California has some of the nation’s toughest gun laws, but state lawmakers are concerned that a new technology is allowing criminals to obtain firearms by building them from scratch. By using 3-D printers, they warn, lawbreakers are able to make key components of untraceable “ghost guns” with the press of a button.
Ghost guns, which authorities say make it more difficult to investigate shootings because they lack serial numbers, have been a growing problem for law enforcement nationwide. According to federal data, the number of privately made firearms recovered in crimes surged from more than 1,600 in 2017 to nearly 27,500 in 2023. California leads the nation in recoveries over that period.
In response, legislators are seeking to mandate that all 3-D printers sold in the state come equipped with software that prohibits users from making triggers and other gun parts. A bill passed the Assembly in May and is advancing through the Senate.
But the proposal has drawn opposition from a diverse coalition, which includes civil liberties groups, tech companies and 3-D printing enthusiasts as well as Hollywood effects studios, who argue that “firearm blocking software” will also prohibit legitimate designs and expose makers to government or corporate surveillance.
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Inside a San Fernando workshop, Samuel McBride makes movie monsters come to life for the camera. One of his latest creations, an animatronic hand, clutches when he pulls a trigger that he built using a 3-D printer.
McBride says the technology has transformed the work at Legacy Effects, where he is a lab manager, but he’s worried it will soon be off-limits because of a proposed change in California law.
McBride fears the law would interfere with the making of devices like the one that activates his lifelike hand.
“If I just took apart this trigger and put it on a printer, how is anyone, computer or human, going to tell me how I intend to use it?” he asked.
Backers of the proposed law say it has the potential to help save lives.
“As gun violence continues to devastate our communities, we cannot allow 3-D printing technology to become a new pipeline for untraceable weapons,” said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, the bill’s author.
Critics of the proposed California law note that 3-D printed guns represent a small subset of ghost guns recovered by law enforcement at crime scenes. According to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, most “privately made firearms” recovered by police are assembled from mail-order kits or unfinished parts rather than printed at home.
Jorge Perez of Monster City Studios holds a sculpture made with a large, industrial 3-D printer.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
“This fight is not over whether ghost guns are dangerous,” said David Tobin, an independent creator leading the coalition. “It is over whether the state can or should require a consumer tool to surveil a person’s designs before they are allowed to make something.”
Everytown for Gun Safety, a national nonprofit that advocates for gun control and has pushed for the passage of California’s bill, pointed to rising 3-D printed firearm recoveries across 20 major cities and warned that homemade plastic parts can help people bypass background checks or turn handguns into automatic weapons.
Krystal LoPilato, who advocates for policy at Everytown, said the group has successfully guided a similar bill through the New York state Legislature.
A handgun frame made using a 3-D printer is held for display at the office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
LoPilato said the policy aims to be proactive, rather than allowing more violence to take place before regulating the problem. Opponents counter that California already bars unlawful firearm manufacturing with 3-D printers, and that ghost gun recoveries have declined since the state adopted a series of new laws and enforcement efforts.
A June 1 letter to lawmakers, signed by a group of 3-D printing companies, stagecraft and prop-making studios and industry stakeholders, argued that AB 2047 raises 1st Amendment concerns and would harm businesses. The letter was signed by a wide variety of companies and individuals, including Prusa Research, a prominent 3-D printer manufacturer.
“To an algorithm, a gun barrel and a piece of pipe are the same grooved cylinder,” Jakub Kmošek, head of public affairs at Prusa, said in a statement to The Times. “This bill will only make it harder to build, repair, experiment, and innovate in California.”
Alan Scott, Legacy Effects’ co-founder, said 3-D printing has become central to the company’s survival in an industry where budgets are tighter and deadlines are shorter.
“Everything’s just got to be done faster these days. You don’t get to reduce the quality. We couldn’t stay in business if we weren’t 3-D printing,” Scott said.
To solve this problem, Bauer-Kahan put an entertainment industry exception in the bill, exempting “printers manufactured for and sold exclusively to entertainment industry stagecraft and propmaking studios” from the software requirement.
McBride, Legacy’s 3-D lab manager, said those printers do not really exist.
Legacy uses the same general-purpose machines available to other businesses willing to invest in the equipment, and no printers are marketed exclusively for Hollywood, he said.
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1. A 3-D printed sculpture concept at Monster City, a special effects studio in Santa Clarita. (Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times) 2. 3-D printing advocate David Tobin showcases a robotics kit at Monster City. (Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
Legacy also worries about privacy. Major studios require strict secrecy before a movie or show is released. To accommodate this, the company shares design files through encrypted servers and protected internal systems.
“We’ve invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring all that technology here under the umbrella of our NDAs and our IP protection,” McBride said.
Bauer-Kahan noted at a Senate hearing that she is working to address concerns raised by 3-D printing users and industries that rely on the technology.
Paul Powers, chief executive of Physna, a company whose technology could be used to block gun parts on 3-D printers, said the strongest criticisms of AB 2047 “misunderstand how the software works.”
“Something that vaguely looks like a gun part is not considered to be a match,” he said.
Powers also responded to surveillance concerns by clarifying that his company’s software only blocks the printer from making prohibited parts — it doesn’t flag them to authorities or log users’ intellectual property.
“There’s no communication with anyone; it doesn’t go anywhere,” he said.
But Marleen Vogelaar, chief executive of Thangs3D, a platform for independent creators to share and sell 3-D printable designs, said that answer does not resolve her broader concerns about how AB 2047 would work in practice.
