California man pleads guilty to bombing courthouse after deputies took away his guns

A California man pleaded guilty Monday to detonating a bomb at a Santa Maria courthouse in 2024, seriously injuring three people, in an attack intended as retaliation for local law enforcement officials seizing his firearms earlier this year.

The U.S. Department of Justice said 22-year-old Nathaniel James McGuire pleaded guilty to one count of use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of malicious destruction of a building using an explosive.

“McGuire launched a vicious, terroristic assault on a court of law with the intent to kill law enforcement officers and a judge,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in a statement. “His attack injured three people and, were it not for the quick action of court security and law enforcement, it could have been far worse. McGuire will now face the consequences of his actions.”

It is unclear what led to the deputies taking McGuire’s guns in the first place.

On Sept. 24, 2024, McGuire walked into the courthouse and threw a backpack containing an explosive device past the building’s security screening devices, toward the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies who were manning the checkpoint.

Read more: KREM