It’s a new year, and everywhere we look on the legislative horizon, blue states, are launching a salvo of anti-gun laws designed to chill Second Amendment activities. Washington state recently introduced a bill attempting to regulate the 3D printing of firearms, with seemingly zero thought to how this could impact non-firearm businesses and industries.
HB 2321 was introduced on January 12 for its first reading and referred to the Committee on Civil Rights & Judiciary. The bill leverages the “Consumer Protection Act” and purports to prevent the “unlawful manufacturing of firearms by requiring three-dimensional printers be equipped with certain blocking technologies.”
The bill requires the following:
- 3D printers to be equipped with “blocking features” that detect and prevent printing of firearms and parts
- The manufacturer must attest to the integration of those features
- The manufacturer must submit that attestation to the attorney general under penalty of perjury
The bill creates a definition that is deliberately broader than standard industry usage, redefining 3D printers beyond what is typically understood as an additive process and including subtractive manufacturing:
“Three-dimensional printer” means (a) any machine capable of rendering a three-dimensional object from a digital design file using additive manufacturing or (b) any machine capable of making three dimensional modifications to an object from a digital design file using subtractive manufacturing.
That purposeful, wide-open interpretation would include milling machines, some computerized drills, and other similar tools used by thousands of large and small businesses. The implications go far beyond the intentions of the bill.
The bill is clearly targeting the proliferation of internet-based open source software and files and the popularization of home-based 3D printing by requiring the following:
An algorithm must use, at a minimum, a database of disallowed firearms blueprint files that have been commonly downloaded or shared on public internet forums. The algorithm must have the capacity both to detect files in its database and to actively seek to detect modified versions of those files.
The bill exempts 3D printers purchased by and exclusively made for federally licensed firearms manufacturers, however it gives unprecedented enforcement authority to the attorney general “or any other organization the attorney general deems appropriate…” and also provides that “The attorney general may adopt rules and regulations for any other processes the attorney general deems necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter.”
The firmware and software requirements for smaller-scale printers to be compliant are likely to be expensive to integrate into new products, and, combined with the penalties for non-compliance, would simply result in manufacturers leaving the market.
After July 1, 2027, transferring or selling 3D printers that do not comply with the law becomes a misdemeanor for the first offense and a class C felony for second and subsequent offenses, with a penalty of up to five years imprisonment and a $15,000 fine.
The bill is silent on printers manufactured, sold, transferred, or possessed before July 1, 2027. It contains no retroactive provisions and imposes no requirements on existing printers.
