A surge of illegal homemade machine guns has helped fuel gun violence in the US.

[limbicnuminousity]

https://apnews.com/article/machine-guns-modified-illegal-switches-gun-violence-ddc2e9b6602ee1eb62e75732bbd54784

Communities around the U.S. have seen shootings carried out with weapons converted to fully automatic in recent years, fueled by a staggering increase in small pieces of metal or plastic made with a 3D printer or ordered online. Laws against machine guns date back to the bloody violence of Prohibition-era gangsters. But the proliferation of devices known by nicknames such as Glock switches, auto sears and chips has allowed people to transform legal semi-automatic weapons into even more dangerous guns, helping fuel gun violence, police and federal authorities said.

“Police officers are facing down fully automatic weapon fire in amounts that haven’t existed in this country since the days of Al Capone and the Tommy gun,” said Steve Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF. “It’s a huge problem.”

The agency reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021, the most recent data available.

Guns with conversion devices have been used in several mass shootings, including one that left four dead at a Sweet Sixteen party in Alabama last year and another that left six people dead at a bar district in Sacramento, California, in 2022. In Houston, police officer William Jeffrey died in 2021 after being shot with a converted gun while serving a warrant. In cities such as Indianapolis, police have seized them every week.

[underpants]

1. Frightening

[mitch96]

2. I think it should be referred to as "Republican condoned gun violence". Call it what it is..nt

[Prairie_Seagull]

3. Reich wingers likely to blame it on-

illegal guns coming across the border.

[SarahD]

4. Homemade is better.

There's a sense of accomplishment you get by killing school children with a gun you crafted yourself.

[ripcord]

5. The problem is thay any half-way decent backyard machinist can do a conversion

[Fla_Democrat]

6. Can't stop the signal.