Anti-gun lawmakers and their gun control allies exploit menacing language to bolster their arguments against lawful firearms: ordinary semi-automatic rifles and pistols become “weapons of war” and “assault weapons.” “Large capacity” magazines actually refers to standard-issue magazines. And personally-made firearms are referred to as the much more sinister sounding “ghost guns.”
The latest in this semantic stigmatization is “machinegun-convertible pistol,” aimed at GLOCK and GLOCK-style semiautomatic handguns. Several states have imposed, or are in the process of enacting, bans aimed at one of the most ubiquitous handguns in America through laws prohibiting “machinegun-convertible” guns, because these legal guns can be modified by the installation of an illegal converter or “switch” device that enables automatic firing.
Such laws follow in the wake of lawsuits against GLOCK by various jurisdictions, supported by gun control groups, in which the central allegation is that the gun manufacturer somehow “facilitates” the proliferation of illegal machine guns possessed and used by criminals, despite the fact that neither GLOCK nor any manufacturer of GLOCK-style pistols manufactures or imports the switches or promotes the illegal modification of their firearms.
Baltimore and Maryland’s lawsuit against GLOCK, for instance, claims that machine guns, which have been “illegal for decades…[have] returned to the streets of Maryland” due to “illegally modified” GLOCK pistols, and that the
…illegal conversion of [these] pistols to fully automatic fire has become rampant and continues to severely and negatively impact public safety in Baltimore, elsewhere in Maryland, and across the United States.” Bypassing logic and legal liability principles – even as the complaint expressly concedes that machine guns and these modifications are already illegal – the plaintiffs insist that “Glock bears legal responsibility for its role in this escalating public health and safety crisis.
Now, research by the Crime Prevention Research Center suggests how overblown and tenuous these claims actually are.
The CPRC found “no evidence that law-abiding gun owners are converting their handguns,” as “even the advocates for these laws focus on only the threat by criminal gangs.” Criminals are clearly unfazed by the fact that conversion devices are already considered “machineguns” under federal law and are generally illegal to make, transfer or possess even without being affixed to a gun, or that many state laws also prohibit the manufacture and transfer of conversion devices enabling automatic firing.
Based on “an exhaustive search on cases where a GLOCK-style gun with a switch was used to murder people,” the CPRC tallied a total of 43 murders committed in 20 attacks (slightly more than two people murdered per case) over a five-year period starting in 2021. The researchers acknowledge the possibility that not all cases may have made it into their count, but even so, 43 murders represent only 0.05% of all murders committed in that period. The figure shrinks into further insignificance when compared to the 6,147 murders committed with knives or other cutting instruments in the same timeframe.
Of course, the potential for a firearm to be illegally used by a criminal does not, standing alone, remove that arm from the Second Amendment’s protection. But it’s notable that gun control advocates’ priority gun bans – of AR-15s and similar semi-automatic long guns and GLOCKs and similar semi-automatic handguns – are focusing not only on the most popular guns in their categories among law abiding people but on guns that are not especially prone to fatal misuse.
In any case, whatever scary or misleading lingo politicians employ to justify these gun bans, it’s just so much noise if criminals who illegally modify guns aren’t actually prosecuted. On May 30, for instance, St. Louis, Missouri police “detained two people in [a recklessly-operated] vehicle and found several guns that had been modified with auto-sear switches, converting them to fully automatic firearms.” The police department publicized the arrests, saying the city was “safer today because of the proactive work of these detectives, which led to dangerous weapons being removed from the streets.”
Around 8pm last night, detectives in Metro Air Support observed a Lincoln driving recklessly near 14th and Monroe and alerted other Anti-Crime Task Force detectives in the area.
The vehicle was located in the 700 block of N. 17th Street, where detectives arrested two suspects… pic.twitter.com/zZiv4qMFGm
— St. Louis Metropolitan Police (@SLMPD) May 31, 2026
Nevertheless, the dangerous individuals themselves were reportedly and inexplicably back on the streets, having been “released after the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office declined to press charges.” Perhaps there’s more to the story than initially reported, but one can’t help but notice the irony of the message emblazoned across the top of the Circuit Attorney’s official webpage reading, “We Pursue Justice to Achieve a Higher Level of Public Safety for the St. Louis Community.”
As public officials dither over prosecutions and enact laws to make illegal items “extra illegal,” the NRA continues to fight to protect the rights of responsible gun owners and has already filed a lawsuit challenging Maryland’s ban on GLOCK and GLOCK-style handguns as unconstitutional and is seeking to enjoin its enforcement.
