Editors Note: The following press release is directly from ATF. Regular readers of AmmoLand News know our stance on the unaccountable Federal Agency: No comment. We invite our readers to leave their hard-hitting insights in the comments below.
Texas – -(AmmoLand.com)- Three men who sold a machine gun and silencer to an undercover ATF agent have been sentenced to more than 23 years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
Guy Mena, 34, and Stephen Kadlec, 39, were arrested and charged in November 2021. Mr. Kadlec plead guilty in January 2022 to transferring a firearm in violation of the National Firearms Act and was sentenced in June to two years in federal prison. Mr. Mena pleaded guilty to transferring a firearm in violation of the NFA December 2021 and, in a separate case in July 2022, to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine; he was sentenced last Thursday to a total of 14 ½ years in federal prison.
Their coconspirator Sergio Salgado, 37, was charged in May 2022. He also pleaded guilty to transferring a firearm in violation of the NFA and was sentenced in October to more than seven years in federal prison.
According to court documents, Mr. Mena offered to sell a confidential informant a firearm frame, two receivers – one semi-automatic and one fully-automatic – a silencer, and some firearm magazines for $6,000.
Accompanied by an undercover ATF agent, the confidential informant met Mr. Mena, Mr. Kadlec, and Mr. Salgado at a motel in Arlington on Nov. 18 2021. Mr. Kadlec showed the undercover agent the full-auto receiver, demonstrated how to swap the semi-auto receiver for the full-auto receiver on the firearm frame, outlined the functionality of the silencer, and explained how to toggle the selector switch to full-auto to turn the firearm into a machinegun.
(Unlike semiautomatic firearms, machineguns – weapons that can shoot more than one shot, without manual reloading, by single function of the trigger – are generally unlawful for civilians under the National Firearms Act.)
The undercover agent handed over $6,000 and departed with the firearm, receivers, silencer, and magazines. Shortly after the ATF agent left the room, Texas DPS officers observed Mr. Mena, Mr. Kadlec, and Mr. Salgado exit the hotel room and get into a vehicle; when they pulled the vehicle over, they detained the three men and recovered the government funds.
Prior to the firearm transaction, Mr. Mena had sold more than 50 grams of methamphetamine to another confidential informant out of his apartment in Abilene.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Dallas Field Division and the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted the investigation in cooperation with the Arlington Police Department, the Abilene Police Department, and the Drug Enforcement Administration’s South Central Laboratory. Assistant U.S. Attorney Levi Thomas prosecuted the firearms cases against all three defendants while Assistant U.S. Attorney Juanita Fielden prosecuted the drug case against Mr. Mena.
Dallas Field Division
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
ATF is the federal law enforcement agency responsible for investigating violations of the federal firearms and explosives laws and regulations. More information about ATF and its programs can be found at www.atf.gov.
DISINFORMATION is being spewed by the ATF/AFT! It IS NOT “unlawful” for Americans to own FULLY FUNCTIONAL AUTOMATIC WEAPONS!!!!!! According to OUR AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDERS, American Citizens CAN OWN weapons which OUR AMERICAN MILITARY uses.
I am SOOOOOooooo tired of the LIES, called disinformation, being spread by the NON-ELECTED Bureaucracy of the “atf/aft”!!!!! BESIDES, the Bureaucrats of the atf/aft CANNOT MAKE LAWS — ONLY CONGRESS can make or modify laws which does not go against the Ex-Post-Facto laws — which they are CONSTANTLY DOING!
Please do a check of the federal laws passed in 1934, 1938 and 1968. Machine guns, Silencers/Suppressors and Sawed off Shotguns have been denied widespread ownership other than the hoops required such as paying for a tax stamp, registering as a collector (machine guns) etc etc. 85 years of restrictions and, no one has successfully argued to have those laws rescinded. Do I agree? Nah – but, if those were ever repealed or rescinded – the cops would then have to Armor up to deal with the gangs and threats posed to average civilians. Back in the 30s when those… Read more »
“…denied widespread ownership” is not the same as illegal. It’s difficult, time consuming and expensive to own one, but it’s not illegal, in spite of the attentions — and intentions — of the AFT. The author of this crap obviously wishes it were illegal, but it’s not, it’s just too difficult for most people.
