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Aug 09, 2023

Clay County man, YouTube celeb start federal machine gun trial together

Attorneys argued over whether two entrepreneurs marketed metal trinkets or DIY

Attorneys argued over whether two entrepreneurs marketed metal trinkets or DIY devices for illegally converting thousands of rifles into unregistered machine guns as a federal trial opened in Jacksonville.

Clay County business owner Kristopher "Justin" Ervin and YouTube creative Matthew Hoover "conspired to distribute [the items] at a massive scale," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Mesrobian told jurors seated Monday.

Prosecutors contended the pair broke the National Firearms Act, a 1934 law that restricts sales of machine guns, by promoting card-sized strips of metal that Ervin sold under the brand name Auto Key Card.

The strips were etched with a design that prosecutors said a federal agent followed with a cutting tool to create a device that turned a semiautomatic AR-15 into a fully automatic machine gun that fired round after round with a single pull on the trigger.

But defense lawyers argued the 1934 law didn't cover what their clients did, and that they ended up under indictment partly because they complain about government gun regulations.

"He's a political provocateur," attorney Zachary Zermay said of his client Hoover, a Wisconsin-based gun dealer who operates a YouTube channel with 179,000 subscribers. But he said Hoover wasn't marketing machine guns, just using his channel to help in "selling a design that essentially upset the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms."

Whether Ervin, who formed an LLC called Free Speech Industries, was selling trinkets or gun parts is a critical question because federal law treats machine gun conversion devices as being equivalent to machine guns themselves.

Defense lawyers have said Ervin was selling nicknacks that the National Firearms Act never envisioned.

"The NFA is designed to go after ‘crime weapons,’ not tchotchkes," Zermay argued last year, after Hoover was charged with conspiring with Ervin by advertising the items on segments that Ervin sponsored.

"…Mr. Hoover had no reason to believe, at any point, that he would be engaging in criminal conduct if — as alleged — he entered into an agreement with a tchotchke salesman to discuss stainless steel cards with a design on them on his YouTube channel."

Prosecutors have said they plan to call as witnesses several people who bought the items after seeing them discussed on Hoover's YouTube channel.

Ervin's AutoKeyCard.com website, which was shut down by the government, sold much of its merchandise for around $80 to $139.

If a buyer saw the card as a conversion device, it would have represented a remarkably affordable route to ownership in a gun market where a wealthy collector can spend $50,000 buying a government-registered Colt M16, a military machine gun whose design is similar to the civilian AR-15.

When Hoover was first indicted last year, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Cofer Taylor told a judge Hoover had praised the cards in one video by saying "they’re awesome because they’re stupid cheap."

Ervin hired a machine shop to make Auto Key Cards, she said at the time, estmating the total production was "likely in the 2,000-ish range."

The case has drawn attention among gun-rights advocates in a number of areas, with people donating online to funds to help both men.

A recent posting on Hoover's YouTube channel brought messages of encouragement from viewers who perceive the trial as a test on limits of federal gun regulators' authority.

"I am not religious but you are doing the lords [sic] work my dude," one viewer wrote.

"Praying all goes well for you Brother," wrote another. "If you win this , its [sic] a win for ALL OF US !!!!"

During trial preparations, U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard agreed to let lawyers question potential jurors about their attitudes toward firearms, including asking whether they believed guns were inherently bad, whether AR-15s should be banned and whether the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment should be repealed.

However Howard turned down requests from Hoover's lawyers to ask other questions that hinted at views on personal responsibility, including why people catch COVID-19 and whether opioid manufacturers are responsible for overdose deaths.

"In my view, these questions are ridiculous," Howard told the lawyers.

The trial is expected to continue through next week and might extend into a third week.