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.

  • Billiam
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    810 months ago

    Gun control works as surely as antibiotics do.

    If there’s one thing the last four years have taught us, it’s that there’s an overwhelming number of Americans who disagree with both sides of that analogy.

    • @ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
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      210 months ago

      Antibiotics? You mean vaccines. Two very different things. If anything, those Americans are into antibiotics too much to the point that they thought taking them would stop COVID.

      • Flying Squid
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        510 months ago

        If Trump told them to never take antibiotics, they’d throw them all out that day.