By: Scott Thomas Anderson
‘Ghost guns’ have been used in numerous mass-casualty events in California in the last nine years, while altered automatic weapons continue to inflict a tally of tragedies in neighborhoods suffering from gang violence. Federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – the ATF – have been launching operations in Sacramento aimed at getting those illegal weapons off the streets. Recently, working with detectives from El Dorado County, the ATF arrested two men on charges of trafficking machine guns and ghost guns from Florin Road to quiet corners of the foothills.
A newly filed affidavit revealed the investigation was triggered by a “mercenary paid informant” who’d been working with law enforcement, being arrested himself for a violent felony. Now, if Andrew Tuma and Juan Manriquez are convicted of federal gun-running charges, that will have come from the type of strange but common bedfellows that often pull dangerous weapons out of the crime world.
The investigation into Tuma and Manriquez first gained momentum on July 28, 2021, when detectives for the Western El Dorado Narcotics Task Force were allegedly able to get their confidential informant to buy an AR-15 from the former. Charging documents claim Tuma handed the informant a rifle that was converted with a full-auto switch. Gun reformers already attempt to characterize the AR-15 as an assault rifle – though, sold in its legal form, the gun can only fire as fast and as many times as someone can pull the trigger. The alterations that Tuma reportedly made to this particular AR-15, however, turned the weapon into a legitimate machine gun.