In New Mexico, the police and prosecutors supported an effort to prohibit devices that convert guns into machine guns. In Alabama, the governor made it a priority.
Legislators in both states, one led by the Democrats, the other by Republicans, responded this year with Nuevo Laws that make the so -called glock switches illegal.
At least half of the United States states now have similar laws that prohibit the possession of such devices, a list that has grown in the last decade as agents of the law have found more of the small but powerful devices attached to weapons.
The states are imitating federal law, which for decades has generally prohibited machine guns and any part that can transform semi -automatic weapons into automatic.
US law defines an machine gun as a weapon that automatically shoots more than a shot with a single trigger. The definition also includes any piece designed to turn a weapon into a machine gun.
The Federal Law prohibits possessing machine guns made after 1986, with some exceptions for the application of the law, the military and certain licensed distributors. Almost all conversion devices are illegal because they became more recently.
People convicted of having machine guns and conversion devices can face up to 10 years in prison.
A glock switch is a type of machine gun device. It is a piece of metal or plastic, approximately the size of a currency, which adheres to the back of Glock pistol, a brand that is popular between police and criminals. The switch interferes with the internal trigger components of a gun to shoot continuously when the trigger is removed and supported.
A gun equipped with a switch can shoot dozens of bullets in just seconds, similar to a machine -made machine gun.
Other gun brands that mimic Glocks can also become machine guns. Some semi -automatic rifles can also. These conversion devices are also called Auto Sears, selector switches or chips.
The use of Auto Sears shot in the last decade, partly because they can make economics with 3D printers.
From 2012 to 2016, only 814 pieces of machine guns were arrested by the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That increased to 5,454 since 2017-2021.
In January, the administration of former President Joe Biden said that 12,360 alleged machine guns had recovered in the United States and submitted to ATF for a period of approximately 34 months that ended in October 2024.
Five states, including Florida, Illinois, Texas, Montana and Dakota del Norte, represented almost half of that total.
Alabama is the last state to prohibit Gock switches. A law signed this month by Republican governor Kay Ivey causes possessing pieces designed to convert guns into machine guns is a punishable crime with up to 10 years in prison.
He bipartisan thrust In Alabama arrived after the police said they believed that conversion devices had been used in fatal shootings, including one in September that He killed four and wounded 17 people Outside a Birmingham room.
The Democratic Governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, signed a law in February, making the possession of a arms conversion device a punishable crime with up to three years in prison.
Similar legislation approved the New Jersey General Assembly last week and now addresses the Senate. The bills are also pending in other states.
Virginia’s republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed a law last year causing Auto Sears to be illegal. But young vetoed legislation Last week, that would have expanded an existing prohibition of “activation activators” to cover additional devices that increase semi -automatic weapon shooting rates.
Groups like EveryThing for Gun Safety, say that state laws provide an sometimes easier alternative to federal prosecution by having glock switches. But they want to go further.
Eventown for Gun Safety is supporting the legislation in California, Maryland and New York, which would make illegal sell guns that could be transformed into machine guns.
“That really exerts the pressure to which it belongs, in manufacturers who are making money with weapons that know they can easily become machine guns,” said Nick Supplina, senior vice president of laws and policies in Evertown for the safety of weapons.
Several cities and states, including Baltimore, Chicago, Minnesota and New Jersey, have He sued Gock to do guns that can turn others into automatic weapons.
The National Rifles Association indicates that US prosecutors can already process people for misuse of arms conversion devices without the need for state laws.
The owners of arms of America, another group of weapons rights, argue that people should have a right of the second amendment to have machine guns. State laws against machine guns conversation are “duplicate” and “pure signaling of virtue,” said Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs of the owners of weapons in the United States.
He said that fire -converted weapons can automatically have practical uses such as eliminating large groups of wild pigs that are destroying land.
“The fact that you put it in your firearm does not mean that you are a violent criminal or that you are necessarily a dangerous person,” said Johnston.
