I read about this a week or so ago. First, I don't think this is an overreach. I'm very constitutional in my politics: Limited Government! Enumerated powers! States rights! etc. That said, one of the few areas where I think the government getting involved, is when it comes to true, legitimate, and critical safety issues. So in this case, I think such legislation is ok, and should improve safety across the board. The only thing I hope, is that its done properly, and not with some kind of weird twist or corruption that somehow creates a profit center for one particular individual or entity or anything like that.
Segue from that...one of the reasons I don't own a SawStop, is because the guy who patented all the technology that (in particular) makes detecting anything that would warrant breaking the blade (however that may be done, there are different approaches, I prefer Bosch's design as it is non-destructive), once he held all the patents, lobbied to get laws passed to force the technology on everyone, which would have been a major windfall for him. If he had patented the technology then made it cost-effective for everyone to use it, and encouraged its use that way, that would have been one thing, but to try and influence law and get laws passed that would force his patented technology on everyone, is beyond the pale IMO. Thankfully, most of his patents are expired, the remaining are going to be expired by 2026 (AFAICT), so the market will have the freedom to not only PROVIDE table saw safety, but also INNOVATE without all the risks of patent lawsuits that have stifled the industry for the last 20 some years. It also appears that SawStop, now that their patents are all but expired already anyway, is "giving" one of the key patents to the industry for free (for the next two years that it will apply at most anyway.)
If we hadn't had a patent lawyer come along, during an era of very lax patent application rules allowing for overly-broad patents to be filed and granted, and then try to strong-arm the industry into buying and using said technology, that was being sold at an exorbitant rate (8%, which was clearly too much for the industry to swallow), table saw safety would have probably been a natural, organic occurrence that came into the market on its own over the last 20 years...and would have been in most table saws by now anyway, given its something people definitely want (maybe not all, the smaller job site saws probably wouldn't have seen any kind of organic adoption of safety technology except as a premium option, I figure.) Legislation might not have been needed.
EDIT:
Just got to the end part of the video in the OP. The point he makes about potential lawsuits if you let someone else use your old table saw that does not have flesh sensing tech. Now that, is the kind of problem that I think government regulations create when they don't think things through. There should be an exception for all old table saws that prevents such lawsuits from occurring...it should not become the liability of an owner of an older table saw to deal with an unsafe user.
