American craftsman sentenced to 8 years in prison for creating weapons with a 3D printer 0 167

A federal district court in Texas sentenced 42-year-old Eric McGinnis to eight years in prison for possessing an unregistered rifle and ammunition. McGinnis could not and did not want to register them because he deliberately deceived the law, creating a dangerous precedent. He does not consider himself guilty because he "did not buy prohibited items, but printed them himself."

After a violent argument with his girlfriend, McGinnis received a sentence that included a two-year ban on firearm possession. This is a serious challenge for a resident of the most armed state in the U.S., but all attempts to buy not even a weapon, but parts to secretly assemble a rifle, failed. McGinnis realized that as long as his name was in the database, this path was closed to him. So he bought a 3D printer and began studying the schematics for printed weapons.

Using both printed parts and those he machined himself, McGinnis assembled a rifle structurally similar to an AR-15. The ammunition was leftover from his past life, and he went to the woods to test his creation. Unfortunately for the craftsman, the shots attracted police attention, who arrested the shooter and confiscated his homemade weapon. McGinnis was let down by his impulsiveness—he had only a month left until the end of the ban.

Theoretically, an experienced lawyer could have tangled the case by exploiting a loophole in the legislation. McGinnis did indeed deceive justice by bypassing the background check procedure when acquiring the weapon. However, the ban applied to possession, not acquisition of firearms, and he was also found with a terrorist pamphlet calling for the extermination of American officials. Moreover, in his attempts to justify himself, the Texan said too much, lying to the police about his status as an FBI agent and an order to test a weapon prototype. As a result, the two-year ban on firearm possession turned into eight years in prison.