Give PA Law Enforcement the Ability to Get Machine Gun Conversion Devices Off the Street
By Berks County District Attorney John Adams
Police departments in Pennsylvania face the real possibility of being outgunned on our streets by criminals using weapons converted to fully automatic machine guns.
It’s a public safety emergency that we must address.
Machine gun conversion devices enable shooters to fire up to 30 rounds in a few seconds. Machine gun conversion devices are small, inexpensive attachments that turn ordinary semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic machine guns.
That is why the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association recently sent a letter to Governor Shapiro and state lawmakers seeking a statewide ban on machine gun conversion devices.
Recently a police department in my county filed charges against a 19-year-old man in the shooting of a woman. Police reported that the suspect was handling a gun when it discharged accidentally and shot the woman in the leg.
Police say they recovered the gun, along with three conversion devices, raising alarms among police officers in Berks County.
“It’s a huge risk for officers,” a police detective told WFMZ TV. “I mean, even on the SWAT team, we don’t have an automatic weapon, because we are responsible for every round.”
A conversion device blocks the end of the trigger bar on a semiautomatic weapon. Instead of firing one bullet at a time, a gun switch turns the weapon into a fully automated machine gun capable of shooting many rounds rapidly.
Shooters can use these devices to cause mass casualties by spraying bullets into a crowd. It has happened before, and it is going to happen again.
Federal law prohibits machine gun conversion devices. However, Pennsylvania law does not ban machine gun conversion devices, even though most gun cases are prosecuted on the county or state level.
That must change. Call or write your state lawmakers and ask them to give district attorneys and law enforcement the tools they need to target these dangerous devices and get them off the streets.
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