Link: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-10-10/san-diego-california-ghost-gun-3d-printer-filament-lawsuit

San Diego County jumped into California’s sprawling ghost gun fight this week, suing a 3-D printing filament manufacturer it says hocks material for homespun firearms in violation of state law.

Working with the Giffords Law Center, the county counsel sued manufacturer Polymaker, alleging the company made a “strategic business choice” to market and sell 3-D printer filament to Californians for the express purpose of building illegal weapons. The polymer filament is sold in spools that feed into 3-D printers, allowing the devices to form designs created by their owners.

This is getting a bit fucking ridiculous. They're suing filament manufacturers now.

A video I posted a few months ago about this bullshit: https://youtu.be/E1B2cWEaWDw

That is completely bizarre.

Don't tell them about pipes.

Polymaker is a Chinese supplier, selling to California residents, while also running ad campaigns through ghost gun content creators aimed at California residents, defining themselves explicitly as a ghost gun ingredient.

If they didn't want to get caught up in this, they shouldn't have gotten involved in the illicit arms business. But they wanted to be known as the plastic supplier that is cool with you making ghost guns, and that isn't going to fly in California.

Plastic suppliers that don't advertise themselves explicitly as being part of the ghost gun supply chain will be fine.

Will be fine, for now.

So polymaker actually choose the individual channels their ads (not about ghost guns) were put on...or was that an algorithm (AdSense)?

They are going about this all wrong. Just make possession of an illegal firearm a crime and enforce it.

i hope.polymaker fights this. this law ia wrong and should be challenged in court

Oh my God! America could end up having a real problem with gun violence...

Seems the safe option for others is to cease all shipments and sales of printers and filament to California.

But then I'd be guilty! I have some Polymaker filament right here! It's still new in the box and everything...

Shit, maybe there's a sketchy filament black market where I can fence it...

Here's another article with a bit more information: https://www.3dprintingjournal.com/p/san-diego-county-sues-polymaker-over

Sue the steel mills for guns too while you're at it.

Sorry I misspoke. It’s fixed. Basically illegal firearms should be enforced better.

How? Already If you want a above board gun you will just buy actual gun. If you are up to some shady shit or just an enthusiast, you go for 3d printed guns. You can't effectively enforce this especially in the US unless you ban printers, preferably federally and ban 3d printing as a practice. You can't effectively scrub the models from the internet, you can't stop people from printing and you can't really enforce distribution because everybody with a printer, will and a little knowhow can make their own.

The real news here is the filament company are complete doofuses if they are marketing their high strength filament especially for gun making. That's just like if OpenAI was marketing their new cutting edge image gen AI model as something meant for making deepfake P*rn of celebrities. One would think that they would cover their asses with more neutral wording and description regarding their product. That is a PR and legal problem bound to happen.

under the second amendment, and under the ATF's ruling, citizens are allowed to manufacture their own firearms. this is getting struck down..... if it were in Texas and not the gun-stealing California. I hope to the gods it gets struck down, because this would be a travesty for all my brothers, sisters and non binary pals in California... my heart goes out to y'all.

The same way that they enforce other crimes.

Murdering someone is illegal. Murdering someone while being involved in a gang is extra illegal and affects sentencing for example.

Caught with possession of a “ghost” gun? Insta-jail. Or maybe increase the charge to terrorism.

The legal system has tons of options at their disposal. Going after filament manufacturers is like going after black powder suppliers.

all firearms are legal.

the difference, is that some firearms require certain permits to possess under the 1986 Hughes amendment to the NFA.

for possession of a machine gun, you either need a transferrable (any registered MG pre May 1986, extremely rare, and this in good condition are literally worth more than most houses), or an FFL-31-SOT, which allows you to manufacture "dealer samples".

Suppressors (AKA Silencers), and Short Barrel Rifles/Shotguns are now fully transferrable under a form 4473; due to the recent Texas ruling against the NFA.

the requirement for Form 4473s; however, are likely to change due to the semi recent elimination of most of the tax stamp requirements for transferring NFA items; which was only allowed (per the supreme court) because congress has the constitutional power to enact and enforce taxes, but they do not have the power to regulate firearm circulation. the NFA is on its last legs. I will celebrate the day it is finally killed. The victims of the ATF's enforcement over the years deserve renumeration... or at the very least, an apology.

Maybe they should sue steel manufacturers too since that’s the main material used for most fire arms.

Weird how shit like this always is an issue in the USA and basically nowhere else.
Must be the lack of freedom or sth., we're just too suppressed in commie Europe to have these issues, can't even buy 9mm rounds in the supermarket. Shame.

