New California ghost gun lawsuit takes aim at company that sells 3-D printer filament
2 days ago by jballs to c/3dprinting
San Diego County jumped into California’s sprawling ghost gun fight this week, suing a 3-D printing filament manufacturer it says hocks material for homespun firearms in violation of state law.
Working with the Giffords Law Center, the county counsel sued manufacturer Polymaker, alleging the company made a “strategic business choice” to market and sell 3-D printer filament to Californians for the express purpose of building illegal weapons. The polymer filament is sold in spools that feed into 3-D printers, allowing the devices to form designs created by their owners.
I believe they'll eventually come for those too.
IMO the real end goal of these laws isn't to ban ghost guns, it's to ban plebs from being able to build or create anything at all. 3D printing a plastic piece to fix a broken tab in some gizmo cuts into corporate profits so a manufactured moral panic about ghost guns appears. I'm sure they'll eventually get to a pipe rifle moral panic at some point to lock down DIY plumbing.
We've been there before.
So they'll make black iron pipe illegal and require it to be replaced with plastic flex hose.
hold on let me go sue home depot for selling black iron pipe and nails because someone made a pipe bomb. Nowhere has poly-maker ever advertised or suggested their speciality filaments could make firearms.
Someone's looking for a payout settlement, fuck California
you could literally make a shotgun with that too. Saw a YouTube video. Two pipes, one fit in the other, small one was the right size to hold a shell, and a nail at the end of the closed pipe triggered it if you used your hands to hit it.
Super effective and easy one shot shotgun. there's no real way to regulate guns IMO. They're not complicated devices.
The shit shovel too AK guide is still on my favorite guides that were floating around on the interwebz
They used fear of guns to attack Right to Repair and small manufacturing. It was never about guns.
That is completely bizarre.
This is getting a bit fucking ridiculous. They're suing filament manufacturers now.
A video I posted a few months ago about this bullshit: https://youtu.be/E1B2cWEaWDw
@jballs that’s like suing a hardware store for someone hit with a piece of wood my point is filaments are legal it is the end-product that is meant to be perceived
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Yeah, and they also want to make it illegal to print something without a magic algorithm sitting between your computer and printer determining if it's a gun part or not. I can't help but feel like these people don't know the first thing about how 3d printing actually works.
I can't help but feel like these people don't know the first thing about how 3d printing actually works.
Totally. Brought to you by the same brilliant minds that claimed all videogames besides Tetris were simply "murder simulators" and school-shooter training programs. 🙄
Why do the most wasted brains have so much influence...
@jballs that’s called censorship even though I am Canadian have no guns , it is not something I find practical especially with the law creating a potential black market
#3DPrinting
Polymaker is a Chinese supplier, selling to California residents, while also running ad campaigns through ghost gun content creators aimed at California residents, defining themselves explicitly as a ghost gun ingredient.
If they didn't want to get caught up in this, they shouldn't have gotten involved in the illicit arms business. But they wanted to be known as the plastic supplier that is cool with you making ghost guns, and that isn't going to fly in California.
Plastic suppliers that don't advertise themselves explicitly as being part of the ghost gun supply chain will be fine.
So polymaker actually choose the individual channels their ads (not about ghost guns) were put on...or was that an algorithm (AdSense)?
I don't remember seeing them do any specific sponsored content, though they may and probably have, but that have a very open affiliate program that every 3d printer youtuber I've seen is in. They also give out codes for streaming channels to give away filament.
All this I'm saying is I don't think they're "choosing" these channels but I doubt they care what the content in on any channel.
they have a specific partnership with a 3D2A channel The 3D Print General off the top of my head
Will be fine, for now.
Hol up, those guns are made by corporations. What are you thinking?
As an old toolmaker, that's not as true as you think. It requires a lot of other knowledge besides running a lathe or mill. I speak from experience, having had to learn how to make repair parts for antique and collectable firearms at times.
Americans can order guns to their doors, but the 3d printers are the issues you choose to tackle...
No, they can't. Guns can only be legally shipped to a federally licensed gun dealer. The dealer cannot transfer it to the buyer without the mandated background check.
The gun laws are already fucked up enough. You don't have to make shit up.
You can have long guns purchased through the Civilian Marksmanship Program shipped directly to your door. Those are a drop in the bucket compared to most firearm purchases in the US, though.
