ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. (WFLA) – A Pasco County man was arrested this week for making a homemade gun that was used by another person last year during a domestic aggravated assault.
Deputies arrested 57-year-old Robert Wayne Miller on Thursday at his home in Zephyrhills.
According to an arrest affidavit, Miller made a gun for himself in August 2018. He told deputies he learned how to make the homemade gun from the internet and said “it was easy,” the affidavit say
Man arrested for making homemade gun in Zephyrhills
This is a head scratcher for me. Nothing in the Florida Statutes prohibits the manufacturing of a firearm. you have to go all the way to the bottom to read what he was charged with:
Miller has now been arrested for possessing, making or attempting to make any destructive device.
We know that legally a destructive device is not the same thing as a gun and it says so in the Florida statutes.
“Destructive device” means any bomb, grenade, mine, rocket, missile, pipebomb, or similar device containing an explosive, incendiary, or poison gas and includes any frangible container filled with an explosive, incendiary, explosive gas, or expanding gas, which is designed or so constructed as to explode by such filler and is capable of causing bodily harm or property damage; any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into a destructive device and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled; any device declared a destructive device by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; any type of weapon which will, is designed to, or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of any explosive and which has a barrel with a bore of one-half inch or more in diameter; and ammunition for such destructive devices, but not including shotgun shells or any other ammunition designed for use in a firearm other than a destructive device.
I looked to see if there was any information on the weapon, but it seems the Sheriff’s office will not release the information. I get the feeling that either the Pasco County LEOs went overboard or Cletus made a big ass bore pipe gun going over the half-inch, probably a potato gun run by propellant or something that would trigger an ATF agent.
It seems like that wording doesn’t exclude large bore muzzle loaders, unlike the Federal rule. Is that indeed the case?
No idea. I reckon when they mentioned ATF we would be in the same page.
according to Federal law, you can make your own gun for your own personal use. You can’t sell or transfer ti. My guess is that they are trying to bust him for something because it was used by another person but for whatever reason they can’t nail him on an illegal transfer.
Like pkoning said, that “destructive device” definition would include 12-ga shotguns (0.729-inch bore diameter, more than 1/2 inch), but not the ammunition for it (which is specifically exempted).
In fact pretty much any commonly-available shotgun other than .410 has a bore larger than a 1/2 inch (20-ga == 0.615 inch, 16-ga == 0.663 inch).
Maybe shotguns are OK because technically smokeless powder is not “explosive”; just fast-burning. However, while engineers and chemists might appreciate the distinction, it’s a difference usually lost on law-makers and law-enforcers.
Sorry but there isn’t one lick of sense in this whole story. He let the other guy “hold” the gun in a “show and tell” moment, but the other guy shoots a round into the dirt and he gets charged? How far apart are these events in time – it sounds like seconds, but could be a long time.
This sounds like prosecutors stacking charges – charge as many people as possible with as many things as possible. The guy who made the gun (assuming it is a gun) has every right to make a gun for his own use under Federal and state law. The average jury won’t know a “destructive device” is different from a gun and won’t know that making your own gun is perfectly legal and fine – which means the lawyers have to teach the jury.
This whole case sounds like it needs to be tossed.