Army vet guilty of threatening to shoot gun safety activists: report

The Department of Justice obtained a conviction of a Florida man for sending letters to the Department of Veterans Affairs threatening to shoot gun safety advocates.

"Drummond Neil Smithson, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of use of interstate communications to transmit a threat to injure. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 12, 2022," MassLive reported Friday. "Smithson, an Army veteran, mailed a letter from Ayer, Massachusetts to the Department of Veterans Affairs Pension Intake Center in Janesville, Wisconsin around July 19, 2020."

Smithson threatened Moms Demand Action, the grassroots guns safety movement found by Shannon Watts that claims to have 10 million supporters.

He reportedly threatened violence if he did not get his pension, citing a legal case in Florida.

"On Sept. 12, 2019, Fort Lauderdale police officers accompanied Child Protective Services to his apartment, which he shared with his girlfriend, her two minor children, and two unrelated adults, and found him in possession of multiple firearms, court records said. Smithson told the officers that he moved to Fort Lauderdale after his discharge from the Army and that he had spent a lot of time in psychiatric hospitals," MassLive reported. "He eventually surrendered two AR-10 rifles, a Glock 9mm pistol, a KelTec PMR-30 handgun, and various types of ammunition to the officers, court documents show."

Smith told investigators he bought the AR-10s because they are a higher power version of the AR-15 platform.

Read the full report.