Glock Switches Make Shootings Deadlier
Devices that convert handguns into rapid-fire weapons are illegal — and increasingly ubiquitous.
Small, cheap, deadly.
Photographer: John Tlumacki/Boston Globe
Although the sale of new machine guns has been banned since the 1980s, automatic firing is now staging a disturbing comeback, thanks to easy-to-manufacture devices that can be attached to legal guns. While the Supreme Court considers the fate of the Trump administration’s ban on so-called bump stocks — a device that turns a semiautomatic rifle into a rapid-fire one — policymakers should take note of an even simpler piece of technology creating outsized mayhem: auto sears, also known as Glock switches.
Such switches do for handguns what bump stocks do for rifles: They fire a hail of bullets with a single pull of the trigger. They are as tiny — only about 1 square inch — as they are deadly. And they’ve become status symbols for gang members and others who possess guns illegally. Police departments nationwide have reported an uptick in their use. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says it has recovered more than 31,000 “machine gun conversion devices” in the past five years.