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.
Calling a modified handgun a machine gun is some pretty impressive hyperbole, yeah.
I mean it’s a gun that fires continuously with a single trigger pull. How is that not a machine gun? Yeah it’s a machine pistol that’ll spend a clip in 3 seconds, but it’s still a machine gun.
A machine gun, traditionally, is a fully automatic firearm in a rifle format.
Think light machine guns (M249, PKM) or a sub-machine gun (MP5, P90)
A machine pistol isn’t technically a “machine gun” despite the name. In fact, the classification of machine pistols is a debated topic even now.
In many places, they are classified as any other pistol. In others, they considered a form of PDW or Personal Defense Weapon.
But, PDW can sometimes refer to a specific class of SMG like the P90. Basically, a compact firearm with a cartridge around 6mm or so. Which the P90 fires a 5.7mm round.
Its complicated. And we should not be painting all firearms with the same brush.
I’m glad there’s at least one person standing up for the fair and humane treatment of murder weapons.
It’s an automatic pistol…
“Machine” doesn’t mean automatic, lol.
Just use words for what they are instead of trying to replace them for shock value.
I don’t expect you to do this, though.
Are raspberry Pis not computers because they’re tiny?
Are small electric cars not cars because they can only carry two people?
Are cube satellites not satellites because they’re tiny?
If I’m being fired at rapidly, I’ll be saying “help, someone is shooting at me with a machine gun!” It would be funny if someone popped in and said “ackshually…”
Do you really think that if everyone learns precise technical gun terms that gun control arguments will change?
It’s an automatic pistol…
“Machine” doesn’t mean automatic, lol.
So this is the problem of knowing the actual jargon vs the natural language people use.
Jargon is often prescriptive and needs to be taught. A word means a specific thing because people who know the subject well use it to describe that thing.
But natural language doesn’t work that way. You’ll note that the dictionary definition for “machine gun” includes “broadly: an automatic weapon.” Dictionaries have to be “descriptive,” because they’re helping someone understand what an average person means when they say a phrase.
There are countless examples of words beginning to mean other things in natural language. My pet peeve example is the fact that “podium,” a word containing the root meaning “foot” that is clearly about a raised platform one stands on, in the dictionary contains “see lectern.” Because a fuckload of people (especially in North America) call lecterns “podiums.”
Anyway my point here is that the average person considers any automatic weapon a “machine gun.” That may not be the technical definition of “machine gun,” but it is the natural definition. So when people use it to describe an automatic handgun they aren’t doing this for “shock value,” they’re doing it because they don’t know any better and because to them, that’s what the word they’re using means.
The comparison I use for these conversion devices is it’s like putting high-octane fuel in a dodge caravan and calling it an F1 racer.
