Courtesy- SDIN Twitter
INDIANAPOLIS – A Johnson County man has been charged after authorities allege he manufactured and sold untraceable firearms, including machine guns.
Alexander Clark, 26, of Franklin, was charged by criminal complaint for the federal offenses of dealing firearms without a license, possession and/or transfer of machine guns, and manufacturing machine guns.
According to court documents, in May 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) began an investigation into Clark for unlawfully manufacturing and selling privately made firearms. Over the next several months, ATF agents conducted a covert investigation and purchased several 3-D printed Glock-style firearms and devices capable of converting semiautomatic rifles to fully automatic machineguns from Clark.
A search warrant was executed at Clark’s residence on August 22, in conjunction with the criminal complaint, and Clark was subsequently arrested.
During the search of Clark’s residence, law enforcement officers supposedly seized approximately 30 firearms including several 3-D printed firearms, several “Glock switches” used to convert firearms into machine guns, a suspected fully automatic AR-15 rifle, 3-D printing filament, a laptop with a Glock frame on screen connected to a 3-D printer, and a silencer.
3-D printed firearms of this type are untraceable and are referred to as “ghost guns.” Ghost guns are unserialized, privately made firearms increasingly recovered by law enforcement at crime scenes across the country. Because ghost guns lack the serial numbers marked on other firearms, they are impossible for law enforcement to trace through the ATF’s National Tracing Center.
Clark made his initial court appearance Tuesday before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana and was ordered detained pending a hearing. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison.