I can’t possess some firearms legally, therefore many firearms are effectively not legal. How it came to be like that is largely irrelevant.

I’ll be surprised if that changes.

The legal system has tons of options at their disposal. Going after filament manufacturers is like going after black powder suppliers.

Nor arguing that this isn't removed.

The same way that they enforce other crimes.

Yeah and the point was that there is no practical way to do that. It's much harder to control these things than just regular stolen, misplaced or otherwise illegally acquired guns. You cant use deterrence when you are speaking about a tool that you are just going to use to commit crimes that are are going the be more severe that just an illegal firearms possession. Ofc everybody who are above board and law abiding will stop even thinking about 3d printer firearms. However if somebody is considering murder you think they care if they potentially get +5 years added to their sentence if they do it with self printed weapon instead of regular firearm?

What about bullets?

Jfc these people are out of their minds

I believe they'll eventually come for those too.

IMO the real end goal of these laws isn't to ban ghost guns, it's to ban plebs from being able to build or create anything at all. 3D printing a plastic piece to fix a broken tab in some gizmo cuts into corporate profits so a manufactured moral panic about ghost guns appears. I'm sure they'll eventually get to a pipe rifle moral panic at some point to lock down DIY plumbing.

States are allowed to add some restrictions to gun laws. So the new ATF rules likely won't be decisive in this case.

Hol up, those guns are made by corporations. What are you thinking?

Anyone with machining knowledge can turn a block of metal into a working gun part

If this goes up to the federal court level, it's almost certainly getting struck down. It's a pretty clear infringement upon the 2nd amendment.

It's a miracle that the CA gun laws haven't been struck down at the federal level yet.... By the gods, I hope they do. The situation in CA is utterly miserable for y'all.

If it's so unenforceable, why isn't it an issue in other countries? Even ones that have nearly the same number of guns as America? 🤔

Getting your FFL-31-SOT is pretty easy. It's just some paperwork. The tricky part is the taxes and license fees; which are admittedly pretty stupidly high. IIRC they're somewhere in the range of 4 digits - 5 digits.

using what the ATF classifies as "Destructive Devices" (40mm grenades, mortars, etc) requires tax stamps still, and some paperwork, registering who has it and where it is, etc... but they are legal.

If you're a convicted Federal Felon who has served their sentence, you can petition the courts to have your right to possess firearms reinstated. Of those who petition, most get their right reinstated; in the pro-gun areas. You only get one shot though IIRC; so you should go to a court in a heavily red state to have the best chance. It's a federal-level decision, so pretty much any federal court should do.

With the way the current administration is going; as much as I disagree with some of their decisions, the NFA is well and truly on its way to the grave.

Every law abiding citizen should be able to possess and operate any firearm, regardless of fire rate, caliber, or form factor.

Good luck, brother.

huh. who knew the answer to gun violence in the US was to regulate 3D printers!

hold on let me go sue home depot for selling black iron pipe and nails because someone made a pipe bomb. Nowhere has poly-maker ever advertised or suggested their speciality filaments could make firearms.

Someone's looking for a payout settlement, fuck California

Bah! You ruined my hilarious joke 🤣

They used fear of guns to attack Right to Repair and small manufacturing. It was never about guns.

you mean polymaker

For fucks sake.

Por que no los dos?

Americans can order guns to their doors, but the 3d printers are the issues you choose to tackle...

Yes, that’s how the system works today. Your sentencing is affected by specifics of your crime.

It’s not really a deterrent. Murderers are gonna murder. I lived above one and they murdered with a pillow and telephone cable. I also sat on a trial that put a murderer away. Their circumstances affected their sentencing drastically.

You still have to buy bullets.

they have a specific partnership with a 3D2A channel The 3D Print General off the top of my head

This seems awfully familiar to the gun crackdowns after the Black Panthers started using them for self defense.

Was it ever about the children? It's not about the gun violence either

yeah, typo

Is this filament specifically designed for guns?

I print my own bullets /s

you could literally make a shotgun with that too. Saw a YouTube video. Two pipes, one fit in the other, small one was the right size to hold a shell, and a nail at the end of the closed pipe triggered it if you used your hands to hit it.

Super effective and easy one shot shotgun. there's no real way to regulate guns IMO. They're not complicated devices.

So education is destroyed and all machines sold to China.

No, they can't. Guns can only be legally shipped to a federally licensed gun dealer. The dealer cannot transfer it to the buyer without the mandated background check.

The gun laws are already fucked up enough. You don't have to make shit up.