1. Spent time, electricity, and filament printing lowers and other components. He's a beginner using a $200 printer so the failure rate was probably pretty high.
2. He drove from NY to Utah
3. He haggled all day before getting paid out for only 42 of his 100 "guns"
And he thinks he's making Utah's buyback program look foolish? This guy wasted a stupendous amount of time and money.
Both filament and electricity are incredibly cheap. His main costs were time, gas, and the risk of being pulled over on his way to the buyback.[2] Instead of printing full frames (which would take longer and use more filament), he printed a bunch of auto sears, which convert a semi-auto AR-15 to full auto. By the ATF's definition, auto sears are considered machine guns, so he got $350 per machine gun. Those auto sears are tiny. I doubt he spent more than a week of printer time on the whole endeavor.
$200 printer, $5 of filament each, 150 prints (high failure rate) 20 hours of printing each, 20*150 = 3000 hours of print time (125 days), 125 days of electricity for a 3d printer running at full capacity (idk but let's call it $500 to be safe), three day's drive to utah $100/night + gas (gasbuddy says ~$400) so total $1000
total: $2450
earnings: $21,000
profit less materials/energy costs: $18,550
hourly wage for working 8 hours a day on this for 125 days: $18.55
doesn't sound like he wasted any time or money, and I assume he worked much more like 2-4 hours a day on it which would mean it payed $37-75/hour.
I don't know how much time or electricity it took, but $21k is a lot of money. I bet his profit after costs was well over $10k. Seems like pretty good money to me.
At least 38% of them are off the streets now, which is all that really matters.
Based on the overwhelming and scientifically-proven (and 4/10 doctor-recommended!) success of this program, it should be implemented everywhere, but at $750-$1,000 per gun, because more == better.
some people are incredibly indigant, eating handmedown food, feeling elated that the days work ends in exchange of 20$ worth of beer cans.
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/6/3/23153532/salt-lake-cit...
for example a 2x4 profiled to fit an AR upper, and having one [!] hole [!] drilled where the trigger group belongs, is considered a firearm; if you dont drill in to the FCG pocket you have a lower blank [not a firearm yet]