Police have not seized a 3D-printed gub

Tom Phillips has a BuzzFeed article about yet another non-gub:

Above is a photo of a suspected 3D-printed trigger for a gun, released by the Greater Manchester Police Department in Manchester, England. They stumbled on it while carrying out raids targeted at organised crime. The GMP said in a statement:

As part of Challenger, the largest ever multi-agency operation to target organized criminality in Manchester, officers from Greater Manchester Police executed a series of warrants in the Baguley area on 24 October 2013.
During the searches, officers found a 3D printer and what is suspected to be a 3D plastic magazine and trigger which could be fitted together to make a viable 3D gun.
It they are found to be viable components for a 3D gun, it would be the first ever seizure of this kind in the UK. The parts are now being forensically examined by firearms specialists to establish if they could construct a genuine device.

Except that almost certainly isn’t a trigger for a gun.

Take a look. It’s a “spring-loaded arm to squeeze the filament” in a printer.
Yep. That’s definitely the thing GMP are calling a “trigger”.
And that “magazine”? It’s a filament spool holder:

 

 Regardless, it's generating headlines like this:

So the GMP’s “3D printed gun” actually seems to be “3D printed parts for a 3D printer”.
And, in any case, even if they had been genuine gun parts, “a couple of 3D printed components for a gun” really isn’t the same as “a 3D printed gun” or a “gun factory”.
Certainly, it’s a world away from the nightmare scenario suggested by the GMP’s Detective Inspector Chris Mossop to Sky News: 

“In theory, the technology essentially allows offenders to produce their own guns in the privacy of their own home, which they can then supply to the criminal gangs who are causing such misery in our communities. Because they are also plastic and can avoid x-ray detection, it makes them easy to conceal and smuggle.”

That may come true at some point, but at the moment, entirely 3D-printed plastic guns that are both reliable and dangerous are closer to myth than reality.
The Greater Manchester Police are now backtracking rather rapidly; in a new statement, Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood said: 

“We need to be absolutely clear that, at that this stage, we cannot categorically say we have recovered the component parts for a 3D gun. What we have seized are items that need further forensic testing by national ballistics experts to establish whether they can be used in the construction of a genuine, viable firearm.”

Rico says this is what happens when people decide what they want to have happened in advance of it actually happening...