I own a cubify printer. It lacks DRM. I can and have gleefully printed out all manner of self-created items, as well as other things downloaded elsewhere. You can, in fact, buy items from their store. You pay per item if you have them print the item and send it to you(which is fair). You can also buy the model file if the author has chosen to offer it for sale(as I do).

cubify.com offers for sale multiple kinds of 3d printed shoes. One of the types does in fact come with the printer, and can be printed yourself. Crocs are pretty obviously created out of only one material. And, on top of all of this, 3d printers that do multiple materials are already being made. It isn't AS easy, but it's certainly possible. Last, but not least, it's entirely possible to do single print jobs of a single material, then assemble the final thing into a composite item. I've done this.

I was certainly consider McCain until his vp selection, yes. As soon as I researched Palin, though, I knew I couldn't vote for him. Not merely because Palin would be bad if she got into power....but because such a remarkably poor choice called into question Cain's judgement. Presidents have to appoint rather a lot of people. If he's doing that badly for veep, how bad a job is he gonna do on all of them?

Trust not based on past actions is folly, though.

The issue is, it's a lot easier to do that directly with the gun than with the printer. Making a reprap requires some fairly accurate stepper motors, access to a RL friend with one to print out bits for you, and a pretty decent, and fairly specific shopping list from the hardware store. A simple firearm basically requires some pipe and a nail. I'm fairly technically grounded, but I opted to get a pre-made 3d printer myself for the same reason that I didn't make my own AR...it's bloody time consuming to do them right. Now, I've explored the overlap of these fields...and it IS interesting, but it's interesting in the same way as replicating a calculator in minecraft.

Operating a purpose built loader mostly involves refilling tubes and pulling a lever a lot. Printing still requires a pretty decent degree of skill. I popped on to thingverse, and downloaded the AR mag everyone was talking 'bout a while back. When I printed it, the pieces didn't actually fit. It didn't include a spring. The shell didn't fit into my magwell. So yeah, I crafted up a plastic spring(no biggie), and made some size adjustments, and I'm sure I can get it printing...but in the end, that's a lot of work for a plastic five round mag when I can grab a 30 round mag in most places for $7. It's not really an issue. Ammunition printing is vastly more pie-in-the-sky, since arbitrarily mixing together materials is a ways off from home 3d printing at the moment.

No such printer exists yet, and there are notable obstacles to such a thing ever existing. Reprap, etc can print a substantial fraction of their pieces, which is great for availability and cost, but at least a trip to a well stocked hardware store will be in order. And frankly, you can just build a gun with a trip to a well stocked hardware store.

Oh, this is already a thing. Standard residential grade lock quality keys have already been printed, and fully working printable padlocks are already a thing. However, making purely mechanical keys is already pretty common tech.

Which is basically a nothing organization...so its a fair question.

Agreed. This whole thing is really more political statement than it is practical development. If you look over defense distributed's site, the political aspects are pretty well filled out(including a "manifesto"), but technical document appear to be wildly lacking. Their wiki had three pages. A main page, a blank page with a title, and something popped in by a spambot when I checked it out about a week ago. It's almost as if they saw the media bits about printing guns, and decided to tag along with this for political gain, but have no idea what is actually involved.

That sounds ridiculously limiting. Hollow components are a pretty common 3d printer thing. In addition to the utility aspect of this, it's really common to make hollow innards simply to reduce plastic use.

I'm not sure that it actually will be misused. Printing a gun requires notable access to a 3d printer, a certain degree of cost, patience, and a certain degree of skill with the system. Anyone with that sort of patience certainly isn't committing an impulse crime, and if he's got that skillset, he's probably not likely to be a career violent criminal. I suspect this whole thing is more of media fodder than anything else.

It's not an exceptionally large part, really. China's the "very large part" you really want to blame.

Of note is that while this is fundamentally accurate, Romney is by far the wordier of the two. Interesting, at any rate.

It's not that poor of a chance. The top quintile of earners in the US mostly(61%) originate from the lower quintiles. Only four of the top ten wealthiest individuals in the united states had parents describable as wealthy.