Excerpt:
Prosecutors highlighted “about $10,000 — $8,000 in U.S. dollars and then $2,000 in foreign currency that was found on his person,” CNN correspondent Danny Freeman said following the court hearing.
“Also they said that he had a Faraday bag,” which blocks cell signals, a move that prosecutors alleged marked “an indication of criminal sophistication and reason they should hold him on bail,” Freeman continued.
After prosecutors made the claims, Mangione said he would like to “correct two things.”
“I don’t know where any of that money came from — I’m not sure if it was planted. And also, that bag was waterproof, so I don’t know about criminal sophistication,” the suspect said in a statement that suggested police framed him.
“Ghost gun” is just a pejorative term invented to make “homemade firearm” sound more spooky. You have taken propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The only difference between a “ghost gun” and a regular gun is whether it was serialized by a licensed manufacturer. While there are a few extremely niche homemade guns that could be categorized as “disposable,” the vast majority are Glock- or AR-pattern firearms that use a full complement of factory parts.
It costs as much or more to finish your typical “ghost gun” than it does to build or buy a serialized firearm. They will also typically leave all the marks you’d usually expect on bullets and casings, because all the same parts touch the same way they do in a serialized firearm.