Washington State Democrats are at it again, this time targeting the very tools of innovation with a draconian push to mandate software that bricks 3D printers if they detect you’re trying to print a gun. Buried in their latest legislative fever dream, this isn’t just about gun safety—it’s a blatant assault on personal manufacturing freedom, forcing printer makers to embed government-approved kill switches that scan and sabotage your designs before a single layer extrudes. Imagine buying a $500 hobby printer only to have it lock you out mid-print because your file has the wrong curves or calibers flagged by some Big Brother algorithm. This is California-style nanny-state tech control creeping northward, where lawmakers who couldn’t assemble IKEA furniture now dictate what your garage workshop can produce.
The context here reeks of desperation from an anti-2A crowd watching home fabrication explode post-Bruen. 3D printing guns isn’t new—hobbyists have been iterating on designs like the FGC-9 for years, proving that prohibition doesn’t stop determined makers; it just drives them underground or overseas. But mandating blocking software? That’s a Trojan horse for broader surveillance: printers phoning home to report suspicious activity, backdoored firmware ripe for federal overreach, and a chilling effect on the open-source maker community. We’ve seen this playbook before—New York’s ghost gun bans fizzled because files are everywhere online, yet they still harass law-abiding builders. Washington’s move escalates it to hardware sabotage, potentially setting precedents for CNC mills, laser cutters, even Arduino projects if they sniff firearm adjacency.
For the 2A community, the implications are crystal clear: stock up on unrestricted printers now, because this is the camel’s nose under the tent for total disarmament by attrition. It won’t stop criminals with illegal printers or foreign suppliers, but it’ll kneecap patriots innovating legal, unserialized tools for self-defense. Rally your networks, flood Olympia with calls, and support groups like the Firearms Policy Coalition already gearing up to sue this nonsense into oblivion. The right to bear arms includes the right to build them—don’t let technocrats rewrite that with code. Stay vigilant, print fast, and keep fighting.
