Posted on 03/30/2025 10:29:58 PM PDT by Jyotishi
Washington -- In New Mexico, police and prosecutors backed an effort to outlaw devices that convert pistols into machine guns.
In Alabama, the governor made it a priority.
Lawmakers in both states - one led by Democrats, the other by Republicans - responded this year with new laws making so-called Glock switches illegal.
At least half of US states now have similar laws prohibiting the possession of such devices, a list that has grown over the past decade as law enforcement officers have found more of the tiny yet powerful devices attached to guns.
States are mimicking federal law, which for for decades has generally prohibited machine guns and any parts that can transform semiautomatic weapons into automatic ones. What does federal law say?
US law defines a machine gun as a weapon that automatically fires more than one shot with a single pull of a trigger. The definition also includes any parts designed to convert a weapon into a machine gun.
Federal law prohibits possessing machine guns made after 1986, with some exceptions for law enforcement, the military and certain licensed dealers. Nearly all conversion devices are illegal because they were made more recently.
People convicted of possessing machine guns and conversion devices can face up to 10 years in prison.
What is a Glock switch?
A Glock switch is one type of a machine gun conversion device. It’s a metal or plastic piece, about the size of a coin, that attaches to the back of Glock pistol, a brand that is popular with both police and criminals. The switch interferes with a gun’s internal trigger components so that it fires continuously when the trigger is pulled back and held.
A gun outfitted with a switch can fire dozens of bullets in mere seconds, similar to a factory-made machine gun.
Other brands of pistols that mimic Glocks also can be converted to machine guns. So can some semiautomatic rifles. Such conversion devices also are referred to as auto sears, selector switches or chips. What does the data indicate? The use of auto sears spiked in the past decade, partly because they can be made inexpensively with 3D printers.
From 2012 to 2016, just 814 machine gun conversion parts were taken into custody by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That swelled to 5,454 from 2017-2021.
In January, former President Joe Biden’s administration said 12,360 suspected machine gun conversion devices had been recovered in the US and submitted to the ATF during a roughly 34-month period ending in October 2024.
Five states including Florida, Illinois, Texas, Montana and North Dakota accounted for nearly half that total.
What have states been doing?
Alabama is the latest state to outlaw Glock switches. A law signed this month by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey makes possessing parts designed to convert pistols into machine guns a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The bipartisan push in Alabama came after police said they believed conversion devices had been used in fatal shootings, including one in September that killed four and injured 17 people outside a Birmingham lounge.
Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a law in February making possession of a weapon conversion device a felony punishable by up to three years in prison. Similar legislation passed the New Jersey General Assembly last week and now heads to the Senate. Bills also are pending in other states.
Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a law last year making auto sears illegal. But Youngkin vetoed legislation this past week that would have broadened an existing ban on “trigger activators” to cover additional devices that increase firing rates of semiautomatic weapons. What do gun control
advocates want? Groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety say state laws provide a sometimes easier alternative to federal prosecution for possessing Glock switches. But they want to go further.
Everytown for Gun Safety is backing legislation in California, Maryland and New York that would make it illegal to sell pistols that could be transformed into machine guns.
Infringement.
Don’t worry about. The illegal alien black market is going to be able to get us anything we want and need.
Whatcha gonna do with a machine gun anyways? Waste bullets. Point, aim and shoot. That’s where it at. Then someone in the crew grabs their machine gun. Get the bullets too. Then scram before the F-16 nuclear air strike the democrats like to brag about.
What part of Shall Not Be Infringed is being misunderstood?
The left think that patriots live elsewhere beside in their neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. The creeps actually think they could win a war by dropping nukes on us when we will have probably already taken the military bases.
So if a gang banger kills someone with a pistol converted to full-auto they can put him in prison for three years for the “Glock switch?”
Democrats continue to redefine the lower limits of stupid.
They’re already illegal at the federal level. What do state laws add to the penalty?
You’re right... I guess we need to switch to belt fed guns, no magazine’s. They are still legal.
They always exaggerate their rhetoric. No matter the topic they go over the top. Nazi this, fascist that, kill grandma etc. It’s ridiculous. On this topic how many times has one of them said the 2A doesn’t matter because they have the nukes and fighter jets etc? It’s completely offensive to even suggest that a political faction will nuke America. It should be offensive to all sensible Americans and those morons should be voted out of office to even talk like that. Besides it renders their point mute. If an armed citizenry is no threat then why should they even care? Idiots all of them. Anyone who suggests American military should shoot, strike, strafe or bomb America should get free food and board at Guantanamo for life.
These switches on a pistol seem pretty stupid. I imagine it is only the first round out that has any chance of hitting the intended target. Of course the 9 year old kid 20 feet away is at more risk.
Theclibs push for these enhancers, then when the minorities who use them are facing charges, they drop them. So no use at all.
I was once told that all you have to do to convert just about any semi-auto to full auto is to ████ ████ the ████ ███.
I wonder if a consideration of the source would have any bearing on this story?
That said, 1986 was the year of the ban. Up to that point the government had not engaged in a weapons ban but that came to a Constitutional screeching halt when they used obsolescence to skirt the Constitutional protections afforded “We the People” by the second amendment to the Constitution.
If I can afford to have a surplus battle ship in my backyard lake and an F=16 at the airport I darn well deserve to have them and anything else vital to my personal protection. Allowing government anywhere near those protections could be under the right circumstances contrary to your life liberty and property rights.
Government doesn’t give a damn about your Constitutional rights, so why should you care about their usurpations?
We should all consider those usurpations to be at the very least bipartisan. Doesn’t that just bring on the warm fuzzy feelings when government in it’s exalted station reserves and protects it’s rights to nothing of the kind since “We the People” gave it no such rights to begin with.
.
The intention was for self defense...not mass murder.
Does that include Dremel tools?
In other words, practically any pistol, correct?
“Machine guns”. Oh how I hate that phrase.
Only used by someone who hates all guns to increase the fear factor of other gun haters.
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