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.
The (ATF) reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021, the most recent data available.
The devices that can convert legal semi-automatic weapons can be made on a 3D printer in about 35 minutes or ordered from overseas online for less than $30. They’re also quick to install.
“It takes two or three seconds to put in some of these devices into a firearm to make that firearm into a machine gun instantly,” Dettelbach said.
Ultimately, guns are not very complicated machines. I’m making a semi-automatic rifle in my home office right now out of stuff you can get at a hardware store & some 3D printed parts, and I’m amazed at how simple it all is.
A lot of proposed gun control feels like trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Even states with hefty assault weapon bans like California and Maryland still have plenty of legal loopholes allowing people to own semi-automatic guns, and gun manufacturers are finding more all the time. I honestly think that anything short of straight up banning the sale of gunpowder will have a temporary at best effect on gun violence, and do less than nothing at worst.
The fact of the matter is that gun control bills at the federal level will cost a lot of political capital. A federal challenge to the 2nd amendment will rally conservatives in the same way that the recent overturning of Roe caused a surge for liberals. This is to say nothing about enforcement: it’s a common position among gun owners that they would simply refuse to comply with a gun confiscation / surrender, and I believe a significant chunk of them would follow through with that. See the recent ATF rules about pistol braces for an example of mass non-compliance.
So, we can fight the uphill battle of gun control for perhaps marginal returns, or we can try to address the things that drive people to violence in the first place. And I’m not just saying “muh mental health” either; we need to address housing costs, healthcare costs, education costs, wages stagnating behind inflation, broken-windows policing, the war on drugs, the mainstreaming of far-right propoganda, the decay of public schooling, white supremacy, queerphobia, misogyny, climate change & doomerism, corporate personhood, and a fuckload of other things making people angry and desparate and hopeless enough to kill people & themselves.
I firmly believe that addressing the material conditions that create killers will prevent more murders than any gun control bill, especially in the USA.
This is to say nothing about enforcement: it’s a common position among gun owners that they would simply refuse to comply with a gun confiscation / surrender, and I believe a significant chunk of them would follow through with that. See the recent ATF rules about pistol braces for an example of mass non-compliance.
Then they need to be arrested. Noone should be trusted with guns and other dangerous weapons or machines if they deliberately break the laws surrounding the ownership of them. We don’t let people drive after they lost their licencse.
The estimates for the number of pistol braces out there ranged from 3 million on the low end, to 40 million on the high end. During the grace period to register braced firearms as SBRs without having to pay the tax stamp, the ATF received 255,162 applications to do so.
Even if we take the low number & account for folks destroying or converting their firearms, we can reasonably estimate a rate of non-compliance in the hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. There is a very real possibility that arresting all those people would literally double the already ludicrous US prison population overnight. In a country that already has a worryingly militarized police force, I cannot imagine the mass arrest of millions of armed people will reduce gun violence.
I understood “not surrendering” as Police shows up and demands to be handed over the braced gun, to be met with a closed door or at gunpoint.
If people need to be told to hand it over, but comply then, i guess it can be handled with a fine. I still stand by this being a clear indication of being unfit for gun ownership though.
