Category: Born again Cynic!
California still wants to regulate 3D printers because people can use them to make firearms without the state’s blessing. Its vehicle is AB 2047, a bill originally designed to force printer makers to build in technology capable of detecting and blocking gun files.
But after a round of amendments, the bill has been substantially watered down. What started as a mandate is now more of a regulatory tripwire — one that may never actually be triggered.
From Mandate to Maybe
Introduced in February by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), AB 2047 originally would have required 3D printers sold or transferred in California to include state-approved “firearm blocking technology” — hardware or software designed to prevent the machine from printing files identified as firearms or firearm components.
The amended version doesn’t actually establish that standard.
Instead, beginning no later than July 1, 2027, the California Department of Justice would check quarterly to see whether ASTM International — the private standards organization involved in additive manufacturing, the industry’s term for 3D printing — has published standards for firearm-blocking technology.
If ASTM does, DOJ gets 24 months to develop guidance or regulations based on those standards. Per the bill, those rules would establish “minimum performance standards” necessary to safely, fairly and effectively implement the technology statewide.
And if ASTM hasn’t published anything by July 1, 2029?
The bill says DOJ “shall not be required to make any further determinations under this section.”
In other words, no ASTM standards, no California regulations under AB 2047.
At least for now.
Passing the Buck
The amended bill flips the original structure on its head.
Instead of California lawmakers deciding what firearm-blocking technology must do, they wait for an outside standards organization to establish the technical foundation. If that happens, DOJ gets to turn it into regulations.
Politically, that’s convenient.
Lawmakers get to vote for “doing something about ghost guns” without having to explain how the technology is actually supposed to work. If the eventual regulations are expensive, ineffective or technologically impossible, DOJ owns the details.
The legislators simply created the machine and walked away.
Legislating by handing the hard decisions to unelected regulators is an interesting move for a political class that spends so much time warning everyone about threats to democracy.
There’s Another Problem: Does This Technology Even Work?
That’s the bigger question hanging over AB 2047.
The blocking software envisioned by proposals like this would somehow have to recognize firearm-related geometry while allowing the countless ordinary objects that contain identical or similar shapes.
A printer doesn’t inherently know whether a particular hole, tube, spring, cavity or other geometry is destined to become part of a firearm, a household object, a prototype or something else entirely.
Even the federal Justice Department has gone looking to the 3D-printing industry for help with the problem.
Then there’s the First Amendment.
The California Senate’s own committee analysis raised questions about restricting what a printer can produce and the unsettled issue of whether computer code constitutes protected speech. California is already fighting on similar ground in its lawsuit involving websites that distribute 3D gun files.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also blasted the proposal, arguing that it would effectively build censorship into the printer itself.
That’s what makes AB 2047 more interesting than another California “ghost gun” bill. The state isn’t merely trying to regulate what someone manufactures. It’s attempting to regulate what a general-purpose machine is allowed to process.
The Clock Is Running
AB 2047 cleared the Assembly in May and has since moved through the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety committees.
It now faces the Senate floor — and a deadline.
The Legislature has until August 31 to pass bills this session. If the Senate approves AB 2047 without further amendments, it heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom. If senators change it again, it goes back to the Assembly for concurrence.
That doesn’t leave much time.
Then again, this is California and we’re talking about gun control. Finding time has rarely been the problem.
The Bottom Line
On its face, the amendments look like a win for 3D-printer manufacturers, hobbyists and anyone else who doesn’t particularly like the idea of government-approved software deciding what their machine is allowed to print.
But this isn’t a clean escape.
California hasn’t abandoned firearm-blocking technology. It has outsourced the trigger.
If ASTM never produces the standards, AB 2047 could amount to little more than bureaucratic homework. If ASTM does, however, California DOJ already has the legislative framework it needs to start turning those standards into rules.
The bill deserves to die, teeth filed down or not. A law that outsources its technical trigger to a private standards organization and leaves the actual requirements to regulators is questionable lawmaking before we even get to whether the underlying technology works.
But this is California, in the closing days of the legislative session, with a super majority that rarely lets a gun-control bill expire quietly.
