How La. legislators are cracking down on 'Glock switches'

Mar 14, 2024

A bill making its way through the Legislature would create stricter definitions for machine guns and guns converted into automatic weapons with so-called “Glock switches” — weapons that have raised growing concerns among law enforcement agents in recent years.

House Bill 331 by Rep. Dewith Carrier, R-Oakdale, would make it unlawful to manufacture, transfer or possess any gun that can automatically fire more than one round at a time, which would match current federal laws against unlicensed machine guns.

The proposed law would also ban machine gun conversion devices — also called “auto sears” or “Glock switches,” an often-used colloquial term for the device despite the gunmaker having no actual role in their production.

“I’m a gun owner, I love guns and I’m a Second Amendment person — but nobody needs a machine gun, especially if for $50 you can take a regular rifle and make it into a machine gun,” Carrier said.

The ATF New Orleans division held a demonstration of a device called a Glock switch. This device allows a semi-automatic firearm to function like a fully automatic firearm.

These small plastic devices come in all different colors and easily attach to a pistol’s action to convert any semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun. Once equipped, semi-automatic handguns that normally require individual pulls of the trigger with every shot only need one trigger pull to empty an entire magazine in seconds.

Switches can cost around $30, and typically flow into the United States from China through online sales. In some cases, these devices are made at home using a 3D printer.

Their use has risen dramatically both in East Baton Rouge Parish and across the nation, and they often are linked to drug- and gang-related crimes, including homicides and drive-by shootings, according to East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore, whose office brought the legislation to Carrier.

“Over the last two and three years, they’ve just really been coming in at a quick pace,” Moore said. “Some weeks we get three and four and five [cases], others we get one or two, it just depends. But we are seeing more and more Glock switches on weapons, or outside the weapon readily usable.”

Three years ago, Moore’s office dealt with only one weapon outfitted with a switch.

Then in 2021, the number of cases rose to 14.

And then it spiked again in 2022 to 60 cases, Moore approximated.

Now, not even halfway through 2023, investigators have recovered between 30-40 modified automatic weapons, Moore said.

On the national level, federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents seized more than 1,500 guns modified with switches nationwide in 2021, compared to 300 confiscations in 2020.

Unregistered machine guns are already illegal on state and federal levels, though some specifics of Louisiana’s law make it complicated for prosecutors to pursue charges.

Under current statutes, a firearm only qualifies as a machine gun when it can fire more than eight consecutive rounds with a single trigger pull. To meet this criteria, investigators take these outfitted guns to a shooting range to be fired and documented by a trained professional.

Switches aren’t often made reliably, Moore said. The power and unpredictability of firearms modified with the devices creates a harsh blowback — posing a threat for the shooter as well — and sometimes causes guns to jam.

“The number [of cases] drops because oftentimes when we get the weapon and we test it, it doesn’t fire fully automatic, although it has that switch on it,” Moore said. “So they’re arrested for a machine gun, but under current law, I have to show that with one pull of the trigger, at least eight rounds go through the barrel of that weapon.”

State law also doesn’t actually address switches themselves — someone caught with an outfitted gun can be prosecuted for handling a machine gun, but if officers locate a lone, unattached switch, the case becomes more difficult for Moore’s office.

These obstacles are among some of the factors that create backlog in the Baton Rouge court system’s gun cases — Moore told legislators during a committee hearing earlier this month that his office has about 100 pending cases involving machine guns.

On a national scale, some federal lawmakers believe ATF agents have struggled themselves to crack down on the proliferation of these devices, according to a letter signed by more than 40 congressmen in April 2022.

More recently, congressional Democrats have introduced legislation that would direct several federal agencies to coordinate a national strategy to curb trafficking of switches and would begin including data on switches in the Justice Department’s annual firearms tracking report.

House Bill 331 has sailed through the Legislature with bipartisan support and favor from the powerful Louisiana District Attorneys Association and the Louisiana Shooting Association.

The bill passed through the House of Representatives May 18 by a 100-1 vote. During committee hearings, Dan Zelenka, president of the Louisiana Shooting Association, presented the bill and answered questions with Moore and Carrier.

Carrier said he was initially hesitant to bring a bill forward restricting gun access to Louisianans, which in most cases would be met with opposition by both constituents and colleagues. But with the support of Moore and Zelenka, and as someone personally touched by gun violence, Carrier felt proud to carry his bill.

Carrier has been bound to a wheelchair since September 2010, when a man fatally shot his ex-wife in Carrier’s neighborhood. Not knowing what had happened, Carrier went outside to investigate the noise and hollered at the man, who shot Carrier twice in his back, instantly paralyzing him. The man then turned the gun on himself.

“That’s why I’m in government today,” Carrier said. “I want to help, and I was glad to carry this bill.”

Carrier said the bill will head to the Senate floor on Memorial Day before heading to the desk of Gov. John Bel Edwards, who is expected to sign the bill into law if it passes the Senate.

Email Lara Nicholson at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @LaraNicholson_.