3D printing is currently at a very crude scale.
Nano-tech will eventually allow 3D printers to operate at a molecular level. When the tech allows manipulation at the nano scale the guns created by 3D printers will be the sturdiest guns ever made.
3D printers will morph into desktop assemblers able to make drugs, guns, food, biological tissue, extremely complex electronic devices and things we can’t even imagine yet.
Liberals/progressives/socialists/communists will all be against this technology since it liberates ordinary people (the unwashed masses) from any dependence on central government.
Imagine what this does to all those stocks of companies that these congressment are exempt from insider trading laws.
3d printing changes all of production.
I put on some hip waders and saw what the DU crowd was going with this story. They want to treat the CAD files for guns like kiddie porn. When the molecular compound variety of printers come around, the Nerf World nazis here will want the same treatment for printed drug files. Both will gleefully hand the feds more power than we can imagine to criminalize this technology...for the children of course, since neither side really wants to do any real hands-on parenting. Neither side is even remotely interested in freedom.