The smart bet isn’t that AB 2047 dies.
It’s that California passes the framework now and waits for someone else to pull the trigger.
Fresno mulls letting prosecutors carry concealed firearms after stabbing rocks California
Fresno County officials are pushing to let prosecutors carry concealed firearms after a shocking daylight stabbing of a senior deputy district attorney last week.
Supervisor Garry Bredefeld is working with Sheriff John Zanoni and DA Lisa Smittcamp on an ordinance allowing them to be armed on county property, according to Your Central Valley.
The proposal is expected to go before the Fresno County Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks.
“All of our law enforcement — whether they’re prosecutors, the sheriffs or the police officers — get up and work to make this community safe,” Bredefeld said. “The least we can do is make sure they have the means to protect themselves.”
The push comes after a senior deputy district attorney was stabbed three times in the back Thursday while outside Courthouse Park in Downtown Fresno.
Smittcamp questioned the county’s current restrictions Friday, noting that she is prohibited from carrying a firearm on county property despite her position.
“I am the chief law enforcement official in the county of Fresno … if I want to carry a weapon on county property I can’t under a current ordinance,” Smittcamp said. “Kind of ridiculous … people like Mr. Crawford are empowered by the weakness of the criminal justice system.”
Supervisors Nathan Magsig and Luis Chavez also backed the proposed change, according to the outlet, with Chavez calling it “long overdue.”
“I know for a fact that prosecutors have received death threats,” Chavez said. “We need to start recognizing our prosecutors as part of our public safety family.”
Magsig said the change would require the county to work with state officials. Bredefeld said he was not optimistic the attack would change lawmakers’ attitudes in Sacramento.
Dustin Crawford, 42, allegedly approached the prosecutor and others while they were outside Courthouse Park shooting a campaign commercial.
Crawford allegedly recognized the group before singling out the prosecutor and stabbing him three times in the back.
The “Honorable” Andrew J. May
This is Congressman Andrew J. May. He was a card-carrying loser.
This is hands-down the most eventful election cycle of my lifetime. As I sit typing these words, one candidate was shot, and the other left the race because of senility … all in the course of eight days. I like to think of myself as a fairly creative guy, and even I could not make this stuff up.
One might be forgiven for believing the situation hopeless. Regardless of what side of the political fence upon which you might reside, everyone would likely acknowledge that our current crop of politicians comes with a spot of baggage. It’s enough to render a brother demoralized and wistful for the good old days.
Not so fast. While I do long for the purity and patriotism of wartime 1940s America, it seems that electing flaming idiots is a timeless problem. Back in 1943, one particularly ambitious moron killed a whole pile of U.S. submariners.
Everybody hates politicians. Andrew May was the reason.
The Guy
Andrew J. May was born in 1875 in Kentucky. A natural politician, May served as county attorney for Floyd County, Ky. from 1901 through 1909. Using that experience as a springboard, he landed a judgeship and, eventually, a seat in the U.S. Congress.
Congressman May hooked his wagon to Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was an ardent proponent of the New Deal. May was instrumental in passing the Social Security Act as well as the GI Bill of Rights. He was the primary author of the Peacetime Selective Service Act, which laid the foundation for the sweeping draft that was required to feed the massive American war machine during the early part of WWII. Up until this part in our tale, the Honorable Andrew J. May did indeed seem like an effective servant of the people.
I’ve known a handful of federal lawmakers, a couple of whom I saw in action up close. You cannot do that job for long and stay normal. They’re all disconnected from reality. Eventually, you start believing your own press releases. It is a hop, skip and jump from there over to pure, unfettered narcissism. Andrew May leapt in with both feet.
Never Trust a Politician with Anything Important
In 1943, Congressman May was head of the Military Affairs Committee. In this capacity, he toured American military installations across the Pacific Theater. Along the way, he was privy to a great deal of very sensitive information.
With the entire world at war, details regarding weapons’ capabilities were closely guarded secrets. Then, as now, public servants tended to flaunt both their positions and their access. In this case, the results were fairly catastrophic.
