Unlicensed Bushwick gunmaker serving 10 years for his 'hobby' blurs the gun rights debate

Brooklyn prosecutors say Dexter Taylor is a danger to society. The 53-year-old built more than a dozen illegal firearms in his Bushwick apartment and is now serving a 10-year sentence in a maximum-security prison.

But Taylor and his friends say he's not a threat, he’s a tinkerer — a software engineer, electronic music composer and amateur TikTok philosopher — who made guns as a hobby. They say he doesn’t belong behind bars.

Taylor was convicted earlier this year of various charges, including criminal possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of pistol ammunition and violating New York’s prohibitions on homemade firearms, known as ghost guns. His case blurs the lines of the traditional political debates about gun rights and gun violence.

Second Amendment advocates say he was prosecuted under state laws that are too strict and unconstitutional — especially for someone who wasn’t accused of shooting anyone or selling his firearms on the black market. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office says people who try to evade those laws must be held accountable in the interest of public safety. Now his lengthy sentence is being used to deter others thinking about building guns at home, whether or not they plan to use them to commit crimes.

“If Dexter Taylor knew what the law was and he did it anyway, then Dexter Taylor is going to pay whatever the law sentences him as in the state of New York,” said Rick Vasquez, a former official with the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and gun rights supporter. “Now, do I think it's right? No.”

On a crackly phone line from Rikers about a week-and-a-half after his sentencing in May, Taylor told Gothamist that he's been fascinated with weapons since he was a kid, when he remembers poring over a picture book about the history of guns. Since then, he’s been transferred to Coxsackie Correctional Facility upstate.

Taylor, who graduated from the prestigious Stuyvesant High School and briefly studied biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, said his interest picked up a few years ago, when he started to see posts on social media about homemade firearms.

He started ordering parts online and assembling his own weapons. Taylor said he was building firearms as an engineering experiment — that he wanted to figure out how to make safer and more reliable guns and then sell his technology to police departments and the military.

He said he wasn't going to hurt anyone.

“I never did anything to make my neighbors, to make my fellow New Yorkers, fear for their safety or fear for the integrity of civic life,” he said.

‘You can disagree with the law, but you can't break it’

When police searched Taylor’s home in April 2022, they seized eight rifles and five pistols that he built, along with more unfinished parts, according to court records. They also found a 3-D printer, shell casings, gunpowder and a press for making ammunition.

Taylor didn't have a license to possess the guns he made, which is illegal in New York. It's also illegal to possess or make firearms without serial numbers , because those markers help law enforcement analyze guns used in crimes.

“You have to have the appropriate licenses. You have to pass a background check,” said David Pucino, legal director for Giffords Law Center, which advocates for firearm safety policy.

He said New York passed restrictions on homemade firearms, also known as ghost guns, to make it harder for people to build firearms that will later be used in crimes.

“It's not to say that nobody can be a hobbyist. It's not to say that nobody can buy gun parts and make their own guns. They can,” he said. “But they just have to follow the same laws as if they were buying a whole gun.”

After a weekslong trial this spring, a Brooklyn jury convicted Taylor of criminal possession of a firearm and other charges. At sentencing, he spoke about the importance of fighting for civil rights and against flaws in the legal system. The judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison, as prosecutors recommended. The minimum sentence would have been three-and-a-half years.

“Mr. Taylor, you can disagree with the law, but you can't break it,” Justice Abena Darkeh said, according to a court transcript. “One can hold strong views on a subject and still be a law-abiding citizen. You chose to violate the laws of New York state. So today's sentencing is not about your views. It is about your actions.”

But Taylor’s supporters said his actions don’t match his punishment.

“He felt what he was doing was completely proper, because the supreme law of the land is the United States Constitution, which guarantees an individual right to bear arms,” said Vinoo Varghese, Taylor’s attorney. “He wasn’t firing them. He wasn’t using them. He wasn’t selling them or even trying to.”

Taylor's friend and former neighbor, Shearaton Carter, said he was shocked when police descended on their building early one morning to search Taylor’s home and arrest him. He knew Taylor as the guy who baked him pound cake every year for his birthday, who had a massive book collection and a seemingly endless knowledge of history.

Carter said he also knew his neighbor was a Second Amendment supporter and had firearms. But he didn't think Taylor was breaking any laws. Carter said he’s from Texas, where he grew up hunting, and where many of his relatives owned and proudly displayed their guns.

“My grandpa had more guns than Dexter, just displayed in the den area,” he said.

‘The fight of my life’

In May while at Rikers, Taylor told Gothamist he was committed to challenging New York’s gun laws.

“From the day I was raided back in April of 2022, I understood that I was in the fight of my life,” he said. “It wasn't the fight I was looking for. I'd never been interested in getting into a fishing contest with the state of New York. But I also knew that this was a civil rights matter.”

Taylor's friend and former partner, Nina Dibner, called it a “waste” for Taylor to be serving prison time. The pair have a 16-year-old daughter together.

“It doesn't benefit society in any way at all for Dexter to be there,” she said.

Dibner said she supports gun regulations to keep firearms away from people who are unfit to have them. But she said Taylor is “not one of those people.”

“I would never be worried that he would do something irresponsible with a weapon,” she said.

Taylor's attorney said they're appealing his conviction, and they're prepared to take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But that process could take years, and the outcome is uncertain. He’ll be eligible for parole in 2032.