Man gets 18 months for owning machine guns, espousing race baiting rhetoric

CONCORD - A Salem man was sentenced on Wednesday in federal court for the unlawful possession of machine guns, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced.

Kyle Morris, 23, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Morris was also ordered to pay a fine of $1,000.

On Jan. Morris pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of machine guns. He was ordered to forfeit to the government the two machine guns seized during the execution of the search warrant at his home.

"The defendant expressed an interest in perpetrating horrific acts of violence against racial and religious minorities," said U.S. Attorney Jane E. Young. "Those beliefs coupled with his illegal possession of machine guns pose a danger to our communities and today's sentence sends a clear message that such conduct will result in not only a felony conviction but in incarceration."

"Today, Kyle Morris learned his fate for illegally possessing two machine guns, while advocating for a race war and the bombing of mosques and synagogues. Weapons, he collected in furtherance of his desire to commit racially motivated violence," said Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division. "I commend the diligent work conducted by our New Hampshire Joint Terrorism Task Force for removing this threat from our community."

Morris kept the machine guns in a locked gun room in his home. This locked room also contained over 20 other firearms and various Nazi paraphernalia, including a Nazi uniform, two Nazi flags and a framed photo of Adolf Hitler.

In private correspondence, he advocated for bombing mosques, synagogues, and diversity centers, and for starting a race war. He expressed an interest in participating in lone wolf attacks in Massachusetts involving shootings in Lawrence, culminating in a plan to drive a truck bomb into the Massachusetts State House. Morris also wanted to "mag dump a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters, especially the darker ones."