Investigators find 3D printing workshop for ghost guns in Yuba County home
Investigators arrested three men and seized handguns and assault weapons at a Northern California home, where they found a fully operational 3D printing workshop designed to produce parts for privately manufacture firearms also known as ghost guns.
Ghost guns, which do not have serial numbers and are difficult for law enforcement officials to track, are made with firearm parts sometimes sold in kits. With limited exceptions, the sale or transfer of ownership of self-manufactured or self-assembled firearms is prohibited under California law, according to the state Department of Justice.
Earlier this month, the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department initiated an investigation into the suspected manufacturing of firearms and the illegal distribution of those weapons for sale. The sheriff’s Problem Oriented Policing team of investigators believed the guns were being made by using 3D printing technology, according to a sheriff’s news release.
Investigators on Friday served a search warrant at the home in the 1800 block of Waterfall Drive in the town of Linda, just south of Marysville. The Yuba County Probation Department helped the sheriff’s investigators serve the search warrant.
Inside the home, detectives discovered a “fully operational 3D printing workshop” with manufacturing tools, sheriff’s officials said in a news release. The investigators also found eight handguns, several 3D-printed handgun frames, four assault weapons, one rifle and various firearm parts.
Detectives arrested three Marysville men, ages 19, 27 and 38, as a result of the investigation. Sheriff’s officials said the suspects were booked at the Yuba County Jail on several firearm-related charges.
Last year, this area of Northern California witnessed the consequences of ghost guns. In December, a disgruntled man armed with a ghost gun shot two kindergartners who were seriously wounded in the campus shooting at Feather River Adventist School in Oroville.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office has said Greg Litton, 56, used a privately manufactured Glock 19 handgun to shoot the two boys before he turned the gun on himself. Investigators learned that the ghost gun used in the faith-based school shooting was sold to the gunman by a convicted felon in Arizona.
Two months before the school shooting, California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned that the ghost gun market is increasingly shifting toward “skip-the-background-check products and services.” He said this is designed to enable people to illegally produce ghost guns without any background check or other protections using 3-D printers, computer numerical control milling machines and similar ghost gun manufacturing machines.
