9 members of gun trafficking ring arrested in Montgomery County: DA

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - The Montgomery District Attorney and the Pennsylvania Attorney General say their investigators have broken up a gun-running ring moving illegal, lethal weapons onto the streets.

On tables in the offices of the Montgomery D.A., illegal guns, alongside the devices turning them into rapid fire weapons and even the 3-D printers used to make their parts.

D.A. Kevin Steele, backed by the region's law enforcement leaders, displayed the firearms as he announced the takedown of an alleged gun trafficking ring and urged the legislature to help him. Speaking in an early afternoon press conference in Norristown, Steele said, "you have semi-automatic weapons. You have suppressors- -so what is being put out there are silent machine guns."

Steele said the 9-member organization, operating out of a storage unit and homes in Pottstown and Boyertown, and allegedly led by 28-year-old Lucas Groff, trafficked in store-bought firearms, produced, and sold 3-D printed ghost guns, silencers, and "switches" able to turn a firearm into machine guns. He showed reporters a video recording of a firearm with a switch rapidly firing bullets to make his point.

Pa. Attorney General Michelle Henry said, "not just guns, guns designed to kill with optimum efficiency and to be less detectable to law enforcement."

Steele said because the 3-D printed components have no serial numbers it’s nearly impossible to track them. And while 17 of the 31 store-bought weapons were recovered, others have been found in the hands of a felon not allowed to possess a firearm or fire in road rage incidents. Holding up a firearm with a switch on it he said, "attached to a gun in Pa. this is a charge. This isn’t."

Steele and the Attorney General nearly begged the Pa legislature to make "switches" illegal, similar to federal law, and shield the public from the mayhem they bring.