Technology

That's just a happy by-product for them.

Then refuse to participate. Use open source software and any other kind of system outside their control until they throw you in jail. That's what I'll be doing. If enough of us do they can't jail us all. Participation is consent.

Because between them, the legislators don't have two brain-cells to rub together and figure out why this is an un-enforceable bunch of bullshit.

Because it doesn't make money for Big War

Because it makes firearms available to people without having to jump through hoops the government can track, but they can make a machine that makes flexi-dragons into a boogyman, so they throw a "protect the children" in the bill and it automatically passes.

Because it makes for a good distraction from actual problems that they don't care to solve because those problems would require them to heavily tax millionaires and billionaires.

Because our government is run by old dumbasses.

This is a lost battle either way but a non-lost opportunity to acquire some power

Frankly it seems more like a mild inconvenience then actual prevention. I don't really care how smart a software gets, it can't predict and prevent all possible configurations of prints that could possibly be used to create functioning guns without being so overly restrictive that even perfectly innocent prints would get flagged constantly in which case they simple won't sell to normal users.

It would be a constant game of whack a mole with new creative designs, using multiple printers or with non-printed parts in the design. But no hardware or software that a smart enough engineer has their hands on is impervious to mods either, especially if they're motivated like someone seeking to produce firearms would be.

It's an overreaching law that will likely solve little to nothing, but might make 3d printers in general a bit more annoying to work with. "Sorry, you can't make your dice tower because there's a 16 percent change that it could be capable of firing an RPG out of the dragon's mouth. Please make your design at least 12 percent less gun-ish and try again."

They are essentially trying to regulate technology they know very little about.

That's not surprising, that's just what politicians do. Especially politicians who are 65+ years old and completely out of touch with technology.

This is why politicians should be automatically retired at 65. We shouldn't be allowing people who grew up without seatbelts to make any decisions involving technology.

So in other words, what else is new?

The danger if this passes isn't that someone will be able to successfully implement some manner of system for identifying gun parts which will, apparently, rely on pixie dust and magic. In reality this will effectively prohibit 3D printer sales in California entirely because compliance is literally impossible. And it'll and give overreaching cops and prosecutors yet another nonsense charge they can arbitrarily slap people with over "circumventing" this mystical technology which does not in fact exist if they, ye gods forbid, build their own printer.

It's the same horseshit rationale as the spent casing "microstamping" fantasy that legislators have been salivating about for decades. It doesn't work, it'll never work, but that's not going to stop them from wishing it does and therefore turning it into a defacto ban.

Keep in mind, California also has the precedent of their infamous approved handguns list, which notoriously does things like arbitrarily declaring that the black version of some model of gun is legal, but possession of the stainless version of the exact same gun is a felony. We're not dealing with people in possession of any type of rationality, here.

It is nothing less than, I say without exaggeration, a war on property rights as a whole.

Great points, I think you're on to something.
I think the old saying "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" doesn't apply when malice and corporate interests are in alignment. Now I'm curious to dig into who actually wrote the bill, and who are they financially supported by...

On the contrary, there was a very interesting video by PSR (pardon the YouTube link) about how the civil war in Myanmar was being fought almost exclusively with 3D printed firearms. Apparently they're reliable enough to be an actual threat.

"3d printing guns" isn't about the pressure holding parts, it's about the traceable serial number holding parts. On most firearms the "lower assembly" or "receiver" (frame, trigger group, feeding assy) is legally considered the firearm and is what bears the serial. Most of those can be printed and use off the shelf hardware to work, albeit with a much lower lifespan.
Pressure containing wear parts that are meant to be exchanged (barrel and breech bolt) typically do not carry serials and are thus not normally traceable. If you eliminate the serialized, traceable part of the firearm, then any collection of parts could be used.

That said, eliminating an entire hobby and industry because gun serialization laws haven't been updated in a hundred years is probably not the right way to do it.

Which unfortunately means the base price for a California-legal 3d printer is going to be exorbitant.

What do you mean "the left"? The farther left you go, the more people see firearms as important for the people to fight oppression. Karl Marx—pretty much as far left as you can go—was very adament about wokers owning guns.

I think you are trying to refer to authoritarians.

They wanna plug their ears and pretend slam fire pipe shotguns aren't a thing. Like seriously all you need is two short pipes, a cap and a bolt for the firing pin. You can use the sidewalk to grind down the bolt so you don't even need another tool.