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Man With 3-D-Printed Gun Had Hit List of Lawmakers, US Says (nytimes.com)
A Dallas man was sentenced to eight years in prison on Wednesday after the authorities caught him with a partially 3-D-printed rifle and what federal prosecutors described as a hit list of lawmakers in his backpack. From a report: The man, Eric Gerard McGinnis, had been under a court order that prohibited him from possessing a firearm when he was discovered to have had the partially printed AR-15-style rifle in July 2017, according to a statement from the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas. Mr. McGinnis, 43, was charged with possession of an unregistered firearm and possession of ammunition by a prohibited person, prosecutors said. A jury later convicted him on both counts.
Prosecutors said in their statement that police officers had arrested Mr. McGinnis after hearing three shots he had apparently fired in a wooded area just outside of Dallas. They also discovered a list in his backpack labeled "9/11/2001 list of American Terrorists." The list included the office and home addresses of "several federal lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican," the statement said. Prosecutors did not reveal the names on Mr. McGinnis's list, but at the sentencing hearing on Wednesday they disclosed that a forensic analysis of his electronic devices suggested that Mr. McGinnis "had a strong interest" in James T. Hodgkinson, the man who the authorities say shot and wounded Representative Steve Scalise and several others at a congressional baseball practice in June 2017.
Prosecutors said in their statement that police officers had arrested Mr. McGinnis after hearing three shots he had apparently fired in a wooded area just outside of Dallas. They also discovered a list in his backpack labeled "9/11/2001 list of American Terrorists." The list included the office and home addresses of "several federal lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican," the statement said. Prosecutors did not reveal the names on Mr. McGinnis's list, but at the sentencing hearing on Wednesday they disclosed that a forensic analysis of his electronic devices suggested that Mr. McGinnis "had a strong interest" in James T. Hodgkinson, the man who the authorities say shot and wounded Representative Steve Scalise and several others at a congressional baseball practice in June 2017.
>> James T. Hodgkinson, the man who the authorities say shot and wounded Representative Steve Scalise
I didn't realize there was any doubt about this.
I suspect this was a machined lower - possibly using a ghost-gunner.
CNC machines, while computer-controlled and similar in utility, are not really 3d printers. A 3d printer is generally an "additive manufacturing" device, whereas a CNC machine is subtractive.
Texas has no gun registration laws and it's not illegal to manufacture your own gun or gun parts...
I have a 3D printer. When talking about it with someone new, the first question is almost always something along the lines of, "Have you printed a gun yet?"
No. No I haven't.
You know that they do.
ATF agent: “Controls to determine if an individual is prohibited from purchasing firearms and ammunition worked.”
For significantly poor definitions of working.
here we go again with the 3D printed guns crap...
He's innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, no matter the amount of pre-trial coverage
There is no meaningful dispute as to whether he was the shooter. Guilt or innocence in a court of law is an entirely separate discussion. He could in principle be found innocent despite there being no dispute as to whether he committed the acts for which he was arrested.
He could have saved some time and money if he had seen "The Jackel" where the antagonist cuts up a chopping block to make a nylon zip gun. How did he think he was going to get the rounds through the metal detectors with all of that brass and lead? He would have an easier time buying a truck and driving it through their collective houses as there is no waiting period or background check.
I thought this was TX, and I don't believe you have to 'register' your firearms there, right?
Texas generally is pretty relaxed about gun ownership (shocking I know) but in some cases they do require registration according to federal laws.
Specifically
"Texas Penal Code Section 46.05 requires that "explosive weapons", "machine guns", "short-barrel firearms", and "firearm silencers", as defined in Section 46.01, be "registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or classified as a curio or relic by the United States Department of Justice". Prior to May 22nd 2015, Section 46.05 called "registration pursuant to the National Firearms Act" a "defense to prosecution".
Anyway, with that in mind, I'm curious of the law they convicted him of on that front.
I think what happened was that he was legally barred from possessing firearms due to a 2015 court order. Didn't matter how the firearm was acquired, he wasn't allowed to have it due to prior convictions.
Texas has no gun registration laws
Not entirely true. Texas law is fairly relaxed on gun registration but there are some types required to registered to comply with federal law. Gun registration was not the issue here. He wasn't allowed to possess a gun of any description due to a 2015 court order.
and it's not illegal to manufacture your own gun or gun parts...
Generally true though here are some legal issues and they cannot make one that cannot be detected by metal detectors or similar scanning devices. Despite personal use manufacture largely being permitted legally it does not permit someone prohibited from possessing a firearm to carry one which seem to be the case here.
Contradiction: Did he have a partially "printed" (rather "milled") firearm or was it a completed one? If it was an incomplete firearm, how did he manage to fire it?
He printed the lower receiver, which is the controlled part of the rifle. He then completed assembling the rifle using commercially produced parts. Hence "partially printed" = not all the parts were 3D printed
Producing a firearm (milling the receiver) is not illegal (https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/does-individual-need-license-make-firearm-personal-use) - but possessing one is. He was convicted of illegal manufacturing among other things. Why?