False.
Residents of CA, CT, IL, NJ, NY, OR and WA must have the rifles shipped to an FFL dealer. You must provide a copy of the dealer’s license with your order form. NJ and IL Residents must also provide their FOID card. WA Residents must also provide the I-1639 training certificate.
Can order black powder revolvers to your door, and can buy replacement parts that allow them to fire cowboy cartridges, which are just low FPS lead rounds, like 800fps. They'll kill a fella, but don't have quite the same force as modern rounds. They also burn a lower grade powder and are a bit more smokey.
Actually, those conversion cylinders are perfectly happy with modern smokeless powders suitable for their caliber. Though it's more about velocities than pressure. I can load any smokeless .45 Colt for my cylinder that is listed for the standard pressures, (about 11,000psi). But it is highly recommended to keep your velocities no more than 850fps, (the original velocity for the Colt SAA). Frame stretching is the issue. Those cap and ball revolvers are made from a bit softer metal than modern revolvers. Remington's are stronger than the open top Colts.
Trump is trying to pass that law right now, a bit of hyperbole in my statement, but it reinforces my point
This also didn't solve anything, if you look at the statistics.
Is this filament specifically designed for guns?
No, polymaker just have a big range of engineering friendly filament, just as they have pretty artsy ones, and low cost workhorse filament for makers
Sounds like the lawsuit is on thin ice, then.
They apparently sponsored a maker who prints guns, which is the justification.
Still stupid for a mountain of reasons, not least of which is that 3D printing guns is perfectly legal in many places.
Saudi Arabia can't go after the companies that sell oak barrels to Jack Daniels because alcohol is illegal there.
It's like saying steel is specifically designed for guns. For plastics, stronger is a nice property for many applications.
under the second amendment, and under the ATF's ruling, citizens are allowed to manufacture their own firearms. this is getting struck down..... if it were in Texas and not the gun-stealing California. I hope to the gods it gets struck down, because this would be a travesty for all my brothers, sisters and non binary pals in California... my heart goes out to y'all.
If this goes up to the federal court level, it's almost certainly getting struck down. It's a pretty clear infringement upon the 2nd amendment.
It's a miracle that the CA gun laws haven't been struck down at the federal level yet.... By the gods, I hope they do. The situation in CA is utterly miserable for y'all.
2A is already abused to hell, but I see no way to make an argument to say it protects manufacturing a firearm. It, at best, protects possession. There are other reasons this is illegal, but please read the second amendment before you say dumb shit about it.
This is a direct quote from the ATF Director, Rob Cekada:
https://youtu.be/1h_wRotsHTw?t=390
The interview starts at 390 seconds.
the voice-to-text transcription wasn't entirely accurate, but it should be good enough to get the point across.
Yeah, I think uh again, as long as folks are in compliance with their state laws, they're in good shape. Uh the only thing that people need to remember uh even even prior to uh this uh guidance coming out uh as an American citizen if you weren't prohibited and there was no state laws uh that prevented you from doing so [music] you were allowed to build your own firearm
That transcript says that, if it isn't illegal to build a firearm, then it's legal to build a firearm. No shit. Obviously. It says nothing about 2A protections.
Also, he is not a lawyer. Do you think everything the director of ICE says is supported by the law?
Again, read the second amendment. Please. It's very short.
....Have you ever thought critically about what "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." actually means..?
It's not a plaintext right to manufacture firearms, yes. It is, however, an --implied-- right. In order to keep and bear arms, citizens must also obviously have the right to -make- their own arms.
In fact, there have already been court cases on this very issue in other states. Defense Distributed v. Blanche, comes to mind, though there may have been others.
This seems awfully familiar to the gun crackdowns after the Black Panthers started using them for self defense.
huh. who knew the answer to gun violence in the US was to regulate 3D printers!
For fucks sake.
i hope.polymaker fights this. this law ia wrong and should be challenged in court
Por que no los dos?
yeah, typo
Pfffffff hahahaha, are you also going to go after weed walker too?
The USA is a joke
The specifics revolve around a 3d-printed-gun advocate named Sean Aranda, whose youtube channel focuses on the subject. According to him, when youtube demonetized the channel in 2023 Polymaker approached him with a sponsorship offer. A couple months later Polymaker announced Aranda was a new member of its marketing team.
