1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Vote no on A.B. 2047. This bill would mandate print-blocking software on every 3D printer sold in California and make it a misdemeanor to use open-source firmware as an alternative. That's not a targeted public safety measure — it's a sweeping criminalization of ordinary users and the open-source community. The bill doesn't just fail on civil liberties grounds; it fails on its own terms. 3D-printed firearms are already illegal and already rare. Algorithmic blocking will be outpaced by workarounds almost immediately, while the infrastructure it creates — a DOJ-maintained database of banned blueprints — could easily expand to suppress copyright or political speech. Because it's not cost-effective for manufacturers to maintain separate software for California, these surveillance-ready tools will roll out globally. Meanwhile, legitimate users get locked into proprietary firmware, first-party consumables, and forced upgrade cycles the moment a manufacturer stops updating its blocking system. A.B. 2047 hands incumbent manufacturers a weapon against competition, exposes every 3D printer owner to cloud surveillance, and builds a censorship bureaucracy that will be nearly impossible to dismantle. Please reject it.