For my work, I read a lot of legislation. Too much is mind-boggling stupid, but a few bills stand out even in that category. Rep. Ted Deutch [D-FL] and Sen. Ed Markey [D-MA] have mananaged to introduce what is possibly the stupidest bit of legislation since the failed Indiana attempt to set pi = 3.
I am speaking of companion bills H.R. 4225 and S. 2319, the “3D Printed Gun Safety Act of 2021”.
The “Findings” portion of the bills immediately tipped me off that something was very wrong with the mental state of whoever actually drafted this for the gullible congresscritters. Or it was the best prank in over a century. To wit,
(1) Three dimensional, or “3D” printing, involves the programming of a 3D printing machine with a computer file that provides the schematics for the item to be printed.
(2) Recent technological developments have allowed for the 3D printing of firearms and firearm parts, including parts made out of plastic, by unlicensed individuals in possession of relatively inexpensive 3D printers.
OK, we’re talking about plastic 3D printing, right? But why do we need this ban?
(5) On June 7, 2013, an assailant used a gun he had constructed by himself to kill his father, brother, and 3 other people at Santa Monica College in California. The person had failed a background check when he tried to purchase a gun from a licensed gun dealer. The gun he used was made from an unfinished AR–15-style receiver, similar to a receiver that can now be made with a 3D printer.
The bucket o’chum in the Santa Monica shooting didn’t use a 3D printed firearm. He used an AR-pattern firearm assembled from an 80% lower. You might be scratching your head over that conflation, but there’s a method in their madness.
I’ll skip past the points where our dedicated dipsticks conflated numberless homemade guns with commercially manufactured firearms with obliterated serial numbers, or how serial numbers on commercially manufactured firearms are merely “traditional” rather law, and go straight to the prohibition.
It shall be unlawful for any person to intentionally distribute, over the Internet or by means of the World Wide Web, digital instructions in the form of Computer Aided Design files or other code that can automatically program a 3-dimensional printer or similar device to produce a firearm or complete a firearm from an unfinished frame or receiver.”.
You may pause for a moment to giggle at the thought of transmitting a file over the World Wide Web without using the Internet, along with the plurality of periods.
Done?
Yes, whether self-directed morons or gullible dupes, Deutch and Markey are trying to ban the transmission of additive manufacturing 3D printer files for… subtractive manufacturing CNC mills.
I either want to b**ch-slap someone, or shake their hand.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
(More Tip Jar Options) |
