A 28-year-old Atlanta man will spend the next 15 years in federal prison after a Fulton County traffic stop turned up hundreds of fentanyl pills, more than $10,000 in cash, and a handgun illegally converted into a machine gun. Reginald Pierce also tried to run from investigators during that stop and tackled a Fulton County Sheriff’s Office investigator before he was taken into custody.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee formally sentenced Pierce to 15 years in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release on July 30, according to CBS News. The sentencing capped a case that began on May 30, 2023, when Pierce was stopped as a passenger in a vehicle in Fulton County, as reported by WSB-TV. Both the ATF and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office were involved in investigating Pierce.
Investigators recovered 469 fentanyl pills, methamphetamine pills, oxycodone pills, and $10,020 in cash in and near the vehicle, per the station’s report. They also found an illegally converted fully automatic pistol in Pierce’s pants pocket. Pierce attempted to flee the stop and tackled a sheriff’s office investigator before he was taken down and arrested, the outlet reported.
A Handgun Turned Machine Gun
The pistol pulled from Pierce’s pocket had been fitted with a conversion device, sometimes called a Glock switch, that allows a standard semi-automatic handgun to fire continuously with a single trigger pull. According to the ATF, such devices can push a converted weapon to discharge roughly 15 rounds in two seconds, and they are legally classified as machine guns under the National Firearms Act even before they are attached to a firearm. Benjamin Gibbons, special agent in charge of the ATF’s Atlanta Field Division, said machine gun conversion devices transform firearms into exceptionally dangerous weapons that have no place in communities, per the same account…