By 1943, the fortunes of American submarines in the Pacific were going swimmingly. Loss rates were low, and attacks on Japanese shipping were taking a vicious toll. One of the reasons for this success was that American subs could dive really, really deep. Back then, our boats could operate at least 400 feet below the surface, markedly deeper than their Japanese counterparts.
The Japanese could not imagine that Yankee submarines would be so much more capable than their own. As a result, when Japanese destroyers attacked U.S. submarines, they would set their depth charges to detonate fairly shallow. American skippers knew if they could just get deep enough, they would be relatively immune to Japanese attack. Then, Congressman May got home from his trip and scheduled a press conference.Congressman May undertook a fact-finding tour of military
installations in the Pacific during the height of WWII. He then came home and blabbed all the classified details to the press
Stupidity Has a Face
During the course of his press event wherein he outlined all that he was doing to support the war effort, Congressman May casually mentioned that the reason American subs were doing so well was that they were running underneath Japanese depth charges. The meat of his conference made the wire services and spread across the country. Japanese spies took note and sent this information to their handlers back home. It was a simple thing to reset their depth charges to go off a little deeper. The Japanese began bagging U.S. submarines.
Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood, commander of the US submarine fleet in the Pacific, said, “I hear Congressman May said the Jap depth charges are not set deep enough. He would be pleased to know that the Japs set them deeper now.”
By war’s end, May’s idiocy had directly resulted in the sinking of 10 American submarines and the deaths of some 800 U.S. sailors.American submarines fared well in the Pacific during the early part of WWII. Then Congressman May explained to the Japanese what they needed to do to kill them.
It Gets Even Better
When he wasn’t busy drowning Americans, Congressman May was using his position to make money on the side. May used his influence to obtain war production contracts for his friends Murray and Henry Garsson.
Despite having no experience producing munitions, the Garsson brothers began churning out such stuff as 4.2-inch mortar shells, many of which were found to have had defective fuses. These fuses often resulted in premature detonations that ultimately claimed the lives of a further 38 U.S. soldiers. In exchange for these sweet military contracts, Congressman May accepted a bunch of good old-fashioned bribes.
Once word got out about May’s body count, his constituency threw him out. After losing reelection, May was tried in federal court on charges of bribery and convicted after less than two hours’ worth of deliberation. May served a nine-month prison sentence. The Garssons went to jail as well.
Despite his malfeasance, May remained well-connected. In 1952, President Harry Truman granted him a full pardon. However, voters were apparently smarter than is the case today. Andrew May failed to resurrect his political career and spent the rest of his days working in private practice as a lawyer. He died in 1959 at the age of 83 as the only man in human history personally responsible for the sinking of 10 submarines.
by Lee Williams
Dave Adamiak, whose son Patrick “Tate” Adamiak has 17 more years left to serve in federal prison, is confused, perplexed and nearing his wit’s end.
While he appreciates all the support his son’s case has drawn—there are hundreds of videos and stories chronicled on his “Freedom for Tate” website—Tate remains is prison.
To date, there has been no formal move to secure his release—despite the kind words of more than a few elected officials.
Adamiak’s family sent a pardon request to Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Justice Department Pardon Attorney Edward J. Martin Jr., along with nearly 2,000 signatures of supporters, who all believe Tate should never have been charged with a crime.
Tate’s name remains on President Donald Trump’s pardon list, unlike hundreds of others. In addition to 301 pardon denials, the Pardon Attorney has said that 5,908 clemency applications were also rejected.
His 20-year prison sentence, too, has received scorn, even from ATF Director Robert Cekada.
Cekada believes Adamiak was mistreated and massively over-sentenced.
“On the facts of this case, the sentence Mr. Adamiak received is excessive. Mr. Adamiak had no prior criminal history. He dealt with these weapons as curios. We have no evidence that he intended to use the weapons unlawfully or that he was part of a criminal organization. The extremely high sentencing guidelines likely reflect the paradigmatic cases of individuals possessing destructive devices, such as grenade launchers, and normally involve terrorism or organized criminal activity. No such conduct was present here. For me, unlawful possession of National Firearms Act items sentences approximately in the three-to-five-year range are common,” he told me just over a month ago.
