ATF officers in Philadelphia say they're seeing more switches to make guns fully automatic: "Keeps me up at night"
Amid the sparsely spaced pops at the Philadelphia Police gun range in the Northeast, the tearing of more than a dozen bullets in the blink of an eye stands out.
It's because of a machine gun conversion , a small piece of plastic also known as a "switch" or "Glock switch."
With the switch, which can turn a standard semi-automatic handgun into a fully automatic one, Special Agent Neil Zubaty with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rips off 17 rounds from a handgun in under two seconds.
"It takes less than 30 seconds to pop that on," Zubaty said. "You don't need any special tools to do it. You can actually just use a pen."
The ATF invited CBS News Philadelphia to the range this week for a close-up demonstration of the destructive power the devices can cause. The results were shocking to witness.
According to Zubaty, adding the device to a gun can allow it to fire 1,200 bullets in a minute, if one could reload that fast. He tells us that's a higher firing rate than a military M-16.
The recoil from the rapid-firing weapon is also tremendous. Zubaty has been a firearms instructor with the ATF for more than 15 years. Even for him, he says, controlling a weapon with a switch can be challenging. And when these fall into the hands of someone less experienced, it can lead to devastating collateral damage.
"You can also feel it in your hands, but you can also feel it if you're on the balls of your feet, it knocks you back to your heels. And if you don't have experience doing that, it's even worse," Zubaty said.
"A lot of times the intended victim is not the only victim, just because there are so many rounds coming out once this device is employed it causes a lot of damage," said Eric DeGree, special agent in charge of the ATF Philadelphia Field Division.
DeGree said officers are finding these switches more and more in their investigations in Philadelphia. He said agents see them in everything from violent crimes to robberies and gang cases. Finding and stopping the spread of these weapons has become a "top priority" for the ATF, DeGree said.
"It's one of the things that keeps me up at night," DeGree said.
Recent cases involving switches in Pennsylvania
U.S. attorneys on Wednesday charged an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old for boarding a SEPTA bus in December with weapons hidden under their clothing equipped with switches. In January this year, Montgomery County authorities announced the bust of a gun trafficking operation, where they recovered a number of machine gun conversion devices.
Then there's the notorious shooting near Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues in March 2024. In that case, several people fired at a group of people getting off a SEPTA bus, injuring eight. In a press conference days later, Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said one of the suspects arrested was found to have a weapon modified with one of the devices.
"We recovered a .40-caliber Glock 22 pistol with an extended magazine. It was fully loaded. It also had laser sights on it, and it had what we call a Glock switch," Vanore said on March 11.
ATF agents say the devices are easy to install and can be very hard to spot at a glance. They can be made out of metal, but many are now being made relatively cheaply with 3-D printers. They say this can also make them more accessible.
"So with a $170 printer, a quarter's worth of material, and 30 seconds, you have a machine gun?" asked CBS News Philadelphia reporter Dan Snyder.
"Correct," Zubaty said.
Officers crack down, emphasize jail time
Agents note that the devices are illegal at the federal level, and they are cracking down on offenders. One way is by highlighting the jail time people face for even possessing a switch.
According to DeGree, switches themselves are considered machine guns, and merely possessing the device itself could bring federal charges that could land you in jail for 10 years. If the device is used in a crime, DeGree says offenders are looking at 30 years.
DeGree admits keeping these small, mostly unassuming pieces of plastic or metal off the streets is a challenge for the department. But it's something he says the department, and its local partners, are committed to prioritizing.
"It's something we work at every day to stem the flow," DeGree said, "so it's not hurting our communities."