Potential jurors in the Karmelo Anthony trial said they couldn’t imagine giving him life in prison or “putting a brother in jail” -NYP
NYC woman declined to press charges against subway shover ‘because she didn’t want to put another black man in jail’… weeks later he allegedly killed retired teacher, 76, at station -Daily Mail
Do white people feel this way about white criminals? Overwhelmingly no. Why the difference? Decades of conditioning.
Many blacks seem to have become what they claim their oppressors were. Ignorant, downward-mobile, violent bigots.
And some people applaud this conversion, when they hated the “white” version.
Restorative justice.
We have to set free a bunch of irredeemable psycho career criminals as well as over-punish people for possible paperwork errors (Bryan Malinowski) to create balanced “justice.”
Or some other such wokey nonsense.
Pretty simple.
If they tried you, there’s a non-zero chance that the law they are trying to convict you of might be found unconstitutional.
On the other hand, simply having a law on the books and threatening years in jail and thousands in fines keeps the GOV thumb on law-abiding citizens.
Remember, the process is the (start) of the punishment…..
How long before the “in common use” provision kicks in, I wonder?
“How long before the “in common use” provision kicks in, I wonder?”
That’s been explored, and pretty much shot down. In common *lawful* use seems to be the hang-up.
What we need to do is get the registry re-opened, and I believe it could be done…
The legislation banning these modified pistols exceeds enumerated powers, assumes prohibited ones, and are consequently unathorative, void, and of no force. The real problem is that this is not applied universally and to all of section 922 and its mirrors.
Cloward-Piven? Create more chaos and “choke the system” to help bring about the Revolution, along with reckless government spending and lousy social/economic policies?
After all, the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the Revolution.
The self hating white liberal, white leftist, and self hating white libertarian would rather be raped and murdered, than put another known black criminal in prison.
Sound crazy??
You forget that back in the summer of [lezbi@n] love, 2020, they were the ones who said the jails should be emptied. Because they didn’t want criminals to get sick with the flu.
They are also the ones who disagree with the Christians. When the christian said a father’s love and discipline is necessary in the home. So now we have hundreds of thousands of single Mother’s with 5 children, from 5 different men, and not married. And on the welfare industrial complex.
So the father and his guns where were removed from the family and replaced with a government check. And the father’s guns were placed by the guns of a big city police department.
Because the white @the:ist and white h0,m0sez.u@ls would rather have a large government welfare system. Instead of private religious charity, which requires you to change your behavior in both public and private.
As Father’s Day approaches, I will read many stories on the gun websites. About how as a child their father, grandfather, or uncle, was the one who introduced them to guns. And taught them about gun safety.
The problem with the libertarian way of thinking, is it rejects the responsibility that comes with Liberty. It rejects the consequences of mistakes. And it also rejects traditionalism. The things that used to keep society safe from foolish behavior.
And prior to the invention of the “glock switch”. There was still a very large problem with the fatherless underage black teenage boys and guns. Using Revolvers, single shot handguns and semi-automatics firearms.
It’s not about the gun. It’s never been about the gun. It’s about the destruction of the traditional one man and one woman family , which the three L’s have always hated.
They like having government in the bedroom. As long as it’s separating a woman from her man using the welfare system.
And it’s interesting how they support g @. y marriage, but they don’t support plural marriage. Which is quite normal, all throughout the known world of Africa and Asia. Because g, a: y marriage is not normal.
Yes, that’s correct. I said all of that.
This happens because of woke democrat policies. Period. They call it Disparate Impact. If there’s a law/standard that blacks are exceedingly guilty of or do more poorly at , they call it discriminatory. And every BLM kneeler in congress buckles under the pressure of the media calling them racist. BTW- Don’t fret all you political cowards in DC, they’ll hate you for free.
Example: Maryland State Police wanted to make sure that the state troopers could read at a very basic level, because as a police officer, you’re going to need to write police reports. Black applicants failed the test at higher rates than whites.
The Maryland state troopers didn’t intend to exclude black state troopers. Racism had nothing to do with it. It was a colorblind, neutral test of skills. But because it had a disparate impact on black applicants and disqualified more than whites, it was viewed as discriminatory.
If a neutral (colorblind) test or rule has worse results for Black people than White people, it can be ruled discriminatory. Even if no one was trying to be racist.
Put a MAGA hat on and see how fast you are tossed in jail and face maximum sentences for a Glock switch.
Democrats hate and fear white, conservative gun owners. Democrats are soft on crime. Most users of Glock switches are black and Hispanic.
It’s Anarcho-Tyranny: let criminals run wild, while harshly enforcing laws on law abiding citizens.