Simple, cheap devices are turning handguns into machine guns

Machine gun conversion devices, switches, Glock switches and auto sears. Whatever the name, the potential for carnage and the increased risk of life-threatening injuries to bystanders is unavoidable.

About the size of a large sugar cube, made of metal or plastic, sometimes 3D printed, it takes 30 seconds to fit many handguns. For around $20, a switch, sometimes called an auto sear, converts a single-firing handgun into an automatic weapon capable of spraying 1,200 rounds in a minute, more than some military weapons.

Machine gun switches are currently banned under federal law, but without a state law that does the same, local district attorneys can’t prosecute this crime; only federal law enforcement can. Federal law enforcement is already stretched thin and is less likely to prosecute these crimes than local law enforcement.

The ATF has seen a five times increase in the number of recovered guns that have been converted to machine guns in the last 5 years, 31,000 in total.

Incidents in Pennsylvania

• Police Chief Justin McIntyre was murdered in Brackenridge in 2023. Later that day, the suspect was killed in a shootout with police, where he was firing a gun that was modified with a “switch”.
• In Marple, a man walked into a Walmart with a firearm with a machine gun converter. He was stopped, but it’d be safer if he never got that far.
• In May of 2021, a Philadelphia man pleaded guilty to offenses stemming from an incident in July of 2019, during which Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at JFK International Airport intercepted a package from China containing 20 counterfeit Glock auto-switches addressed to the defendant’s home in Pennsylvania.

As of May 2026, 29 states, including Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana and Mississippi, have passed their own laws banning these switches. Conservative states ban these devices, so should Pennsylvania.

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