Full-automatic weapons are the most heavily regulated firearms in the nation. While you can, in theory, still buy them, for all practical purposes, they’re unobtainable. You simply can’t get them.

But I keep seeing more and more reports of automatic switches showing up on American streets, and it’s concerning.

The latest comes from Indianapolis.

IMPD officers continue to come across handguns modified to be “machine guns.”

An IMPD officer and his recruit were working on the northwest side and made a traffic stop. During that stop, officers from a handgun with a Glock switch on it.

The switch makes the gun capable of fully automatic fire. Under federal law and Indiana law, that would classify the gun as a machine gun and make it illegal. The federal punishment includes up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

IMPD Captain Brady Ball told 13News, officers began seeing the device about two years ago but are running across them more often.

An ATF spokesperson told 13News, agents in Indianapolis are seeing more lately as well. And, it’s the same story in other cities across the country including Chicago, Houston and Washington, D.C.

“A handgun being pointed at you and fired is deadly, but imagine all 17 rounds of a magazine being shot at you at once,” Ball said. “What are you supposed to do? What’s a police officer supposed to do, let alone the general public?”

Now, unsurprisingly, the ATF and IMPD both fail to give us any actual numbers nor any context so we can really gauge how prevalent the problem really is.

Frankly, this looks an awful lot like many of the stories we saw regarding so-called ghost guns.

The difference, however, is that homemade guns are perfectly legal under existing federal law and automatic switches aren’t. You can’t lawfully order a switch and use it for some other lawful purpose.

You probably should be able to, mind you, but you can’t.

In the process, though, this illustrates the absolute futility of gun control. Full-auto weapons are almost impossible for the average person to get. We have to jump through every hoop you can imagine to get one. It’s everything many gun control advocates could ask for short of a total ban.

And yet, criminals are running around with weapons that are essentially machine guns now.

“But if they didn’t have the guns in the first place, the switch wouldn’t do them any good.”

Do you really think the Chinese companies making and exporting these switches won’t figure out a way to fill a different perceived need? Of course they will.

At the end of the day, the bad guys are going to get guns and they’re going to get devices we ordinary citizens are denied. We’re simply not allowed to match the firepower of criminals, all because some people think we’re just criminals in the making or something.

I suspect law enforcement all over the country will see more of these pop up as criminals get wise to their existence and things will escalate from there.

Meanwhile, we’re still having to justify having more than 10 rounds in a gun.