Cekada is not alone. Six Republican lawmakers sent their own letter to Blanche and Martin seeking Adamiak’s release.
Congresswoman Jen Kiggans along with Congressmen Eli Crane, Eric Burlison, Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S., Rob Bresnahan, Jr., and Daniel Webster were very clear as to their intent:
“We, the undersigned Members of Congress, respectfully request that you work with President Donald Trump to give fair consideration to a commutation request for Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak. We believe that certain inconsistencies in the regulatory framework applied in his case as well as the broader enforcement environment at the time warrant careful review and consideration for executive clemency,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Representatives were extremely clear about Adamiak’s innocence, stating he had “maintained a well‑documented interest in military history and the lawful collection of historic artifacts, replicas, and training devices.”
“The items of concern in his case were inert collector pieces, nonfunctional replicas, and training aids that were incapable of firing,” the letter states.
For reasons that neither he nor his family understand, Adamiak remains housed in the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk, Virginia—a county jail and a dangerous hellhole with none of the amenities of a federal prison.
On the day he first arrived at Tidewater, two guards pepper-sprayed an inmate for little or no reason, rammed his head into a metal door, and then dragged him through the jail until his neck and hand were broken. The jail’s medical staff said the inmate was “unlikely to regain limb control.”
The two guards were later fired and charged with malicious wounding; a Class 3 felony in Virginia involving intentional injury with the intent to maim, disfigure, disable, or kill. They each face up to 20 years in prison and $100,000 in fines.
Attempts to contact Adamiak in this facility were unsuccessful.
Case history
Adamiak, who at the time was an active-duty Navy E-6, was arrested and charged by the ATF during the height of the Biden Administration’s war on guns, gun owners, gun rights and the Second Amendment.
Adamiak had been accepted to attend BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training). Had the ATF left him alone, he would likely be leading a Navy SEAL platoon.
After ATF agents kicked down his doors, they found nothing illegal or even suspected of being illegal. As a result, the ATF brought in a specialist, ATF Firearm Enforcement Officer Jeffrey R. Bodell, who discombobulated the actual items that the agents had found—all of which are still sold legally online, most do not even require an ID—and turned them into machineguns and destructive devices.
Adamiak was charged with illegally possessing a machinegun for a toy STEN submachinegun found during the search warrant. He paid $75 for the non-firing Spanish replica—or toy—which was made by Denix and is still sold online. Bodell inserted a real STEN barrel and receiver, neither Bodell nor his assistant could make it fire more than one round at a time. Despite their hard work, the toy STEN would not even accept a real magazine. Still, Bodell officially ruled that the toy was a machinegun.
Adamiak was charged with illegally possessing two destructive devices, two inert RPGs that had holes drilled into their receivers and were stripped of internal parts. ATF’s “expert” added parts from real RPGs until they would fire a single subcaliber 7.62x39mm round. As a result, he classified the RPGs as destructive devices. The inert RPGs are still legally sold today without an FFL or any other paperwork.
Takeaways
Adamiak and his father are very concerned about an upcoming hearing, which is scheduled for next month before Arenda L. Wright Allen, the federal judge who oversaw his trial and sentenced Adamiak to serve 20 years in prison.
They both doubt Judge Allen will give Tate a fair hearing. She has already precluded his attorney from rehashing much of anything from the trial. Adamiak could actually receive even more time behind bars.
Every day seems to be a constant battle, Dave Adamiak said. While Tate receives verbal support, nothing official is ever done.
Dozens of politicians have said Adamiak should never have been charged, yet he remains in prison.
“What about Tate?” Dave Adamiak asked. “It appears he’s been swept under the rug after all the traffic about his case. Everyone seems to know about it, but nothing is ever done. He’s still in prison—for nothing illegal. He broke no law. He did nothing wrong.”
Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t good at rendering firearms, and that’s probably not a bad thing, for reasons that will soon be explored. It should also be noted that while AI rendered guns isn’t good yet, it is likely to improve. That might not be a good thing either.
