According to the Justice Department, a man from Jackson, Mississippi, was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for illegally making machine guns with 3D printers.
Kent Edward Newhouse, 41, was already convicted of a felony, making it illegal for him to possess guns. In 2022, he unlawfully acquired firearms and used 3D printers to create an “auto sear,” which converts a semi-automatic firearm into a fully automatic machine gun, according to the Justice Department. Auto sears are classified as machine firearms under federal law.
“On July 13, 2022, Newhouse sold a confidential informant a firearm and several auto-sears,” the DOJ said in a statement.
In September, Newhouse pleaded guilty to two charges of felon in possession of a firearm and one count of conducting in business as a guns maker.
Semi-automatic weapons are converted into machine guns by auto sears
The auto sears Newhouse 3D printed is a type of conversion device that converts semi-automatic firearms into machine guns that fire quickly without the need to squeeze the trigger repeatedly. They’re dime-sized metal or plastic bits that are readily mounted to the back of a semi-automatic.
Auto salvage yards are becoming more common in cities such as Louisville, according to the Courier-Journal of the USA TODAY Network. The city had 120 of the devices confiscated in the first nine months of 2022, compared to approximately a dozen in 2021 and none in 2020, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Police in the nation’s capital told The Washington Post that firearms with auto sears were being recovered more regularly in 2021; officers captured 20 that year, more than double the number recovered in 2020.
“The use of 3-D printers to unlawfully manufacture firearms, and to make devices to convert semiautomatic firearms into machine guns, poses a real and current threat to our communities,” Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent in Charge Kurt Thielhorn said when Newhouse pleaded guilty.
Democrats are focusing on machine gun conversion equipment
Congressional Democrats proposed legislation last month in the hopes of assisting authorities in preventing the importation and trafficking of conversion devices such as auto sears, as well as reporting data regarding auto sears in federal guns tracking reports.
“Gun conversion devices can turn ordinary handguns into deadly automatic weapons in less than a minute. As we grapple with the epidemic of gun violence in this country, virtually unfettered access to these types of deadly firearms is exactly what we do not need,” New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a cosponsor of the Preventing Illegal Weapons Trafficking Act of 2023, said in a statement on Monday.
According to a 2022 investigation by Vice News and The Trace, illicit auto sears were increasingly confiscated as part of federal prosecutions involving robberies, assaults, and murders.
