or Paul Powers to the writing of this bill, and there is not one. There is no public record that Physna lobbied for AB 2047, drafted it, paid for it, or was named as its vendor, and none for the New York mandate either. The documented legislative push comes from Everytown for Gun Safety and from the bill's author, Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan.[17]
What is on the public record is advocacy after the fact. A company does not have to write a bill to be built for the market the bill would create, and Physna's founder is now openly urging that printers carry the detection where the law requires.[13] None of this requires anyone to have done anything corrupt. A documented conflict of interest and a detection method that has never been shown to run on a consumer printer sit in the same bill, and either one alone is reason enough to vote it down.
The Los Angeles Times story
[edit | edit source]On July 19, 2026, the Los Angeles Times published a report on AB 2047 by Gavin J. Quinton, built around the Hollywood special-effects studios opposing it.[36] The story notes, citing the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, that most privately made firearms recovered by police are assembled from mail-order kits or unfinished parts rather than printed at home. It also reports that the entertainment exemption the bill's author added covers only printers manufactured for and sold exclusively to entertainment industry stagecraft and propmaking studios, and that Samuel McBride, the 3D printing lab manager at Legacy Effects, says those printers do not really exist; his studio builds its props on the same general-purpose machines the bill would regulate.[36] The exemption the Times described did not survive. The August 17, 2026 amendment struck it along with the rest of the exemption list,[15] and the August 28, 2026 amendment put back a differently drawn one, keyed to how a printer is used rather than to whom it was sold: printers used exclusively for the manufacturing of properties (props) in the entertainment industry.[3]
The Times gave Paul Powers the response to the bill's critics, and identified Physna only as a company whose technology could be used to block gun parts on 3-D printers.[36] Powers said the strongest criticisms of AB 2047 misunderstand how the software works. Something that vaguely looks like a gun part is not considered to be a match, he said. Answering the surveillance concern, he said the software only blocks the print: There's no communication with anyone; it doesn't go anywhere.[36] The story does not tell the reader that Powers is a named inventor on the patents covering the matching method, that the deployments he points to run on Air Force enterprise and cloud contracts, or that his company's flagship partnership is with Palantir, and nobody quoted in it challenges his description of his own product. The closest thing to a rebuttal is general: Marleen Vogelaar, chief executive of Thangs3D, told a Senate hearing in July 2026 that detection databases generate false positives that block legal designs and wrongly flag everyday makers.[36] Set the claim that the check involves no communication with anyone next to how Powers describes the product everywhere else: in 2017 as a database the software automatically matches every incoming model against,[11] and in 2026 as a cloud platform working closely with Palantir, AWS, Google and many others that an outside AI agent can query.[32] A reader of the Times story learns none of that.
The story also settles who in the printer industry was willing to be named. It reports a June 1 letter to lawmakers opposing the bill, signed by 3D printing companies, stagecraft and prop-making studios, and industry stakeholders, and it quotes exactly one printer manufacturer on the record: Prusa Research. Jakub Kmošek, Prusa's head of public affairs, said in a statement to the Times:
To an algorithm, a gun barrel and a piece of pipe are the same grooved cylinder. This bill will only make it harder to build, repair, experiment, and innovate in California.
No other printer manufacturer is quoted in the story. Two weeks before it ran, I published a video about that silence, arguing that when the companies with the most at stake refuse to oppose these mandates on the record, they let the bills' sponsors tell legislators the industry does not object.[37]
See also
[edit | edit source]- New York 3D printer blocking technology mandate
- 3D Printing restrictions and bans
- User:Louis/3D printer firearm-blocking mandates and geometric false positives
- User:Louis/3D-printed firearms and the technical basis for printer mandates
- User:Louis/Everytown for Gun Safety and the 3D printer blocking mandates
- User:Louis/Bloomberg and the control of 3D printing
- Right to Repair
- Digital rights management
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 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.
- ↑ "AB-2047 Bill History". California Legislative Information. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Records the May 26, 2026 third-reading passage "(Ayes 58. Noes 19.)" and the May 27, 2026 entry "In Senate. Read first time. To Com. on RLS. for assignment."