First, we need some background on what exactly AI is, or more accurately, what is generative AI. It has been in development for decades, but it was only in 2022 that generative AI entered the public consciousness with consumer-friendly programs.
Suffice it to say that generative AI, which includes OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google Gemini, among many others, is the evolution of technology that emerged in the 1960s and is something that is now used every day, again both for good and bad.
That’s not just in how it renders firearms.
AI can create visual artwork, compose music, write papers and stories, and produce other content. Students are using it as a shortcut with homework, and anyone who has been on social media has likely seen images and videos of varying quality. With a few prompts, which are written instructions, AI can generate content that just a few years ago would have taken design teams days, even weeks to produce.
However, there is a lot of “AI slop,” as in low-quality, mass-produced digital content that shows a lack of human effort. Such content is seemingly created — if created is really the right term — by those seeking to flood the Internet to exploit algorithms and to generate quick ad revenue on some platforms.
How AI Works
It is important to understand how AI images are generated. How “intelligent” AI actually is remains a matter of debate.
Generative AI is based on “Large Language Models” (LLMs), which are trained on massive datasets of text and code to recognize patterns. Although they can be effective at parsing data, solving logic puzzles and even summarizing lengthy documents, LLMs can also produce factually incorrect, nonsensical, or made-up information that may seem plausible.
AI generates images by “learning” patterns from billions of existing pictures and their accompanying text descriptions. This process is called diffusion. AI is very good at generating images of well-known objects, where the attributes, including dimensions, color, and other properties, are clearly described.
It would seem that AI, therefore, should be good at rendering firearms, but a search of social media tells a very different story. AI-generated images of firearms depict weapons that would be impossible to produce in the real world, much like the fantastical settings created by the late Dutch artist M.C. Escher.
In the case of firearms, LLMs and AI have no shortage of information to draw from, yet generative AI platforms still struggle because they lack a true 3D understanding of the underlying mechanics, resulting in nonsensical attachments, bent barrels, missing triggers, and incorrect magazine placement. AI is still treating firearms as abstract collections of shapes rather than focusing on the functional mechanisms. That has resulted in impossible geometry.
There are now Facebook Groups and Reddit subs devoted to sharing AI-generated firearm images that defy reality. Even when it gets the basics right, AI still misses some key details. Several factors are at play, but the most basic is that generate AI is based on algorithms, and many are far less “intelligent” than it might seem.
Guns And Media — It’s Never Been Accurate
It is further worth taking a step back and remembering that mainstream depictions of firearms have long been questionable. Consider firearms in comic books and video games as just two examples.
Writers of the former and developers of the latter would routinely ignore basic mechanics, notably magazine capacities and recoil, opting instead to treat firearms as versatile plot devices that are only as accurate or deadly as the story demands at any given moment.
Likewise, the World War II-based comic books of the 1960s didn’t bother to feature realistic depictions of the enemy. The Germans were often presented with big red swastikas on their helmets, carrying weapons that were not an accurate drawing of the MP-40. It was a version that fit the narrative, even if it was far from accurate.
Video games have, in recent years, gone to great lengths to get many details of modern firearms right, including the look and sound, yet other attributes are often still very wrong, notably the weight and recoil. The guns may look correct, but they way they are employed and operate is anything but accurate.
Lack of Instruction?
AI continues to struggle with firearms for some very simple reasons. There is an old saying among computer programmers: “Garbage in, garbage out,” which is the principle that the quality of a system’s output is directly linked to the quality of input. Flawed or low-quality data will produce equally flawed or useless results.
In the case of AI, the “garbage in” is the lack of clear instructions.
“One of the reasons that guns are not properly rendered in AI is in the details,” explained Roger Entner, founder and principal analyst at Recon Analytics. “AI is only as good as the instructions you give it.”
AI often needs more information and details than it is given. It can get the basic shapes right, but it still doesn’t understand the mechanics.
“Guns are such intricate tools, with minuscule differences that are huge,” Entner told The Armory Life. “Gun owners may know these things so intricately, but AI does not.”
