My take on 3D printed guns

[Posteritatis]

23. Just about any on the market now are single-medium sort of things

They'll print one type of material, usually one type or another of plastic in coils or other formats (though it varies), and can output some pretty intricate things at the moment. A lot of the emphasis in the designs at this point is on resolution instead of size, so there's a goal of "I want to make something as finely detailed as possible in this half cubic foot of space" going on with a lot of the designers of the printers themselves.

A couple of friends and I are planning on chipping in together on one for a few projects sometime in the next year; we're expecting to budget $2-3K for it depending on where the prices are by then, so maybe in a similar range as an entry-level set of machine shop tools (or one good lathe/drill press/etc). Someone could probably correct me on the prices there, since I'm bereft of machine shops. Basically, they're not cheap, but someone willing to put a few grand into a hobby or business would be able to keep one running.