Re your post 22, I know this is certainly debatable but I think you may be disregarding this statement in the article: “It’s more accurate to say we’ve come a long way toward rendering such laws moot, and easily bypassed by even those with limited technical skills.”
Not too many people have your technical skills and that seems to me to be the point. I can appreciate your stance that these machines are extremely expensive but I think it’s important and any Joe Blow with the funds can buy one and make his firearms with ease.
Sloppy of me. It should be “that any Joe Blow...”
You wrote an excellent argument about less technical skills being required for making a firearm, BTW. It is true that even if doing so were illegal, criminals would do as they wish.