The article doesn't say he was convicted of illegal manufacturing, but according to another article, he *was* convicted of possessing a unregistered Short-Barreled Rifle. Manufacturing an unregistered SBR is usually a separate offense.
Show me on the 1st Amendment bobblehead where the moderator touched you...
If the system works, why didn't anyone follow up on the prohibited person trying to buy a gun until he could already build his own?
Show me on the 1st Amendment bobblehead where the moderator touched you...
He would have printed more, but the cyan cartridge ran out and the printer wouldn't print the rest of the gun.
That could've been the end of legal unrestricted 3D printing right there!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
How can someone who live in a properous country such as the US, end up like an idea like printing a gun and killing a few lawmakers....
Crazy people are in every country. The US is no exception. Prosperity does not change this fact.
I mean, you have to realise that doing that wont solve anything.... even if you killed a few lawmakers they would be replaced by someone else who would most probably continue his work.
Logic does not mean much to someone who is mentally unstable or otherwise incapable of reason. Stop trying to figure out how he logically could have behaved the way he did because logic had little to do with it. His brain was not functioning in a healthy manner.
The real problem is that it's very difficult to identify people like this in advance in an accurate, objective, and fair way so that you can keep firearms out of their hands. Many gun rights advocates like to say we should be dealing with mental health rather than restricting gun possession to improve safety. This is a reasonable and logical argument from a false premise because it presumes we can accurately identify individuals who are not mentally well prior to them acting in a manner that shows them to be a danger either to others or to themselves. We demonstrably cannot do this - no one can unless we develop mind reading technology. By the time they pull a trigger, it's far too late but we have no means to help them all earlier.
How bad can it get in the US?
If history is any judge, pretty bad. While in general the US is a very safe place to live, there are places you definitely don't want to be. While unlikely, your chances of dying by firearm in the US are quite a bit higher than most large industrialized nations. We can debate the reasons for this but the fact remains that your odds of dying from a firearm are alarmingly high and dealing with the problem rationally is politically challenging.
Where's he get the gun, since it was illegal for him to buy it? Will the seller be charged?
The 3-D printed aspect is stupid, he 3-D printed attachments to a gun, the headline leads one to believe he 3-D printed himself a gun, but hey, it's a msmash story, so inaccurate/misleading headlines are the norm... sadly.
Ken
He had a bipartisan hit list, he honestly could just have been fed up with politicians no matter their party affiliation.
Ken
Crazy doesn't separate by nation. There are always crazy people. always.
He'll never be found innocent in a court of law, they don't assess innocence in a court of law just whether or not he is guilty.
They absolutely do assess innocence in a court of law. In fact it is the default presumption under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is firmly established from the US Constitution via the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments as well as extensive case law. The entire point of a court is to determine guilt or innocence insofar as that is possible. If the accused is not found guilty then by default they are considered innocent. You can get pedantic about the distinction between "not guilty" and "innocent" but de-facto they have the same outcome so it's a distinction without a difference. If they aren't found guilty then they are de-facto innocent as a practical matter. This is true even if they acknowledge having committed the act leading the the indictment.
To be clear the court is assessing whether there is sufficient evidence to find a violation of a law. If insufficient evidence is presented then the accused is considered innocent. Being guilty of a act is not necessarily the same as being guilty of a crime.
That said, there is meaningful dispute as to whether he was the shooter or not.
No there is not. Every bit of available evidence points to him being the shooter and there is no credible evidence to the contrary. If you have such evidence please post it and I'll reconsider.
Now before you go saying anything about crazy conspiracy. I'm not alleging or asserting any of that or trying to raise any suspicion.I'm invoking the general principle of trying to always keep an open mind.
Hogwash. You are invoking some serious tin-foil hat stuff to try to make a weak point. We can keep an open mind about his guilt in the incident and we can keep an open mind about where the evidence leads and what to do with it. But I'm not about to play stupid and pretend that every bit of evidence does anything except point to this man having committed this violent act.
Even if convicted in a court of law it is better to view it as the court or jury finding him guilty than "he did it."
Nobody is disputing whether or not he did it. Guilt in the crime is a separate discussion though a moot one given that he died.
The system doesn't work that well. The NICS system allows for blocking thousands of requests all over the map every day. Following up would require the handful of federal agents to manually investigate. The brutal reality is there just aren't that many people killed in this manner, if it weren't a highly politicized thing we wouldn't hear about every case where someone is probably even on local news.
I believe it was the being killed while allegedly shooting a congress critter part which led to search. I could be wrong though.
"Producing a firearm (milling the receiver) is not illegal (https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/does-individual-need-license-make-firearm-personal-use) - but possessing one is. He was convicted of illegal manufacturing among other things. Why?"
He printed a lower and assembled it into a short-barrel rifle, an SBR can be made for personal use but does require a serial, registration with the BATFE and paying of a tax as an NFA firearm. He was nailed by Texas rather than feds because Texas has a statute requiring you to follow the NFA requirements and it explicitly mentioned the requirement for SBRs.
