A Hazelwood police officer pulled over 44-year-old Paris D. McPeters in June 2024 for failing to stay in his lane. The stop ended with officers finding two loaded guns, seven high-capacity magazines, and enough firepower to keep a shooter firing continuously without reloading. More than two years later, a federal jury convicted McPeters of being a felon in possession of a firearm, a verdict that closes out a case built almost entirely on what turned up in the back seat of his car.
The traffic stop happened on June 18, 2024, according to FOX 2. Once the officer ran McPeters's information, he learned there was an active warrant out for the St. Louis County man, who already had multiple prior convictions on his record. That warrant gave police the grounds to arrest McPeters and search his vehicle.
Inside the car, officers recovered a 5.56-caliber semi-automatic rifle fitted with a loaded 100-round drum magazine and a .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol carrying a loaded 50-round drum magazine, per the station's report. Investigators also found five more loaded large-capacity magazines along with additional ammunition stashed in the vehicle. Asked to confirm the weapons were his, McPeters reportedly responded simply, “Yeah.”
Case Moved Through Federal Court Over Two Years
A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, based in St. Louis, formally indicted McPeters on September 4, 2024, under case number 4:24-cr-00465, according to PacerMonitor. The Hazelwood Police Department and the ATF both investigated the case, per the same account. Assistant U.S. Attorneys J. Christian Goeke and Joseph Green prosecuted the case, as identified by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Before trial, McPeters tried to get the indictment thrown out entirely. He filed a motion challenging the constitutionality of the federal felon-in-possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), but U.S. Magistrate Judge Shirley Padmore Mensah recommended denying that motion on January 29, 2026, PacerMonitor reported. That kind of Second Amendment challenge has become increasingly common among criminal defendants nationwide following recent Supreme Court precedent, according to the same filing records.
McPeters's jury trial opened Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Divine and wrapped up the following day when jurors returned a guilty verdict on the sole felon-in-possession count, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. He is scheduled to be sentenced on December 9, 2026, and faces up to 15 years in federal prison.
Why the Sentence Ceiling Nearly Doubled
That 15-year exposure reflects a statutory change from Congress rather than anything unique to this case. The maximum penalty for federal felon-in-possession offenses under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) rose from 10 years to 15 years after the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was enacted, according to the Federal Register. The 2022 law significantly increased penalties across multiple possessory firearm offenses nationwide.
Missouri's own gun laws are part of why this case landed in federal court rather than state court. Unlike nine states and Washington, D.C., which cap ammunition magazine capacity at 10 rounds, Missouri imposes no restrictions or bans on high-capacity or drum magazines, according to KCUR. That leaves federal felon-in-possession law as the primary legal tool for taking drum magazines away from prohibited people in the state. Federal law enforcement officials and firearms policy researchers have noted that drum magazines holding 50 to 100 rounds allow continuous rapid fire without reloading, sharply raising the lethality risk in violent incidents, according to the Center for American Progress.
Part of a Broader Federal Push in St. Louis
McPeters's prosecution was folded into Project Safe Neighborhoods, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative that coordinates federal, state, and local law enforcement against violent crime and illegal firearm possession, the Justice Department has said. The program relies on crime data analysis and joint agency screening to identify high-risk gun cases for federal prosecution.
The case also arrives amid an active federal enforcement push in the region. In August, federal law enforcement launched an ATF-led violent crime enforcement surge in the St. Louis area, expanding joint operations between the ATF, local police departments, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Hazelwood, the northern St. Louis County suburb of roughly 25,400 residents where the traffic stop occurred, sits near St. Louis-Lambert International Airport along transit corridors including Lindbergh Boulevard and Interstate 270, per U.S. Census Bureau data.