So regardless of where you stand on the Calif anti-3d-gun law, this isn't a simple case of going after egg farmers because of illegal omelets.
You've got some point there, but doesn't demonstrate the uselessness of the law? Unless of course they are going after every producer of technical filaments, which is like going after anyone with a lathe or a CNC machine.
No I think this is an example of the opposite - it's not an action against the filament industry or the 3d printing community in general, it's against an individual company for allegedly marketing filament specifically to print guns, not just because filament could or might be used to print guns. Whether the law itself is right or wrong is a different issue.
They're trying to make this a case over marketing and intent rather than materials.
The actual types of filament they're concerned with are carbon fiber nylon (sold by many brands) and "PLA Pro" which is just a bit better regular PLA.
These are sold by tons of brands all across the internet.
Here's another article with a bit more information: https://www.3dprintingjournal.com/...
So it seems the legal question is "was polymaker advertising their filament specifically for printing working firearms?"
Them having a couple military style colors for printing toy guns seems pretty far from a specific gun use filament. I was expecting a specific blend of herbs and spices specifically for withstanding the rigors of shooting real ammo or something, not a fucking color that is "military".
Also, good luck trying to probe that they used specific advertising channels to market directly to the ghost gun groups. Flimsy reasoning at best.
Was it ever about the children? It's not about the gun violence either
Gonna have to stop all sales of lead and brass in any form (don't want to have access for people to melt things down). Gunpowder of course, including all the elements needed to make gunpowder. You know, just to cover all the bases. /s
Polymaker did not respond to requests for comment.
Statements like these always seem deceiving to me. Like, how much time did you give them? Some of these people race to get their story out too quickly, without giving a reasonable amount of time for a response.
What if they respond later? I guess they could update the article, but that's still after people have already read it and formed their opinions based on the original contents.
This is very normal, and not meant to be deceiving. If the group who didn't respond to the request does respond after the article was published, that will be removed and a statement that reads something like "Polymaker (insert title or department) responded after initial publishing with this statement" and that statement will follow after. From a journalistic integrity standpoint it shows that they wanted to get both sides of a story, especially if one side was interviewed or quoted. The alternative of not stating that comment was requested is we read the article and wonder if Polymaker ever got a chance to speak their side.
The alternative of not stating that comment was requested is we read the article and wonder if Polymaker ever got a chance to speak their side.
But that's kinda my point: I still don't know if they had a chance to speak their side before the article was published, nor do I know if they will.
It's really just a nitpick on my part. If they plan to publish a follow-up article about the response, then it would seem a bit more honest to just add one word: "yet"
all firearms are legal.
the difference, is that some firearms require certain permits to possess under the 1986 Hughes amendment to the NFA.
for possession of a machine gun, you either need a transferrable (any registered MG pre May 1986, extremely rare, and this in good condition are literally worth more than most houses), or an FFL-31-SOT, which allows you to manufacture "dealer samples".
Suppressors (AKA Silencers), and Short Barrel Rifles/Shotguns are now fully transferrable under a form 4473; due to the recent Texas ruling against the NFA.
the requirement for Form 4473s; however, are likely to change due to the semi recent elimination of most of the tax stamp requirements for transferring NFA items; which was only allowed (per the supreme court) because congress has the constitutional power to enact and enforce taxes, but they do not have the power to regulate firearm circulation. the NFA is on its last legs. I will celebrate the day it is finally killed. The victims of the ATF's enforcement over the years deserve renumeration... or at the very least, an apology.
I can’t possess some firearms legally, therefore many firearms are effectively not legal. How it came to be like that is largely irrelevant.
I’ll be surprised if that changes.
How? Already If you want a above board gun you will just buy actual gun. If you are up to some shady shit or just an enthusiast, you go for 3d printed guns. You can't effectively enforce this especially in the US unless you ban printers, preferably federally and ban 3d printing as a practice. You can't effectively scrub the models from the internet, you can't stop people from printing and you can't really enforce distribution because everybody with a printer, will and a little knowhow can make their own.
The real news here is the filament company are complete doofuses if they are marketing their high strength filament especially for gun making. That's just like if OpenAI was marketing their new cutting edge image gen AI model as something meant for making deepfake P*rn of celebrities. One would think that they would cover their asses with more neutral wording and description regarding their product. That is a PR and legal problem bound to happen.