"By pure coincidence, a cop is nearby and despite this being Texas the gun-friendly state finds three shots somewhere in the woods noteworthy enough to investigate and despite this being Texas the big state also manages to find and arrest that exact guy."
That wouldn't really be that big a coincidence. Where I grew up in IL nobody cared too much about what farmers would do on their own land but if you were shooting off rounds there was still a good chance you'd encounter a sheriff or more likely a ranger who you will find out with a quickness is also a state police officer and can bust you for more than just hunting. In general rangers aren't as gung ho to bust everybody for everything (especially the ones who police wilds outside of actual parks) but they will get their panties in a twist rather quickly when it comes to being a jackass with a firearm.
A better headline would have been:
"Today a man was imprisoned in Texas for the unlawful possession of an unregistered NFA firearm along with a list of potential targets which included lawmakers."
The 3D printed component isn't particularly notable.
The NICS system allows for blocking thousands of requests all over the map every day. Following up would require the handful of federal agents to manually investigate.
It would help if local law enforcement picked up some of the slack, since most (if not all) states have laws allowing them to arrest people for federal offenses. If someone lies on their 4473 and says they're not a felon when in fact they are, that in itself is a federal felony, but it's almost never prosecuted. I think it'd be a much better use of local tax dollars to have a county deputy that spends his day going by gun shops to check this kind of thing out, instead of sitting in his car in the highway median clocking people and writing a ticket every 20 minutes. Of course, one activity brings money in and the other one doesn't, so....
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I guarantee you that a lot of people without 3D printed guns have hit lists of lawmakers. 65,853,514 likely have one with at least one name on it.
You appear to be be strongly on one political side on this topic. The odd thing is I can't actually tell *which* side you are strongly on. Would you care to enlighten me?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
>"The 3D printed component isn't particularly notable."
Indeed. But neither is having an "unregistered" firearm notable. The only thing that is the real issue is that he was not legally allowed to POSSES a firearm at all. It doesn't matter how he obtained it- made it, borrowed it, bought it from a dealer (that would have been very difficult), got it as a gift, found it; it was illegal in his case no matter what.
I thought you were supposed to carry a gun for exactly this purpose.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
We'll see.
There are few plans circulating for '3D-printed AR-15' weapons. There are none to be trusted. Now, if this was actually a partial lower based weapon, that's not '3D-printed'. That's machining, no matter the techniques. And those also need not be registered, unless a short barrel or other modifications make it necessary under law. Even in Texas.
This would be a useful story line to begin work on banning 3d-printing guns, and that's a great debate. Essentially, another example of how something that was permitted becomes possible, and thus becomes unacceptable - banned. Like access to public court records, as a weird but adequate example.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
...with the truth floating on top...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Registration of NFA firearms is a requirement under federal law, following that federal law is a requirement of texas state law and that is what the man was convicted of. So yes, it is what is most at issue here.
"I think it'd be a much better use of local tax dollars to have a county deputy that spends his day going by gun shops to check this kind of thing out, instead of sitting in his car in the highway median clocking people and writing a ticket every 20 minutes."
I disagree. The fact is he'll save a hell of a lot more lives giving out those tickets. He could chase down felons seeking out guns everytime it happens for 10 years and not prevent the number of deaths and injuries that occur on a major highway in a month. Course, ticketing like that would be more likely to be a state trooper, Deputies are usually occupied with serving papers.
The fact is he'll save a hell of a lot more lives giving out those tickets. He could chase down felons seeking out guns everytime it happens for 10 years and not prevent the number of deaths and injuries that occur on a major highway in a month.
Maybe, and it depends on the locality. Around where I live, largely because we have a demographic whose age skews towards the 70s and 80s, far fewer people are hurt or die from speeding than are injured/killed on surface streets and other local roads because people don't observe traffic signals and/or pull out into traffic without looking. I've watched the police sit in the aforementioned median clocking people and totally ignore someone blowing a red light a couple hundred feet away within sight of the officer, and I can name at least five intersections in my town where if they chose to focus their enforcement there, the police could write at least 5 citations per hour just for that. On the nearby interstate, we have about 2-3 fatal accidents per month in my county. The overwhelming cause? Not speeding, but performing lane changes without due care, drunken driving, and inattentiveness. Abuse of speeding citations for revenue generation got to be so bad in my state that the legislature changed the law such that speeding up to 5 mph over the limit is not legally ticketable, and up to 9 mph only carries a $25 fine, with a $100 fine at 10 mph over.
Felonies are generally considered to be much more serious crimes than civil infractions, yet in this case the priority is reversed. If the crime is truly serious and detrimental enough to society to be considered a felony, then IMO it either needs to be investigated and prosecuted with the effort appropriate to a felony, or it needs to *not be* a felony.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
s/crimes/offenses
Civil infractions aren't crimes, I know. :-)
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas