{"id":140147,"date":"2026-01-27T19:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/140147\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:46:17","slug":"round-rock-man-sentenced-to-30-months-for-possessing-illegal-machinegun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/140147\/","title":{"rendered":"Round Rock Man Sentenced to 30 Months for Possessing Illegal Machinegun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/texasborderbusiness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Miacinegun.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"556\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Miacinegun-1024x556.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-201875\"  \/><\/a>According to court documents, Ashton Blake Donaldson, 22, knowingly built an illegal machinegun\u2014specifically a fully-automatic .300 AAC Blackout caliber AR-platform pistol\u2014and kept it in a commercial storage unit that he used and controlled. Image for illustration purposes<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-8909c860ad24d4e9d5364cfdd0e56ce8\">Texas Borer Business<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Advertisement &#8211;<a data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/texasborderbusiness.com\/linkout\/190261\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"notrack\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"ZAMBRANO\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/JESSE-ZAMBRANO-ARTICLE-INLINE-AUG-728x160-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"160\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, Western District of Texas<\/p>\n<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0A Round Rock man was sentenced in a federal court in Austin to 30 months in prison for possession of a machinegun.<\/p>\n<p>According to court documents, Ashton Blake Donaldson, 22, knowingly built an illegal machinegun\u2014specifically a fully-automatic .300 AAC Blackout caliber AR-platform pistol\u2014and kept it in a commercial storage unit that he used and controlled.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Advertisement &#8211;<a data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/texasborderbusiness.com\/linkout\/197392\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"notrack\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"COSTEP\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/COSTEP-inline-Dec-2025.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"160\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Donaldson was arrested on May 22, 2025, after he sold multiple privately manufactured machineguns to an undercover agent. He was charged with two counts of possession and transfer of a machinegun and one count of possession of a machinegun. Donaldson pleaded guilty to the third count on July 24, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons for the Western District of Texas made the announcement.<\/p>\n<p>The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, FBI, Round Rock Police Department, and Austin Police Department investigated the case.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Buie prosecuted the case.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Advertisement &#8211;<a data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/texasborderbusiness.com\/linkout\/197392\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"notrack\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"COSTEP\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/COSTEP-inline-Dec-2025.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"160\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to court documents, Ashton Blake Donaldson, 22, knowingly built an illegal machinegun\u2014specifically a fully-automatic .300 AAC Blackout&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,59110,59111,59112,59113,59114],"class_list":["post-140147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-illegal-automatic-weapon","tag-illegal-firearm","tag-machinegun","tag-round-rocjk","tag-us-attorneys-office-western-district-of-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}