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 "AB-2047 Firearms: 3-dimensional printing blocking technology, as amended in the Senate August 28, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-08-28. Retrieved 2026-08-31. The version the Senate passed. Enacting clause: "An act to add Title 21.1 (commencing with Section 3273.631) to Part 4 of Division 3 of the Civil Code, relating to firearms." It adds no Penal Code section. Section 3273.631 gives the short title, the California Firearm Printing Prevention Act. Section 3273.632(a) defines "ASTM International"; Section 3273.632(d) defines "firearm blocking technology" as measures "capable of ensuring a three-dimensional printer will not proceed to any print job unless the underlying three-dimensional printing file has been evaluated by a firearms blueprints detection algorithm and determined not to be a printing file that would produce a firearm or a machine gun conversion device," the words "illegal firearm parts" having been struck and "a machine gun conversion device" inserted by this amendment; Section 3273.632(e) defines "machine gun conversion device" and includes a "pistol converter" as defined in Penal Code Section 17015. Section 3273.633(a) requires the department to check ASTM quarterly beginning no later than July 1, 2027; Section 3273.633(b) applies every following duty only "if the department determines that ASTM International has published or adopted industry standards for firearm blocking technology for three-dimensional printers, and that those standards demonstrate that it is technologically feasible to equip three-dimensional printers with firearm blocking technology"; (b)(1) gives the department 24 months from that determination to publish guidance or regulations; (b)(3) provides the guidance "shall be informed by the ASTM International industry standards and may incorporate some or all of the ASTM International industry standards"; (b)(6) provides the guidance "may provide for a self-attestation or self-certification process," replacing the struck mandatory-filing requirement; (c) makes the sale prohibition effective "one year after the department has published written guidance or regulations"; (d) provides the section "does not apply to printers used exclusively for the manufacturing of properties (props) in the entertainment industry"; (f) provides that if "as of July 1, 2029, the department determines that ASTM International has not published industry standards ... the department shall not be required to make any further determinations under this section." Section 3273.634(b) permits the department to update the minimum performance standards "including to reflect any future updates ASTM International makes to the industry standards described in Section 3273.633" and to adopt regulations providing additional exceptions. This URL serves the most recent version; select "08/28/26 - Amended Senate" from the page's Version menu.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Outlining ASTM International's Role Related to Additive Manufacturing Policy Initiatives". ASTM International. 2026-08-28. Retrieved 2026-08-31. States that "In instances such as California AB 2047, ASTM International is referenced as an example of a standards development organization whose published standard, if any, the state may consider as it implements requirements for 3D printing (additive manufacturing)"; that "With respect to California AB 2047, ASTM International did not advocate or lobby for inclusion in the legislation and takes no position on the legislation or potential related standards development"; that "The ASTM staff, including the AM CoE team, do not write standards"; that "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"; and that "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." Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260831232619/https://www.astm.org/news/press-releases/astm-additive-manufacturing-policy-initiatives-role
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 David A. Lieb (2026-06-13). "First-of-its-kind law in New York could block 3D printers from making guns". Associated Press, via PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Quotes Julian Chultarsky, "a technical account manager at Physna, a Columbus, Ohio-based company," saying "Geometric search is mature, it's deployed, it is ready to be applied to this problem"; describes Solomon Diamond, an associate engineering professor at Dartmouth, at the online seminar; and quotes Bill Decker, executive chairman of the Association of 3D Printing, saying "it's not going to work" and "It's more of a political statement than anything else."
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Geometric Deep Learning Technology for Supply Chain (SBIR Phase II, FA8649-23-P-0450)". U.S. Small Business Administration, SBIR.gov. 2023. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Air Force SBIR Phase II award to Physna Inc., $1,040,000; abstract states "Physna has developed the world's first true 3D geometric search engine and deep learning platform" enabling "true 3D search by geometry, automated labeling of digital assets based on shape, retrieval of 3D models with 2D images and photographs."
