If you want a machine gun in America, you can get one.
It might even be legal.
Rifles aren’t the only firearms easily modified to become machine guns. Semi-automatic pistols can be converted into machine pistols cheaply and quickly.
Pistols are much easier to conceal than long guns. While adding views to YouTubes like the following isn’t great, please watch less than ten seconds of the following.
The Glock Switch
If you didn’t watch the video, it demonstrated a “Glock switch” in action. One hundred bullets were fired downrange in six seconds. Anyone with the proper FFL license and tax documentation can legally own one.
Shop online and buy a “Glock switch” for $150 or so if the web page is not actually an ATF site. Once your gizmo arrives, attach it to your weapon and you’re in business.
Converting a semi-auto pistol to full-auto is easy. “Glock switch” is the “Kleenex” name for an auto sear device that overrides the lock engaged after each trigger squeeze for a semi-automatic pistol.
It’s unnecessary to be a gunsmith, a machinist, or even handy with tools.
Pistol ammunition isn’t as deadly as military style rifle ammunition, but it’s deadly enough and has the added feature of being more likely to penetrate a human body and potentially strike another human before its energy is spent.
Steven Carrillo and His Machine Gun
Steven Carrillo was an active duty Air Force staff sergeant. He was disillusioned and angry, leading him to associate with the Boogaloo Bois paramilitary group. Sometime in 2019 he bought a 3D printed “coat hanger” for $15 to modify a “ghost gun” AR-15 he had assembled from parts.
Once that was done, Carrillo owned a machine gun with a silencer.
The “coat hanger” was sold by Timothy Watson who eventually was sentenced to 60 months in prison. Watson sold at least 800 “coat hangers” to people in nearly every state. The “coat hanger” was actually a “drop in auto sear” for AR-15 style weapons like Carrillo’s, used to convert the semi-automatic action to a fully-automatic machine gun,
Carrillo’s Violent Rampage
On May 29, 2020, Carrillo had another Boogaloo member drive him to downtown Oakland. They used a van registered to Carrillo’s father, but Carrillo wanted a driver. They drove to where a a crowd of people protesting the George Floyd murder were gathering near the courthouse. Once there, Carrillo slid the van door open and fired multiple bursts with his modified AR-15. He fired 19 rounds nearly instantly.
He killed one federal security officer and wounded another. The two men fled.
Eight days later, a 911 call alerted authorities to a suspicious van loaded with guns and bomb making devices inside. It was Carrillo’s parked at his father’s house in Ben Lomond, CA. Three deputy sheriffs arrived at the house guarded by a dog wearing body armor and multiple video cameras.
Carrillo was waiting for them, concealed in the brush on high ground. He killed one deputy with one shot as he exited his vehicle and then wounded another. Carrillo then fled. Using hijacked vehicles and engaging law enforcement with his modified weapon and pipe bombs, he was finally shot and captured.
Carrillo was sentenced to 41 years in prison for killing the federal officer and in a separate court action to life for killing the sheriff’s deputy.
How Machine Gun Conversions Work
The “sear” is part of the trigger mechanism on most firearms. The function of the sear is to restrain the hammer or striker intended to actually fire the round in the chamber until the trigger has been pulled.
The sear in a semi-automatic weapon is re-engaged with the trigger once the round is fired and the next round is chambered. If you’ve seen a movie where somebody has fired a semi-auto pistol, you’ve seen the action and have seen what happens when the weapon discharges.
When an AR-15 is fired, the expanding gases inside its chamber propel the bullet out the barrel and push the bolt back to pick up another round from the gun’s magazine. When the bolt compresses a spring in the gun’s stock and bounces forward again, it catches a tiny lip on the auto sear and immediately releases the hammer to hit the gun’s firing pin again, without any interaction with the trigger.
The FBI Says ‘Boogaloo’ Extremists Bought 3D-Printed Machine Gun Parts – Wired Nov. 4, 2020
In broad strokes, the action of a semi-auto pistol is functionally the same. The image above is a revolver but it demonstrates clearly how the trigger is “locked” after it’s has been pulled. The idea is the same for semi-automatic weapons with a sear no matter how widely designs vary.
Pistol And Rifle Machine Gun Modifications Are Functionally Similar
Converting most semi-automatic weapons to fully-automatic operation is a matter of overriding the locking mechanism of the sear. Some weapons are easier than others to convert and don’t necessarily have to be manufactured from metal.
An auto sear for an AR-15 can be 3D printed in about ten minutes. A metal part would last longer, but replacement of a worn plastic auto sear would be cheap and fast. The “Glock switch” auto sear designs are more complex, but not by much.
Conversions Are Not Legal
The federal government isn’t sleeping on this problem, but full-auto weapons are proliferating on the streets. The ATF recovered more than 5,400 switches between 2017 and 2021.
As discussed in Part One of this series, there are already federal laws that classify full-auto conversion parts as actual machine guns. The ATF and FBI have been watching the conversion industry for some time now and making arrests that lead to convictions. That doesn’t mean law enforcement is dramatically impacting the availability of auto sear conversion parts.
Once you have an idea what auto sear parts look like, you can find them on large legitimate online retail sites. 3D printing files can be found without much difficulty.
The penalties for converting weapons are steep. Because the parts themselves are now effectively machine guns, possessing the parts without a federal firearms license (FFL) is a felony.
American Fascination With Guns
It’s important to point out these conversion devices remain legal for eligible individuals willing to go through the licensing process to obtain the correct FFL. Machine guns ARE legal for those licensees to own, including the parts classified as machine guns.
According to a 2021 Georgetown University poll of gun owners in the US, 24.6 million persons have an AR-15 or a comparable firearm in their possession. Up to 44 million such rifles in total.
Whatever objection there is to further “assault weapon” legislation, there’s no ignoring that weapon type is over-represented as the firearm of choice in mass shootings. The flesh destroying high velocity ammunition coupled with available extended magazines are as big factors in that choice to kill a lot of people quickly.
The data on handguns is more stale than for long guns. In 2019, there were roughly 102 million semi-automatic pistols owned in the United States. At the same point in time, 5.7 million handguns were stored in cars.
It may seem frivolous to prosecute people for manufacturing “coat hangers” despite the end use being converting legal weapons into illegal ones. Second Amendment purists object, contending they should be able to modify their weapons for recreational use.
Gang related activities have featured illegal machine pistols like MAC-10’s for years and are lately showing auto sear conversions. A few Google minutes will present evidence of how widespread converted firearms are on the street.
Call your elected representatives, let them know you’re concerned. Vote accordingly.
Research and Supporting Information
- Sear (firearm) – Wikipedia
- The Number and Type of Private Firearms in the United States – Sage Journals
- 2021 National Firearms Survey: … Types of Firearms Owned – Georgetown University
- The FBI Says ‘Boogaloo’ Extremists Bought 3D-Printed Machine Gun Parts – Wired
- AutoKeyCard Explained: Why Did the ATF Shut It Down? – Pew Pew Tactical
- With ‘conversion switch’ devices, machine guns return to U.S. streets – Washington Post
- The Return of the Machine Gun – The Trace March 24, 2022
- … How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War – PBS Frontline
- Mongolian Boys indicted in connection with Valley shooting – Visalia Times Delta