The same way that they enforce other crimes.
Murdering someone is illegal. Murdering someone while being involved in a gang is extra illegal and affects sentencing for example.
Caught with possession of a “ghost” gun? Insta-jail. Or maybe increase the charge to terrorism.
The legal system has tons of options at their disposal. Going after filament manufacturers is like going after black powder suppliers.
The legal system has tons of options at their disposal. Going after filament manufacturers is like going after black powder suppliers.
Nor arguing that this isn't removed.
The same way that they enforce other crimes.
Yeah and the point was that there is no practical way to do that. It's much harder to control these things than just regular stolen, misplaced or otherwise illegally acquired guns. You cant use deterrence when you are speaking about a tool that you are just going to use to commit crimes that are are going the be more severe that just an illegal firearms possession. Ofc everybody who are above board and law abiding will stop even thinking about 3d printer firearms. However if somebody is considering murder you think they care if they potentially get +5 years added to their sentence if they do it with self printed weapon instead of regular firearm?
Yes, that’s how the system works today. Your sentencing is affected by specifics of your crime.
It’s not really a deterrent. Murderers are gonna murder. I lived above one and they murdered with a pillow and telephone cable. I also sat on a trial that put a murderer away. Their circumstances affected their sentencing drastically.
I'm not a gun guy but from my understanding of ghost guns you pretty much buy the whole gun online in parts, and you just 3d print a handle.
So I don't understand why people are so afraid of 3d printing when it really has minimal to do with the final product. From what I can tell you can't just 3d print a gun from start to finish like its a llm. You still have to buy the actual gun parts from the manufacturer. To me this sounds completely unrelated and like a issue with regulating gun parts.
You can carve a handle out of soap, wood, or buy a solid chunk of plastic and its the same result.
You can print all sorts of gun parts though, like suppressors and modifications to allow a gun to shoot faster than normal.
With that being said, trying to ban 3d printing or sue filament manufacturers is monumentally stupid.
I don't know how impactful those are, and I think a person with access to a decent metal shop could pose more danger.
What is it just the access that's scary then? As a guy that doesn't know guns, you often hear things like a potato or a water bottle can be made into a makeshift surpressor or turning a single fire into a sensative rapid fire trigger is trival. So I'm just not understanding why 3d printers are almost entirely linked to making guns in everyone's minds. When I first got a elgoo that was the first thing people would jokingly ask if I was going to make one.
Like maybe I can understand the argument that access is so low anyone can do it, but even then you can't just download a gun. The person who is doing this already bought gun parts and knows how to assemble them. This is not going to stop that kind of person from building a gun in any form. The gun is still the metal parts you buy online. A silencer, a trigger mod, whatever is useless until you handle ghost guns.
Yeah going after printing and/or filament is dumb. I'm I guess what some would call a "gun guy". 3D printing in this space is less practical and more just for fun.
You can use a metal coat hanger to full auto an AR. A printed suppressor is going to be so weak it'll probably break on first use. Oil filters work tho. If you want to illegal things the better way to do most often doesnt involve printing.
Ive alwaya assumed 3D printers were new enough that Genie could be put back in the bottle
I think you mean "hawks" as in selling, not "hocks" as in loogies.
The suit accuses the company of selling not pawning, so I'm pretty sure it should be "hawk".
If things goes the way I think it will, California will need more guns to fight off the Trump Regime during the opening years of the 2nd American Civil War.
I hope this lawsuit fails.
This will get tossed. But here's why it's actually happening:
Gatalog and Polymaker both market through a network of influencers “specializing in 3D printed ghost gun content, as well as companies and individuals that illegally distribute [digital firearm manufacturing codes],” according to the suits.
Both also directly target state residents: Gatalog advertises a “California Compliant Glock 19-based Carbine kit,” while Polymakers’ website features Proposition 65 warnings and state-specific privacy opt-out features.
I mean yea, advertise your filament with YouTubers making guns, and you put yourself in the...oof.
Weird how shit like this always is an issue in the USA and basically nowhere else. Must be the lack of freedom or sth., we're just too suppressed in commie Europe to have these issues, can't even buy 9mm rounds in the supermarket. Shame.
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@lemmy.world
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
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There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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Do not create links to reddit
If you see an issue please flag it
No guns
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Don't tell them about pipes.
save