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 "US Patent 12,147,736 B2, System and methods for 3D model evaluation using triangle mesh hashing". United States Patent and Trademark Office, via Google Patents. 2024-11-19. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Granted November 19, 2024; assignee Physna Inc.; inventors Glenn Warner and Paul Powers; abstract describes neighbor-facet edge hashing of a triangle mesh into an object hash value and comparison against reference models, including detection of added or removed sub-parts.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "US Patent 11,422,531 B2, System and methods for 3D model evaluation". United States Patent and Trademark Office, via Google Patents. 2022-08-23. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Granted August 23, 2022; assignee Physna Inc.; inventors Glenn Warner and Paul Powers.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Award FA864923P0450 to PHYSNA INC, "Geometric Deep Learning Technology for Supply Chain"". USAspending.gov. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Department of the Air Force contract to PHYSNA INC, $1,040,000, period of performance February 21, 2023 to February 22, 2024. The award page is a dynamic application; its structured record (recipient, amount, description "GEOMETRIC DEEP LEARNING TECHNOLOGY FOR SUPPLY CHAIN") is served at https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_AWD_FA864923P0450_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-/
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Paul Powers (2024-12-09). "Physna and Palantir Announce Strategic Partnership to Revolutionize 3D Data Analysis for Defense and Commercial Sectors". Medium. Retrieved 2026-07-04. Post by Physna founder and CEO Paul Powers announcing the December 2024 partnership. States "Physna's cutting-edge 3D insights will seamlessly integrate into Palantir Foundry's Ontology," that "once Physna's 3D data is integrated into Palantir's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), organizations will be able to leverage advanced AI models to analyze geometries," and that the collaboration serves "both Department of Defense (DoD) and commercial customers." Quotes Palantir's global head of business development, Kevin Kawasaki: "We've deployed our software alongside Physna's powerful 3D capabilities across both commercial and government customers."
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Ann Thompson (2017-01-23). "Cincy Start-Up Protects Your 3D Design And Makes Sure It Works". WVXU (Cincinnati Public Radio). Retrieved 2026-07-03. Profiles Physna and founder Paul Powers, whose background is in intellectual property law. Quotes Powers describing the print-blocking mechanism: "So once the model is in our database any other model will automatically be matched to that and if it includes a certain threshold and being matched for 3D printing, our software will be able to block that and say you cannot print this or develop this anyway without having authorization to do so."
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Beau Jackson (2018-08-03). "Q&A with Paul Powers CEO of Physna 3D model analysis company". 3D Printing Industry. Retrieved 2026-07-03. Identifies Paul Powers as CEO of Physna, "a law graduate of Heidelberg University, Germany, Astronomy and Astrophysics alumni of Harvard and serial entrepreneur," who "founded Physna in 2015." States a founding principle of Physna was to help additive manufacturers prevent theft.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Paul Powers (2026-07-01). "This isn't about banning 3D printing. It's about adding a narrowly targeted safety feature..." LinkedIn. Retrieved 2026-07-03. Public post by Paul Powers, founder and chief executive of Physna, Inc. (his LinkedIn handle is "techlab"). Argues the mandate is "adding a narrowly targeted safety feature to stop printers from producing a very small category of prohibited firearm components," compares it to counterfeit-currency detection in copiers, car airbags, drone no-fly zones, and laser interlocks, states "Modern physical AI can distinguish between firearm components and ordinary industrial parts with very high precision," writes "At Physna, we've demonstrated that this approach works in real-world testing. Our testing showed that ordinary industrial parts were not incorrectly identified as prohibited firearm components," and concludes it is "reasonable to use it where the law requires."