“These databases will always lag behind innovation and can be easily circumvented and generate false positives that block legal designs and wrongly flag everyday makers,” she said at a Senate hearing this month. “The bill also creates serious privacy and security risks by giving third parties access to analyze designer’s files. That threatens intellectual property and adds digital surveillance in a state that values data privacy.”
If the bill passes, the state’s Department of Justice would publish a roster of compliant printers. Printers not on the list would be banned from sale or transfer in California beginning in December 2029.
Aubrey Rodriguez, a legislative advocate with American Civil Liberties Union California Action, an advocacy organization formed by the ACLU’s three affiliates in the state, said the bill would ask ordinary users, schools and businesses to accept a new layer of control based on software they still do not trust.
Rodriguez said the proposal risks creating “a permanent back door into the privacy of our own homes, ripe for exploitation.”
“Once this new infrastructure exists, it is a simple software update away from tracking political dissent or preventing 3-D printing designs deemed inappropriate,” Rodriguez said.
What was the last time you had trouble finding a specific picture you took three years ago? It usually takes around twenty minutes to find it on your phone, laptop, and external drive. And sometimes you cannot find something even in Dropbox, while you actually saved it there.
It is normal that nowadays people create hundreds of files every week and do not have a system to organize them. Vacation photos are on your phone, tax documents are on your computer, and important contracts are somewhere else. This costs you time and energy.
The good news is that you can change that. All you need is an adequate storage system that allows you to keep all your files in one place and access them from any of your devices.
This guide will help you implement it. Let’s get started!
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Before diving into the details, let us discuss why this is necessary.
If you do not have a proper system for organizing your files, you waste time trying to find them. You may also lose important memories or documents. What if your phone suddenly crashes and you do not have any backups? What if you accidentally delete an important receipt? These situations can create unnecessary stress.
However, a unified storage system solves these problems because everything is stored, backed up, and easy to find. There is also the peace of mind that comes with knowing your important files are safe.
The first step in creating a storage system is choosing a platform that suits you best.
There are several major cloud storage platforms available today, and each works differently.
Your choice of cloud storage depends on three things:
The price is not the most important factor. What matters most is choosing a service that works smoothly with your existing devices.
This is where most people fail. They do not plan their folder structure beforehand.
Create your main folders by category instead of using dates or random names. For example:
Within these main folders, create subfolders whenever needed. For photos and videos, organize them by year, then by month or event, because you will usually think, “I need that photo from July 2026.“
The most important thing is consistency. Decide on your structure, write it down somewhere, and stick to it. Whenever you upload a file, think about how you would search for it six months later.
File names are an important part of your system, although many people underestimate them. Names like “Doc1” or “IMG_002847” do not tell you anything about the file.
Create a simple naming pattern and use it consistently. Something like 2026-07-10_VacationPhotos_Day3 works much better than Vacation3.jpg.
For documents, you can use names such as:
This saves a lot of time when searching because you can quickly recognize files just by reading their names. It is also helpful when thumbnails are unavailable.
Your future self will thank you for it.
Although keeping everything in one place is convenient, different file types require different approaches.
For photos and videos, use the built-in automatic backup features available in most cloud storage services. Enable automatic uploads from your phone so your photos are backed up as soon as you take them.
For documents, use folders with version control. If you edit an important document, keep previous versions for several months before deleting them. Most storage services either do this automatically or allow you to restore older versions.
For miscellaneous files such as receipts, warranties, and manuals, simply create archive folders organized by year. You do not need a perfect system. Just scan or photograph them, save them as PDFs if needed, and upload them.
The best storage system works without requiring constant attention.
When setting up your storage service, enable automatic syncing for the folders you use most often.
For additional protection, enable version history or automatic backups for important documents. Most storage services keep older versions for at least 30 days.
Your storage system only works if you can access your files whenever you need them.
Take some time to install the storage app on all your devices, including your phone, tablet, computer, and backup devices. A little effort now can save you a lot of frustration later.
Most services also allow you to access your files through a web browser, even if you do not have the app installed. This can be very useful in an emergency.
Creating a good storage system is only half the job. Keeping it organized requires very little effort.
Once every quarter, spend about an hour doing some basic maintenance.
Just as importantly, stay consistent. Every time you save a file, spend an extra ten seconds placing it in the correct folder with the proper filename. That is much easier than reorganizing a messy folder structure later.
While organization is important, security matters too.
Make sure you understand your storage provider’s privacy policy. Enable two-factor authentication and use a strong password. These simple steps help protect your files from unauthorized access.
If you store sensitive documents such as tax returns or bank statements, remember that no online storage solution is completely risk-free. Keeping an additional backup on an external drive at home is still a good idea.
The hardest part of building any system is getting started.
Choose one storage service, spend about 30 minutes creating your folder structure and naming convention, and enable automatic photo backups on your phone.
That is all you need to do at first. Your storage system will continue to grow naturally as you use it. Within a couple of weeks, you will have a system that works well.
No more lost memories. Quick access to your documents. No more wondering where to save new files. A little effort today can save you a lot of time and stress later.
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Dassault Systèmes (DASTY) is in discussions to acquire drug trial software maker ArisGlobal from Nordic Capital for about $2 billion.
Talks between the parties are ongoing, according to a Financial Times report on Thursday, which cited people familiar with the matter. A deal