This article highlights important facts, but the push to ban Glocks over illegal switch use is really a distraction from the larger goal: restricting firearm ownership one step at a time. Today it’s Glocks; tomorrow it’s every other gun.
State legislatures in California, Maryland, Connecticut, and New York have spent the past two years passing laws that ban Glock-pattern pistols altogether on the theory that the platform is uniquely dangerous because illegal “Glock switches” can convert them to fully automatic fire. New empirical research suggests that justification doesn’t hold up against the actual numbers.
A recent report from the Crime Prevention Research Center documents just 43 murders nationwide from 20 attacks involving Glock switches over the 2021-2026 period — meaning fatal lightning strikes killed nearly twice as many Americans during the same window.
The federal framework already addresses the actual problem
Before getting to the numbers, the federal legal landscape matters. The conversion devices commonly called “Glock switches” or “auto sears” are already classified as unregistered machine guns under the National Firearms Act. Mere possession of one is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Manufacturing, selling, or installing them carries the same penalties.
By Mark Chesnut
