Va. Man Did Machine Gun Conversions, ATF Alleges

Federal agents raided an Alexandria man's home and seized 75 guns after he sold three machine guns to an undercover agent beginning in April, authorities said yesterday.

John M. Walker, 50, was charged with illegally converting semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic ones, court records show. Fully automatic weapons are legal but heavily regulated. Walker was not a licensed dealer, according to Special Agent Mike Campbell of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Campbell said that people who buy such converted weapons on the black market are more likely to have criminal ideas for their use than legitimate collectors.

In March, an ATF agent met a longtime friend of Walker's who offered to connect the agent with the part-time gunsmith, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Alexandria for search and arrest warrants. The friend approached Walker and asked whether he would convert a semiautomatic Uzi submachine gun to fully automatic for another man -- the undercover agent, the affidavit said.

Walker agreed but told his friend that he did not want to deal directly with the undercover agent because converting and selling the gun could bring him "fed time" -- a federal prison sentence, court records say.

A semiautomatic fires once each time the trigger is squeezed, without having to be recocked manually. A fully automatic weapon fires continuously with only one pull of the trigger, and those who legally own such guns must undergo a more extensive background check than those involved in standard weapons transactions, Campbell said.

Walker provided the converted Uzi to his friend outside a Prince William County auto repair shop in April, the affidavit states. The gun's serial number had been obliterated. The price was not listed.

Last month, Walker sold a second converted Uzi to his friend, to be delivered to the undercover agent, and the agent provided the middleman with $2,000 for the gun, the agent's affidavit alleges. The transaction occurred in the parking lot of the Safeway on South Van Dorn Street in Alexandria, and Walker reportedly told his friend that he could provide fully automatic AK-47 assault rifles more cheaply.

On June 3, the agent met Walker at the Fuddruckers restaurant on Duke Street in Alexandria, his affidavit states. Walker told the agent that "making machine guns is something Walker started doing because Walker was a collector. Walker said he has made himself a nice collection," the agent wrote.

The agent allegedly arranged to buy a fully automatic AK-47 for $1,800 that day. On Thursday morning, the two met at Fuddruckers again to complete the transaction, Campbell said, and Walker was arrested. He was charged with illegally converting the first Uzi from semiautomatic to automatic, court records show.

Agents entered Walker's house on a cul-de-sac in the 4300 block of Utica Avenue, just south of Duke Street in the west end of Alexandria. In addition to a variety of guns, agents also seized dozens of firearm parts, Campbell said.

Investigators do not know who else Walker might have been selling to, Campbell said, although the ATF is investigating "information he may have sold a couple of firearms to other people." No determination had been made whether any of the guns seized from his house Thursday were illegal.

Campbell did not think Walker posed a threat to the neighborhood, but he said investigators would try to track whether any guns that came from Walker were used in crimes. "The people that legally buy machine guns," Campbell said, "we don't find them going out and committing crimes."