3D printed guns send man to prison

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This article was published 13/11/2022 (911 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A tearful day in Steinbach provincial court last Thursday ended with an RM of Hanover man sent to prison for manufacturing 3D-printed firearms last year.

Ryan Buhler, 35, was sentenced to three years of incarceration, the mandatory minimum, after pleading guilty to trafficking illegal firearms. Buhler entered his plea in a courtroom packed with family and friends.

“I will continue to seek forgiveness for the actions of others and of myself,” he told Judge Larry Allen during the two-hour sentencing.

“This is tragic,” Allen said during sentencing, stopping at times to catch his words. Crying was heard throughout the gallery during sentencing.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the support that you two men have.”

Buhler’s brother-in-law, Kyle Kasdorf, was sentenced the same day for illegally transferring a firearm. Court heard Buhler asked Kasdorf to buy him a rifle using his possession and acquisition licence (PAL) because Buhler’s had expired in 2019.

Kasdorf received a four-month conditional sentence for giving Buhler the non-restricted firearm.

In September 2021, the Canadian Border Services Agency intercepted a package in Mississauga, Ont. destined for Buhler. The agency deemed it mis-declared and, later, suspicious. Labelled as “furniture brackets,” the package contained various metal gun parts.

In December 2021, after further investigation, the CBSA and RCMP searched Buhler’s home and found firearms in his possession, for which he did not have a licence, and a 3D printer. A confession by Buhler led investigators to search an attic in an outbuilding on his property which yielded two 3D-printed handguns.

Crown attorney Adam Bergen said 3D-printed guns are “relatively unusual” in the province.

“Recently it has almost always been in the context of a sawed off-type of firearm,” he told court, adding nowadays police across the province are seizing handguns on a near-daily basis.

In 2020, the CBSA reported seizing 548 illegal guns, while in 2021, the Winnipeg Police Service seized more than 1,300 firearms, 850 of which they called “crime guns.”

Bergen said 3D-printed guns are especially dangerous because they are unregistered, unregulated, and untraceable.

“They exist outside the scope of any regulatory scheme.”

While buying parts for a gun isn’t illegal, combining the parts with 3D-printed parts to make an illicit firearm is. Buhler printed two frames for a Glock-type handgun, the most common type of semi-automatic pistol.

Court heard Buhler successfully fired rounds of ammunition from one gun while the other was not yet fully-functional as the remaining parts for it were seized by CBSA, which triggered the initial investigation.

Further searches of Buhler’s property included his computer. Investigators found inquiries to the company Buhler purchased the gun parts from asking for the status of his shipment, while a search term of “warrant for my arrest illegal package” was also found. Buhler allegedly typed the search on Dec. 7, 2021, less than 10 days before his arrest.

Buhler’s lawyer, Ryan Amy, said his client liked to build things as a child, fostering a curiosity that continued in adulthood, and had no intention to sell or give away the manufactured firearms.

Bergen said the accused should have tinkered elsewhere.

“There’s the fact that there’s not one, but two firearms. So Mr. Buhler, having satisfied his curiosity as to whether or not he could perhaps create a firearm from scratch in this fashion, didn’t stop at one,” he said.

Allen was sympathetic toward Buhler and Kasdorf, saying they were good men who made a few bad decisions. He asked their supporters to stay by their sides.

“The support that all of you are feeling right now has to go to [Buhler] because now he’s got a mountain to climb,” Allen told the crowd.

Facts presented in court show Buhler applied to renew his PAL in July 2021. His new license came in the mail in January 2022, one month after his arrest.