There’s been a lot of noise of late about auto sears or so-called “Glock switches” – devices to convert a semiautomatic firearm into an automatic weapon. New Mexico adopted a “weapon conversion device” ban in February, and in March, Alabama enacted a similar law to restrict possession of devices designed or intended to convert a pistol into a machine gun. New Jersey was also considering a bill to criminalize possession and sale of “machine gun conversion devices.”
Under federal law, the devices are already regulated in the same way as fully functional “machineguns,” and simple possession of a machinegun (including just the device) is, subject to limited exceptions, a federal felony punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment. Criminals who possess or use an auto sear in the commission of any “crime of violence” or “drug trafficking crime” face enhanced penalties under federal law that include a minimum 30 years’ imprisonment.
The justification for this push to criminalize auto sears under state law tends to be that, regardless of the federal ban, there is a need to empower state and local law enforcement to go after the criminals who illegally possess or use these conversion devices.
In Minnesota, for instance, severe state law sanctions apply to the illegal use and possession of these devices. Minnesota law prohibits the ownership, possession, or operation of a machine gun, “trigger activator,” or “machine gun conversion kit,” where “machine gun conversion kit” includes “any part or combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun.” A violation is a very serious crime indeed, judging from the potential penalty: incarceration for up to 20 years, payment of a fine of up to $35,000, or both the fine and time.
Last year, Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a state court lawsuit in Hennepin County against gunmaker Glock, Inc., a company which doesn’t manufacture, import, distribute or market auto sears, or provide information on how to install such aftermarket devices on its pistols. Ellison’s civil suit rests on the dubious claim the company makes and sells semi-automatic handguns “that Glock knows can easily be converted into illegal machine guns” using a so-called “Glock switch.” Yet in his press release on illegal machine guns and crime, Ellison stated that it “is critically important that we continue to hold individuals who commit crimes criminally accountable for their actions … Holding corporations civilly accountable is not a substitute for criminally prosecuting individuals who harm others.”
The strict sanctions in state law and the Attorney General’s unequivocal directive about holding persons criminally accountable make the recent apprehension and release of an individual allegedly in illegal possession of a machinegun conversion device all the more inexplicable.
On June 3, Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officers executing a traffic stop encountered 18-year-old Amiir Mawlid Ali in a vehicle heading to the Edina High School graduation ceremony being held at the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. According to the news report, Ali was known to be “associated with multiple recent gang-related shootings and was known to carry firearms,” and officers found a Glock handgun under his seat. The gun was “equipped with a loaded 33-round extended magazine and a machinegun conversion device.” Officers were aware that an unrelated shooting during a graduation ceremony at the same university campus happened a few days before.
That shooting, at the May 30 Wayzata High School graduation ceremony, left two people injured, including a man shot in the head. Police used surveillance video to identify the alleged shooter and locate the suspect’s Glock handgun, which was equipped with a machinegun conversion device. The suspect was apprehended and reportedly faces state law charges of first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and possessing/operating a machine gun.
A news report provides the timeline following Ali’s apprehension by the MPD. After being booked into Hennepin County Jail on a weapons charge on June 3, he was set free on June 5, as soon as his 36-hour hold expired. (A search of the Online Hennepin County Jail Roster confirms Ali was held without bail and released on June 5 at 4:40 PM.) The next day, June 6, police responded to a shooting at another high school graduation ceremony, at or near Burnsville High School, MN, in which multiple shots were fired but no one was injured. Ali was “among four people arrested following shots fired at the Burnsville graduation,” although the extent of his involvement is unclear. A news source includes an additional troubling allegation, citing court documents, that “in recorded jail calls following his arrest, Ali said he would need a ‘button’ – slang for a machine gun conversion device – upon his release.”
In hindsight, the foregoing make the decision of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office to release Ali from custody on June 5, apparently without charges, all the more problematic, especially in light of the messaging from the state’s top law enforcement officer about the “critical” importance of enforcing illegal machine gun laws. A spokesperson for the County Attorney’s Office explained that “[o]ur office deferred the case against Mr. Ali for additional investigation because the evidence, as submitted, didn’t include necessary forensic testing results to overcome likely defenses. We requested it be resubmitted for charging consideration when the testing was complete.”
The case, unfortunately, isn’t an outlier. One of our previous alerts described a 2022 case involving alleged gang-member brothers Cortez and Quintez, found in possession of firearms that had been illegally modified using auto sears. Prosecuted under state law, both received a probation-only sentence and released. As a newspaper report explains more fully:
The twins were charged in Hennepin County in January 2022 with illegally possessing firearms modified with switches after they were caught with the guns as they left a funeral for another gang member. They pleaded guilty that spring and were sentenced to probation. But four days after Cortez’s sentence — and a week before Quantez was due back in court for his own sentencing — the brothers were pulled over by Maple Grove police. Officers found Cortez with an unmarked Polymer80 pistol, or ghost gun, with a loaded, high-capacity magazine. Quantez Ward had a rifle in a backpack. Months later, law enforcement searched their home and found other firearms, including another ghost gun outfitted with a switch.
Federal law enforcement had no similar inhibitions, and the brothers have since been federally prosecuted and convicted for illegal possession of firearms/ammunition. (One of the brothers released a rap album from jail while awaiting sentencing, which included a track called “OnFully” that “celebrates converting semiautomatic pistols into machine guns.”).
Amiir Mawlid Ali also faces federal prosecution. A June 11 press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office cites “an investigation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Explosives and Federal Bureau of Investigation Safe Streets Violent Gang Task Force, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Minneapolis Police Department, and the University of Minnesota Police Department” leading to federal charges for unlawful possession of a machinegun being brought against Ali and against 20-year-old Hamza Abdirashiid Said, the suspect in the May 30 Wayzata High School graduation shooting. Both were detained in federal custody pending detention hearings.
Of course, arrests and charges, whether state or federal, are merely an allegation of criminal conduct and not evidence of guilt; all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
While these cases continue to be dealt with by law enforcement and the courts, a few things are already apparent.
There are plenty of existing laws with severe criminal sanctions available to be deployed against those possessing or using illegal machineguns or conversion devices. Not only is a machinegun conversion device illegal to possess under state law and federal law, a University of Minnesota policy on weapons on campus bans visitors and others from possessing or carrying firearms on University property. None of these seemed to have any deterrent effect. Second, even an infinite number of laws on the books are worthless unless they are used to prosecute, fully, the persons with illegal machine guns and illegal conversion devices. Finally, instead of seeking to switch the responsibility and liability for crime from the third-party offenders onto the gunmaker Glock, Inc. (already strictly regulated under law), the more legally and practically sound approach is to use existing laws against criminals who actually violate the law and harm others.
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