Juan Angel Rendon, an 18-year-old switch dealer, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a federal firearm crime for illegally possessing a machinegun. The announcement came from U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Leigha Simonton.
Rendon was charged via a criminal complaint in September and indicted the following month. His guilty plea is part of a broader initiative known as Operation Texas Kill Switch, aimed at combating the dangers posed by machinegun conversion devices.
U.S. Attorney Simonton stated, “This defendant’s conduct – shooting a switch-equipped handgun out of a moving vehicle for no apparent reason – is case in point. Weapons of war belong on the battlefield, not the streets of North Texas.”
According to court documents, Rendon sold a 9mm Glock pistol fitted with a machinegun conversion device, commonly referred to as a “switch,” to an undercover ATF agent on August 27, 2024. During the transaction at his mobile home, Rendon instructed the agent on how to install and operate the device to enable the gun to fire automatically.
At a detention hearing last month, agents testified that Rendon advertised Glock switches for sale on his Instagram account. Prosecutors presented a video from his account showing him firing a switch-equipped Glock out of the window of a moving vehicle on a public highway, with other cars passing by.
Upon his arrest in September, law enforcement recovered nine firearms, including two fitted with switches, as well as seven additional switches or parts. A query through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) linked some of the firearms to two shootings in the Fort Worth area.
Rendon now faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. The investigation was conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives’ Dallas Field Division, with assistance from the Fort Worth and Haltom City Police Departments and the Department of Public Safety. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Beck is prosecuting the case.
