55
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
55 points (98.2% liked)
FOSSCAD
470 readers
1 users here now
A community dedicated to the discussion of 3D printed guns and related topics.
Lemmy
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
How would a 3d printer know if its a firearm?
Next up normal ink printers are not allowed to print bad jokes
The only way I see is through permanent surveillance. Otherwise there's probably an infinity of ways to cut up a plastic gun that would fool a machine
Two ways. The first is to dramatically increase the price due to added computing power because the device would make the determination itself with a matching database. This is probably not realistic.
The second way would be an always Internet connected device that checks your prints against an online database. This would be more practical and companies would probably love the idea of being able to spy on whatever you print.
Fortunately for the second scenario, I think avoiding that might be as easy as going into blender, adding a pointless protrusion or two and then renaming the file
People looking to ban things don't actually care if there is a work around, as long as they feel good getting it banned.
Unfortunately for the second scenario is that it also gives someone else a log of everything you 3D print, protrusions or not. And even if it isn't guns, you'd may not want that.
Damn, is it always connected or something? That's fucked, glad I have an old ender 3
I think there are some printers that refuse to print pictures of currency.
Either way, having picked up an Ender 3 back in the day that is completely offline sounds better and better everyday.
For currency that was a specific feature built into the currency itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
Guns/Weapons cannot have such a thing built into them as they are non-functional elements that can easily be omitted in whatever design you print. And since General AI isn't real, you can't expect any system to recognize if you are tryign to print a weapon. Honestly this is the same kind of intellectual bankruptcy that backs anti-cryptography bills.
Do you think the politicians know how?
AI, of course!