It's a mill. Doesn't "print", it's a subtractive process... give it a block of metal and it cuts away the pieces you don't want.

Because that's what the machine is designed for, as advertised by Defense Distributed?

It's not like Wired has never talked about general purpose CNC mills before.

> $1200 machine that can print arbitrary metal objects

It's nothing like that. This specifically designed to drill holes in gun parts and do only that.

CNC mills and metal 3d printers do exist but they are quite a bit more expensive than this.

The journalist focused on the purpose for which the machine was built, which is expressly making parts for guns.