A 39-year-old man suspected of amassing an arsenal of firearms, including untraceable “ghost guns”, was found in St. Petersburg after a week-long search. He was taken into custody by St. Mary’s County authorities.

St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Jerod Adam Taylor at his home around 7 p.m. Tuesday on outstanding arrest warrants related to an investigation that began Nov. 7, when deputies first responded to a domestic assault call in Lexington Park.

During this investigation, authorities reportedly uncovered a large cache of weapons, including 80 firearms, numerous 3D-printed ghost guns, and a range of equipment used in firearms manufacturing.

In addition to the ghost guns, detectives seized a wide variety of weapons from Taylor’s home, including an AK-47, a fully automatic rifle, a short-barreled rifle, high-capacity magazines, suppressors, automatic fryers, more than 1,300 rounds of ammunition. ammunition, body armor and various weapons manufacturing tools.

Philip Bangle, Senior Litigation Counsel at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, emphasized the scale of the discovery.

“He shouldn’t have a single gun, but he has 80!” Bangle noted the dangers posed by the proliferation of ghost guns, which have no serial numbers and are difficult for law enforcement to track.

The suspect, 39-year-old Jerod Taylor, left the home before deputies arrived.

Detectives believe Taylor was collecting firearms for smuggling purposes.

Bangle said, “It is clear that it is a factory that smuggles firearms. There is no other explanation for this.”

Bangle explained that the only difference between a traditional Glock and a stealth gun is the lack of a serial number, which makes stealth guns nearly impossible to track once they enter the black market.

“Buyers are often criminals, young people and banned people,” he added.

Since 2017, ghost guns have been appearing more frequently at crime scenes.

Bangle said this trend has accelerated in recent years, noting incidents such as the 2022 shooting at Magruder High School in Maryland, where a student allegedly used a ghost gun to wound another student.

Maryland took legal action by passing a bipartisan bill banning ghost guns in the spring of 2022. But Bangle argues more needs to be done to reduce their availability.

“There’s nothing stopping a person from buying 80 to 100 to 500 ghost gun kits and setting up shop in their garage or basement,” he said.

Taylor, who has a previous criminal record for theft, is prohibited from owning a firearm.

He currently faces multiple charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm and second-degree assault.