The best part about 3D printing is the maker community. It's to the point that there are 3D printers that have many 3D printed parts. That means if there is 1 3D printer out there, it will never end. Firmware and slicers and everywhere online. Microcomputers like Raspberry PI and Adruino are ubiquitous. The rest (steppers, guide rods, pulleys) are cheap and easily obtained (ie. not rare or specialized). You can then ask anyone with a printer to help out with the rest of the assembly parts like gears, joints, frames, etc. Anyone even remotely mechanically inclined can build one now.
is good progress, but back in USSR, in my factory town we had no shortage of access to any metal making equipment or materials. In fact it would take less time for a person to get comfy turning barrels than printing parts on a 3d printer (many of which are still kind of raw on calibration and support, never mind that a lot of STL files floating around are downright crap) Here are a couple of real dangers that we see here repeating:
1. Access to information. Yes, there is info and plenty of it, but most of it is crap, garbage that would get you injured sooner than be effective against someone else. As soon as you start to seek out the right information and "experimenting", there will be comrades "investigating" you and your intent. This is already happening. Not so much with firearms, but bigger "devices" 100%, people would rat you out, we have big enough domestic "terror" apparatus that takes priority to investigate its own citizens more than foreign spies.
2. Mentality. Government is no longer by the people, it's its own, living entity that tries to protect itself from actual honest elections and change to its corrupt schemes. This focuses on brainwashing people that elections are legit and you actually have a voice. I shit you not, even at the height of USSR, you can register your own party and have people "vote" for it. Of course you'll have no chance in hell and eventually you'll end up committed into a phsych ward, which would make sure that you ARE crazy. But the bottom line, any doubts of legitimacy of the commie government were swiftly dealt with total ridicule, alienation from society/cancellation, dismissal from work ... rings any bells with today's climate?
I can see that more makers are getting into verifying online anonymous identities and trying to streamline building into a more reliable process, and unfortunately they are being hounded and threatened by the state for it. The second issue, you can't print your way out of that, there are changes to American way of life and turning further into police state without alternatives or representation.