Machine gun conversion devices, often called "Glock switches," were designed by a third party, produced by third parties, and sold by third parties, none of which have anything at all to do with Glock, but that's never stopped those pushing the hysteria about these switches from trying to ban the entire brand.
Several states either have or are seriously working on implementing such a ban, all because of the supposed threat that these devices represent.
As noted last week, many of the subjects of anti-gun hysteria aren't really the threat they're made out to be, including the switches. The numbers simply don't support the claims.
It also seems that the actions of prosecutors and judges don't support the claims either.
In any case, whatever scary or misleading lingo politicians employ to justify these gun bans, it’s just so much noise if criminals who illegally modify guns aren’t actually prosecuted. On May 30, for instance, St. Louis, Missouri police “detained two people in [a recklessly-operated] vehicle and found several guns that had been modified with auto-sear switches, converting them to fully automatic firearms.” The police department publicized the arrests, saying the city was “safer today because of the proactive work of these detectives, which led to dangerous weapons being removed from the streets.”
Nevertheless, the dangerous individuals themselves were reportedly and inexplicably back on the streets, having been “released after the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office declined to press charges.” Perhaps there’s more to the story than initially reported, but one can’t help but notice the irony of the message emblazoned across the top of the Circuit Attorney’s official webpage reading, “We Pursue Justice to Achieve a Higher Level of Public Safety for the St. Louis Community.”
That's right, people with devices banned at the federal level were arrested for possessing machine gun conversion devices, but the local circuit attorney's office declined to prosecute them, which means no prison time at all. They're walking the streets just like they'd never broken the law in the first place.
Now, if this were a pro-gun move, such as the circuit attorney feeling that the restrictions on such devices is unconstitutional, I could probably get behind that. However, despite being in pro-gun Missouri, St. Louis is a very anti-gun community, which means it's incredibly unlikely that there's any such pro-Second Amendment stand being made here.
And if there were, that would have been included in the discussion. Make no doubt about that.
So they keep making big talk about taking these devices off the streets, about how dangerous they are, and many places use these arrests to justify both lawsuits against Glock, or bans of their guns, as well as any other with similar designs, but they don't seem to feel they're dangerous enough to actually prosecute the offenders.
Strange, don't you think?
How is it that violent people armed with illegally modified handguns aren't a problem in the CA's mind, but these same things are so dangerous that an entire brand of handgun has to be yanked off the market by force of law because someone might use these illegal devices on one?
It boils down to the fact that they don't believe the hype. They don't have to, though. They need you to believe the hype because that hype lets them convince people that the problem is so widespread that they have no choice but to level bans against the most popular model of handgun in the country today.
They don't believe it.
Don't let anyone else believe it, either.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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