Mill Valley Man Palmer Gets 37 Months for Gun Trafficking

James William Palmer, 38, of Mill Valley, is headed to federal prison for 37 months after pleading guilty to running an illegal firearms business from his garage without a license. U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds and ATF Acting Special Agent in Charge Joshua E. Jackson announced the sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco.

Palmer admitted in his plea agreement that between May 2020 and January 2021, he manufactured and sold guns for profit, fully aware it was against federal law. His Mill Valley home became a makeshift factory, outfitted with tools, parts, and a dedicated workspace in the garage. He also admitted to selling marijuana during the same period, further deepening his criminal footprint.

Text messages recovered by investigators laid bare the operation: Palmer arranged deals over phone, discussed prices, set meetups, and tracked payments using a whiteboard listing customer names and outstanding balances. In one exchange, he wrote, “What about getting that 17 so I can resume business? I got 6 people waiting.” He also claimed to have been dealing “for 20 years off and on” in Marin County.

On January 27, 2021, the day he was arrested, Palmer was found driving with a loaded Glock Model 26 .45 ACP in his car, two loaded magazines in the console, and extra ammo in his pocket. He’d paid $900 cash at a gun show—extra to skip paperwork and walk away with the gun immediately. At his home, agents found 71 firearm-related items, including unfinished receivers, PMF jigs, a Glock frame with its serial number removed, and a loaded P80 .45 caliber handgun.

One sale detailed in court documents was a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol sold in October 2020 for $780. The government emphasized the scale and intent of the operation, noting Palmer wasn’t just building guns for personal use—he was running a profit-driven trafficking ring out of a residential neighborhood.

In addition to prison, Judge Donato ordered three years of supervised release. Palmer was instructed to surrender on February 6, 2023. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ilham A. Hosseini and Alexis J. James, with assistance from Maribel Gallegos, following a joint investigation by ATF and the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. The case ties into the DOJ’s new Cross-Jurisdictional Firearms Trafficking Strike Force in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento region, targeting illegal gun networks through multi-agency collaboration.