Kansas City man charged with possessing hundreds of illegal homemade machine gun converters

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A Kansas City man has been charged in federal court with possessing hundreds of home devices that convert semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic machine guns.

The United States Department of Justice charged Dalton R. Johnston, 27, with a three-count criminal complaint filed under seal in the United States District Court in Kansas City, Missouri on Tuesday, September 24. The complaint was unsealed Friday and revealed that Johnston, according to the affidavit, was using his 3D printer to produce machine gun conversion devices. He then sold the devices to the Kansas City metro.

“The use of these devices is illegal,” said U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore. “The sale of these devices is illegal. Possessing these devices is also illegal.”

In early August, court documents show that Johnston sold 10 Glock conversion devices and an AR-style conversion device to an undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for a total of $70. He also agreed to produce and sell 100 AR-style conversion devices for $250 after the undercover agent said he would smuggle the devices into Chicago and sell them for a large profit.

On August 15, Johnston met the undercover agent in the parking lot of a Blue Ridge Cutoff gas station and handed him a clear, vacuum-sealed package containing 100 devices. He then told the agent that he could produce and sell 300 AR conversion devices for $750 in the next two weeks.

On August 30, they met in the same gas station parking lot, and court documents show that Johnston sold 300 devices. He also told the agent he could produce another 500 devices in about a week. Court documents show that Johnston told the agent he could 3D print 45 devices at a time, in a maximum of three batches per day.

Johnson was charged with three counts of possession of machine guns in connection with 3D printed machine gun conversion devices. The three charges stem from 10 conversion devices he possessed on August 2, 100 devices he possessed on August 15, and 300 devices he possessed on August 30.