For those with no idea what Washington House Bill 2320 is, the bill is currently making its way through the Washington government and seeks to make it illegal to possess or share any code or CAD (Computer Aided Design) files that could be used to produce a firearm component. Nowhere within the bill does it require the intent of making a firearm for the parts to become illegal. By the current wording of this bill if you have made any models on CAD software or you have any three-dimensional files on your computer you are holding illegal contraband. Please work with me to stop this bill from passing. To read HB2320 for yourself use this link: Read HB2320. To view the progress of the bill, use this link: Research HB2320.  If you do not have the time to read that, please read this excerpt: “‘digital firearm manufacturing code’ means any digital instructions in the form of computer-aided design files or other code or instructions stored and displayed in electronic format as a digital model that may be used to program a three-dimensional printer or a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine to manufacture or produce a firearm, frame or receiver, unfinished frame or receiver, magazine, or unlawful firearm part as identified in RCW 11 9.41.220” which is an excerpt from section 2 article 11; the most concerning wording is “unfinished frame or receiver” since virtually any part could be made into or glued onto a frame or receiver, making it an unfinished frame or receiver (Salahuddin et al., 7). Even without that specific wording, this bill would still have catastrophic effects for all manufacturing in Washington due to the way that it would not prevent people with malicious intent from trying to make parts of firearms and the way that it would still remove many makerspaces and school engineering programs.

 I believe that this bill is written with benevolent intent, trying to prevent gun violence in Washington. If that was all this bill did, I would be in support of it. Unfortunately, that would not be this bill’s primary effect; if passed, due to the unspecific definition of digital manufacturing code, HB2320 would incriminate not only home makers trying to innovate and build, but also schools, makerspaces, 3D animators, videogame designers, and any company interested in 3D modeling in Washington. While it is unlikely that this bill would be used to take down these institutions, the opportunity for persecution would make it impossible for many makerspaces to run and would remove engineering and robotics programs in schools and businesses across Washington. The bill would especially affect groups that are less wealthy or privileged because they might not be able to deal with the legal action. 

I am currently a student at Lake Washington High School. I have taken two Three-Dimensional Printing classes, and I have many friends in robotics clubs in and outside of the school. 3D printing has sparked my love in engineering and the way that it can be used to help people through the creation of prosthetics and other technologies. I see that HB2320 is written to prevent the proliferation of illegal 3D printed firearm parts but if passed it would cause so many innocent people to live in fear of having their file misinterpreted. I thoroughly believe that if HB2320 is passed, it will hurt Washington’s whole community, especially schools and businesses that use 3D Printing in any capacity, but also video game and film studios that use 3D animation, while not actually stopping any of the people trying to create firearms.

Making the possession and sharing of 3D files illegal will only hurt people that are trying to do good things and not the people trying to print firearm parts. If this bill passes a simple pencil holder could throw a group into legal turmoil. This will shut down school engineering, robotics, and makerspaces. These establishments would lose the ability to model 3D objects, even if those parts were not for a firearm. So, if schools teach students how to design a harmless pencil holder, then that school and all students involved could go under persecution. Even though the pencil holder is designed to help people organize their desk, it could potentially be placed in a gun. In fact, just about any 3D file is illegal because of the way that you could glue them to the barrel of a firearm and try to use them as a grip. The other problem with this bill is that hardware store materials can be used to make ghost guns so the people with malevolent intent would just move on without this bill having any effect on them. If passed, HB2320 will not hurt people with the malicious intentions of building firearms, but it will seriously hurt schools and makerspaces by making it illegal for them to continue due to the open-ended wording.

This bill will not prevent people that are trying to build firearms from making them, but it will prevent all of Washington from learning engineering; 3D Printing and CNC machines have become the foundation of the engineering process. If 3D models become illegal or even just risky to have on computers it will send Washington’s students, engineering businesses, and all robotics away. Typically, Washington has been known for its engineering and tech companies. If this bill passes, that will all end. Not only will engineering be affected, but also videogame and 3D animation studios. The very files that are used in movies and videogames to animate in 3D could be manufactured making them clearly illegal under this bill; this would tell studios that they are not able to use any shapes at all that could be potentially used in a firearm let alone actually putting weapons in their games or animations. If passed, this bill will take away that art and freedom from creators.

While there have been 3D printed parts used in guns, just about every part of a firearm that is 3D printed will not function properly. The grip is really the only part that could be printed without trading functionality, but practically anything could be modified into a grip without the use of a 3D printer. Even a CNC machine wouldn’t be able to mill many of the more difficult parts like the barrel without a large amount of post-processing. The hardware store has more easily accessible firearm parts than a 3D printer that will function much more than their printed counterparts. This lack of dependency on 3D models shows how the people trying to create ghost guns will not be stopped by the passing of this bill and that assumes that they would not just carry on printing the couple of parts that could theoretically be printed. If they did somehow get a part to print, that part would fail due to the layer lines created in 3D printing and the difficulty in milling such a part. This bill would not change a single bit about how much 3D printed parts are used in firearms and would only hurt law abiding citizens trying to improve the world.

On immediate inspection, this bill looks like it will prevent gun violence. If that were the effect of this bill, I would be in support of it, but upon closer inspection 3D printing is not what allows these ghost guns to be made and this bill will only be preventing schools, makerspaces and Washington as a whole from engineering. As well as harming 3D digital artists in video games and 3D animation. I encourage you to talk to Washington’s passionate community of engineering programs that bill will put a halt to. My love in engineering was planted in these classes and given room to flourish. I hope that many others will be able to grow from this technology in the future. Please investigate other methods of preventing gun violence in Washington. This route of policing which models are legal to have on a computer will not halt the violence that you hope; it will only hurt the very schools and institutions that this bill sought to protect.

Thank you for your time

Please join my fight to stop this bill