- ↑ 14.00 14.01 14.02 14.03 14.04 14.05 14.06 14.07 14.08 14.09 14.10 "AB-2047 Firearms: 3-dimensional printing blocking technology, as amended in the Senate June 15, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-06-15. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Civil Code Title 21.1 (Section 3273.631 et seq.), the California Firearm Printing Prevention Act; the operative text is headed "Amended IN Senate June 15, 2026." Section 3273.632 defines the "firearm blueprint detection algorithm" evaluating a printing file "whether in the form of stereolithography (STL) files or other computer-aided design files or geometric code"; Sections 3273.633 and 3273.634 set the September 1, 2028 algorithm performance-standard date, direct periodic review of emerging techniques "including, but not limited to ... volumetric search functionality," and address "acceptable false-positive and false-negative rates"; Section 3273.635 sets the March 1, 2029 manufacturer self-attestation deadline (a false attestation exposing the filer to perjury prosecution under Penal Code Section 118) and the June 1, 2029 published-list date, updated at least quarterly; Section 3273.636 requires manufacturers to equip printers with firearm blocking technology, lists the exemptions, makes the sale prohibition operative December 1, 2029, and authorizes a civil penalty not to exceed twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) per violation; Penal Code Section 29187 makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly disable or circumvent the blocking technology with intent to manufacture firearms, or to sell a modified listed printer with intent to facilitate the unlawful manufacture of firearms. Section 3273.633(a)(1) also permits the department to adopt 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." This URL serves the most recent version of the bill; select "06/15/26 - Amended Senate" from the page's Version menu to display the text described here.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 "AB-2047 Firearms: 3-dimensional printing blocking technology, as amended in the Senate August 17, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-08-17. Retrieved 2026-08-31. Struck former Sections 3273.633 through 3273.636 in their entirety and replaced them with a new Section 3273.633 opening "Beginning no later than July 1, 2027, and quarterly thereafter, the department shall check whether ASTM International has published industry standards for firearm blocking technology for three-dimensional printers," and added the ASTM International definition at Section 3273.632(a). The same amendment struck the definition of "Firearm blueprint detection algorithm" (the software service evaluating files "whether in the form of stereolithography (STL) files or other computer-aided design files or geometric code"), the clause directing periodic review of emerging techniques "including, but not limited to, advanced forms of image recognition and volumetric search functionality," the September 1, 2028 guidance date, the March 1, 2029 attestation deadline, the June 1, 2029 published-list date, the private right of action, the Attorney General, county counsel and city attorney action, the civil penalty "not to exceed twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) for each violation," the attorney-fee provision, and the entire exemption list, including the exemption for printers "manufactured for and sold exclusively to entertainment industry stagecraft and propmaking studios." The bill came off the Senate Appropriations suspense file on August 13, 2026. Select "08/17/26 - Amended Senate" from the page's Version menu.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Cliff Braun and Rory Mir (2026-04-13). "The Dangers of California's Legislation to Censor 3D Printing". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Calls A.B. 2047 a mandate for "censorware" that is "doomed to fail for its intended purpose," states it would "criminalize the use of open-source alternatives," and warns it would "render all 3D printer users vulnerable to surveillance either by forcing them into a cloud scanning solution for 'on-device' results, or by chaining them to first-party software which must connect to the cloud to regularly update its print blocking system," and enable DRM-style platform lock-in.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Luke James (2026-05-30). "California Assembly passes 3D printer bill that would criminalize bypassing mandated gun-blocking software". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Reports Assembly passage and transfer to the Senate, the DOJ performance-standard and list dates, the $25,000 penalty, the open-firmware (Marlin, Klipper) exposure, the exemptions that omit consumer machines in schools, libraries, and makerspaces, and that detection "may exceed the compute available on consumer printers, pushing checks to remote servers."