You must have forgot about the full automatic Bank shootout with the bank robbers, fullauto armed and with head to toe and kevle against the LAPD, or the FBI shootout down in South Florida with full automatic weapons. THAT is the time in our history when the law enforcement across our nation started getting armored up just like the military so that they could meet force with force. Also, these weapons are not restricted they’re just regulated with cumbersome paperwork a lengthy wait time and $200 price tag on top of the outrageous price of any machine gun manufactured 1986… Read more »
I see the government thugs are bragging about armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping, and violation of rights again.
“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Dallas Field Division and the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted the investigation in cooperation with the Arlington Police Department, the Abilene Police Department, and the Drug Enforcement Administration’s South Central Laboratory.”
Remember, folks, your local thugs have no problem working with the federal thugs to violate your rights.
Hunter Biden
if only. you know damn well they are not going to investigate him, but we can have hope.
Should we suck harder on the hopium pipe?
Thats what it feels like lately.
That’s how the V.P. got the job, and it weren’t no hopium pipe !
There has NEVER been a more clueless P.O.S. V.P. in the entire history of this nation… FACT !
To her it was……ROFLMAO.
did mena and kadlec get that machinegun from that police chief in adair iowa?
Excellent observation.
Hunter Biden, Ruby Ridge, Idaho, Waco Branch Davidians…………….Its time we completely dismantle and abolish the ATF, FBI, IRS and every other alphabet THUG ENTITY in OUR GOVERNMENT!
It was past time 30 years ago.
F*ck atf and their extended families!!!!
stop promoting atf! publish their home addresses.
From what I can deter,ine from this article, Mr. Mena, Mr. Kadlec, and Mr. Salgado committed a felony by illegally selling the weapons and the silencer… sounds like the ATF had them dead to rights… you do the crime, you do the time… stupidity is no excuse for committing a crime… show me how I’m wrong.
Those 3 dirtbags belong in jail- for the crank.
NFA and 10,000 other obsolete and bad laws, like “red flag” laws, and modern, expanded “terroristic threat” laws need to go into the shredder.
I’m guessing this means, we will soon see former AG Eric Holder being arrested.
In the famous words of Forest Gump – Stupid is as Stupid does. I hope the meth dealer is looking forward to many hours of playing Cornhole in the big house. Doing 14 and a half years – jeez – they’ll have to sew a drawstring into his bunghole that he can put over his shoulder and tie to his belt – keep his pooper closed…lmao. I have NO sympathy, empathy or any type of pathy for drug dealing losers.
Tweakers are a scourge, I have zero compassion for them, none. I wish I could articulate my exact thoughts about them…I don’t have the vocabulary.
Perhaps we, as better men, could hold the ethical and moral high ground, and work toward a system where the individuals invokved in this scourge are expected to serve the punishments they were assigned by our court system, withou all the other ancillary degradations?
No freezing temperstures, no lice, no rotten cabbage soup, and no sexual asssult?
Why? Prison is a cakewalk here in the USA compared to other nations. I feel NOTHING for those pieces of garbage – not their “diets”, or the exposure to elements etc..The sexual assault part? Just cut off the male members of those that assault others. Problem fixed. The rest of the “conditions”? No worse than what Infantry Soldiers deal with “downrange” for weeks on end.
You go to prison the sexual assault is going to happen that’s a given. THAT is what all the prisoners are waiting for… Fresh meat to come in the front door. The sad thing is the most idiots are well aware of this situation going on in the federal prison system yet they still go out and commit felonies? It makes you wonder if they’re not trying to get tossed into prison on purpose?