That is a key point to consider. There is already massive confusion in the mainstream consciousness about the differences between a commercial AR-15 and the military M16, so how can we expect AI to know better?
AI doesn’t just fall short with firearms, but all sorts of things.
“AI isn’t good at depicting a Cadillac XTS from a Chevrolet Malibu,” said Entner.
There is also the issue of bias, and it is firearm enthusiasts who are likely to notice the rendering problems of AI when it comes to guns.
“AI really does render firearms poorly. Many details range from implausible to outright wrong. But in perspective, AI renders many objects poorly,” noted Dr. Jim Purtilo, associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland.
“If someone in the firearm community notices it with guns more than with other objects, then this could well be another example of a selective attention bias, which is where people with a decided interest in a given object will be much more inclined to notice when details are wrong. Show a young man the photo of a pretty young girl, and he will never notice what is in the background. ‘What monster?’”
Such a selective attention bias has cropped up in cinema for years.
“Show an old war movie and the gun enthusiast will complain, ‘that’s not a rifle they used,’ the history aficionado will say, ‘that’s not how it happened,’ and the linguists will lament that characters used words that didn’t become common until the modern era. This illustrates our biases,” Purtilo told The Armory Life.
Still, the implausible images result from how AI generates them today. There is ample data on firearm attributes, but few descriptions of how everything connects. AI’s LLMs make a best guess, often with comedic results.
“Pictures are tougher for AI than we understand,” added Entner. “Generic descriptions of something to AI will generate a generic description. It is like asking a five-year-old to draw a Single Action Colt.”
AI is thus like a child, and it may not provide all the details unless pressed. Even then, it may not fully appreciate how things go together without further explanation.
“Said simply, the program is averaging all the details of its training images when deciding which features to include,” said Purtilo. “It might know that a firearm has sights, a shoulder stock, and attachments, but it doesn’t know how these details might depend on one another.
The average sight across all the images it analyzed might have been a scope, the average stock might have a pistol grip, and the average attachment might be a laser pointer — and that is how it gives you a Revolutionary War musket with pistol grip, high power optic, and laser pointer.”
The Barriers of AI
The current technical barriers are just one of the main reasons that AI is bad at rendering firearms. The other is policy. AI developers are already cautious about how AI can be used.
“On the technical side, guns are complex objects with very specific features. Because they are so specific and have many parts that can be rendered incorrectly, it’s easy for a human to identify them as incorrect, as AI is not good at replicating specific weapons,” said Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.
Lampe, who focuses on the study of misinformation in media, told The Armory Life that the policy reason is that many models specifically list firearms as a type of object to render poorly.
“You can imagine, for instance, that you don’t want to be able to have GenAI [generative artificial intelligence] create specific schematics for firearms. Different models may have different thresholds here as a matter of policy, but all of them will have some safety restrictions built in,” Lampe noted.
Microsoft’s Copilot and ChatGPT are now among the generative AI platforms that won’t even render a firearm if requested. Copilot won’t even render soldiers holding firearms. However, because of the rise in “AI slop,” it may be a good thing that AI can’t generate extremely accurate firearms in videos. No manufacturer would be happy to see their product — a car, gun, or something else — used irresponsibly in an AI-generated video.
For now, we may need to accept that AI doesn’t do guns well, just as comic writers and video game developers missed the mark in the past.
“I don’t know whether AI is more likely to generate silliness with firearms than other objects. But if so, then this may well reflect a selection bias in training materials,” Purtilo continued. “AI models are trained by ingesting a huge volume of raw content. The companies scrape pages from websites, books, social media, and more for this purpose.”
As Lampe noted, there is also the issue of policies that restrict many sites from including firearm images, which could impact how AI learns.
“This limits what material AI has for training,” said Purtilo. “If you can’t depict safe and responsible firearm use on the web, then no AI will be able to render images with safe and responsible use of firearms. Whatever it generates will be inherently gibberish.”
———————————————————————————-
I guess I got out of there at just the right time! Grumpy