- ↑ "AB-2047 Firearms: 3-dimensional printing blocking technology, as amended in the Senate July 2, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-07-02. Retrieved 2026-08-31. Struck ", and to add Section 29187 to the Penal Code," from the enacting clause and struck former SEC. 2, which added Penal Code Section 29187; the Digest Key line "State-mandated local program" changes from "yes" to "no." The amendment followed the Senate Public Safety Committee's June 30, 2026 action. Select "07/02/26 - Amended Senate" from the page's Version menu.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 "AB 2047 Senate Floor Analyses, August 30, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-08-30. Retrieved 2026-08-31. Select "08/30/26- Senate Floor Analyses" from the list of analyses on the page. Quotes Everytown for Gun Safety, the bill's sponsor: "And there's good news on this front: the technology already exists to equip printers to identify and block these dangerous firearm print jobs." Lists opposition verified August 28, 2026, including 3D Printing Nerd, ACLU California Action, California Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc., Citizens Privacy Coalition of Santa Clara County, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Software Foundation, Fulu Foundation, Gun Owners of California, Inc., Ifixit, Matterhackers, National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, Noisebridge Hackerspace, Oakland Privacy, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Prusa Usa, Inc., Root Access Hackerspace, Software Freedom Conservancy, Sudo Room Hackerspace and Thangs Inc.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 "AB 2047 Senate Appropriations Committee analysis addendum, August 14, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-08-14. Retrieved 2026-08-31. Select "08/14/26- Senate Appropriations" from the list of analyses on the page. Headed as an analysis addendum for the suspense file and stating "The following information is revised to reflect amendments adopted by the committee on August 13, 2026." Records "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." and "Committee Amendments: Delete enforcement provisions and narrow scope of the bill." The one-page addendum gives no reason for naming ASTM International.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 "New Standards Development". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31. 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 "ASTM receives a variety of requests for new standards development activities ranging from a single standard to a new main technical committee. It's important to note that not all requests ultimately reach fruition." The quoted passages sit inside the page's "New Standards Development Activity" and "Available ASTM Resources" accordion panels; expand each panel to display the text.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 "What to Expect". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31. States "The average time for the development of a new standard is 18 months. Revisions to existing standards can be approved in six months or less."
- ↑ "Scope, Committee F42 on Additive Manufacturing Technologies". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31. The committee's scope in full: "The promotion of knowledge, stimulation of research and implementation of technology through the development of standards for additive manufacturing technologies. The work of this Committee will be coordinated with other ASTM technical committees and other national and international organizations having mutual or related interests."
- ↑ "Committee F42 on Additive Manufacturing Technologies". ASTM International. Retrieved 2026-08-31. States "ASTM Committee F42 on Additive Manufacturing Technologies was formed in 2009" and that the committee "has 8 technical subcommittees."
- ↑ Kerry Stevenson (2026-08-21). "California's AB 2047 3D Printer Bill Is Weakened but Expands to Industrial Machines". Fabbaloo. Retrieved 2026-08-31. States "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." and "ASTM can effectively kill this bill through deactivation, if they so choose."
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 "AB 2047 Senate Public Safety Committee analysis, June 28, 2026". California Legislative Information. 2026-06-28. Retrieved 2026-08-31. Select "06/28/26- Senate Public Safety" from the list of analyses on the page. Page 11 states "Committee staff were unable to identify any examples of so-called "performance standards" for firearm blueprint detection algorithms or software controls processes, but as with any new technology, despite the granularity and accuracy with which such software is able to discern prohibited vs. permissible print jobs, the Committee should be cognizant that there will likely be some number of both false positives (i.e. preventing a job that is not intended to produce a firearm or firearm parts) and false negatives (allowing a job that produces a firearm or firearm part)," and, on the same page, "However, it is unclear whether DOJ possesses the technical capacity to develop and publish such standards internally, or even determine whether those developed by ASTM International, for instance, comply with the requirements of the bill. 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."
- ↑ Jonathan Shieber (2021-01-29). "Three-dimensional search engine Physna wants to be the Google of the physical world". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Identifies "Physna founder Paul Powers."
- ↑ "Award FA701425C0023 to PHYSNA INC, "Physna SBIR III Technology of Supply"". USAspending.gov. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Department of the Air Force contract to PHYSNA INC, $1,500,000, beginning March 25, 2025. Structured record (description "PHYSNA SBIR III TECHNOLOGY OF SUPPLY") at https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_AWD_FA701425C0023_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-/
- ↑ "Award FA810024P0001 to PHYSNA INC, multimodal image search in support of USAF Digital Material Management". USAspending.gov. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Department of the Air Force contract to PHYSNA INC, $1,900,000; description "SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH, TACTICAL FUNDING INCREASE (TACFI) SEQUENTIAL PHASE II +, TOPIC NO. AFX234-DCSO2, MULTIMODAL IMAGE SEARCH CAPABILITIES IN SUPPORT OF USAF DIGITAL MATERIAL MANAGEMENT (DMM)." Structured record at https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_AWD_FA810024P0001_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-/
- ↑ "Award FA701424P0043 to PHYSNA INC, alternate sources of supply through comparison of digital files". USAspending.gov. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Department of the Air Force contract to PHYSNA INC, $530,000; description "ONE-TIME SERVICE TO IDENTIFY ALTERNATE SOURCES OF SUPPLY THROUGH COMPARISON OF DIGITAL FILES." Structured record at https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_AWD_FA701424P0043_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-/
- ↑ "Federal Supply Schedule contract 47QTCA24D00BN to PHYSNA INC". USAspending.gov. Retrieved 2026-06-23. General Services Administration, Federal Acquisition Service, Federal Supply Schedule contract to PHYSNA INC, beginning June 25, 2024. Structured record at https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_IDV_47QTCA24D00BN_4732/
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 "Interview: Paul Powers, CEO of Physna". Fifth Wave Manufacturing. 2026-04-29. Retrieved 2026-07-04. Powers describes Physna as a platform other software can query, states the company works "closely with Palantir, AWS, Google and many others," and says that if a company has an AI agent, "you can ask Physna to tell the agent everything it knows."
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 Josh Richman (2026-01-15). "Report: ICE Using Palantir Tool That Feeds On Medicaid Data". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2026-07-04. Reports that Palantir built a tool (ELITE) that populates a map of potential deportation targets for ICE using addresses drawn from Department of Health and Human Services data including Medicaid, calls Palantir "a company that has a shaky-at-best record on privacy and human rights," and compares the effort to consolidate government data into a single searchable interface to the "Total Information Awareness" programs of the early 2000s.
- ↑ "Correcting the Record: Response to the EFF January 15, 2026 Report on Palantir". Palantir Technologies. 2026-01-27. Retrieved 2026-07-04. Palantir's official response to the EFF, calling the narrative that Palantir "is leading an effort to spy on Americans and run roughshod over the privacy of our fellow citizens" something that "is not happening," and stating that Palantir "has not proposed the US Government build a 'master list' for the surveillance of citizens, nor have we been asked to consider building such a system for any customer."
- ↑ Karl Bode (2026-04-27). "California's 3D Printer Law Would Criminalize Open Source, Enshittify The 3D Printing Space". Techdirt. Retrieved 2026-06-23. Reproduces Adafruit's Phillip Torrone describing firearm-blueprint detection as "a classification problem with enormous false positive and false negative rates" that would have to identify every firearm component from raw STL/GCODE files "while not flagging pipes, tubes, blocks, brackets, gears."
- ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 36.3 36.4 36.5 Gavin J. Quinton (2026-07-19). "California's push to ban technology used for 'ghost guns' finds unlikely foe in Hollywood". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2026-07-19. Reports Hollywood effects studios among AB 2047's opponents; cites federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives data that most privately made firearms recovered by police "are assembled from mail-order kits or unfinished parts rather than printed at home"; describes the exemption for printers "manufactured for and sold exclusively to entertainment industry stagecraft and propmaking studios" and Legacy Effects lab manager Samuel McBride's statement that "those printers do not really exist"; identifies Physna as "a company whose technology could be used to block gun parts on 3-D printers" and quotes chief executive Paul Powers saying the strongest criticisms "misunderstand how the software works," that "Something that vaguely looks like a gun part is not considered to be a match," and "There's no communication with anyone; it doesn't go anywhere"; quotes Thangs3D chief executive Marleen Vogelaar telling a Senate hearing the databases "generate false positives that block legal designs and wrongly flag everyday makers"; and reports the June 1 opposition letter signed by companies including Prusa Research, quoting Prusa head of public affairs Jakub Kmošek's statement to The Times: "To an algorithm, a gun barrel and a piece of pipe are the same grooved cylinder. This bill will only make it harder to build, repair, experiment, and innovate in California."
- ↑ Louis Rossmann (2026-07-04). "3D printer manufacturers are cowards". YouTube. Retrieved 2026-07-19. Video arguing that major 3D printer manufacturers have declined to publicly oppose the printer firearm-detection mandates, and showing hearing footage in which the absence of on-record manufacturer opposition is cited in support of the California bill.
