‘Impossible to Control’: Mobile County Demonstration Shows Power of Illegal Glock Switches

David Robinson has been a firearms safety instructor for 24 years and is almost as skilled in the use of firearms as anyone in the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office.

On Wednesday, during a demonstration at the agency’s shooting range, he admitted that he had problems controlling the weapons he was using.

This was not due to an immediate decline in skill. This happened because the same gun – a compact 9mm pistol – was equipped with a switch that turned the semi-automatic device into a rapid-fire weapon.

“One pull of the trigger,” Robinson said. “And you can’t keep the weapon stable.”

The sheriff’s office, as part of a statewide effort to pass a new law banning trigger actuators – commonly called Glock switches – held a media event Wednesday to illustrate the dangers of converting a handgun into a weapon capable of firing 1,200 shots per minute, or 20 rounds per second.

“We want to show how deadly a switch on a handgun can be,” said Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch. “It fires at a rate that… even for someone who shoots regularly, this gun is impossible to control.”

The demonstration in Mobile also comes 11 days after the deadly Sept. 21 mass shooting in Birmingham’s Five Points entertainment district. One of the bandits used a firearm with a Glock switch installed, enabling it to be converted into an automatic weapon. Four people were killed and 17 injured in the shooting, which left no arrests and is under investigation.

The shooting also caught the attention of the White House, which invited Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin to join President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in signing an executive order Thursday establishing a federal task force to conduct an in-depth analysis of the machine gun. conversion devices such as Glock switches.

Their use has increased in recent years. Between 2017 and 2021, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recovered 5,454 conversion devices. This represented an increase of 570 percent over the previous five-year period.

Glock switches have been used in multiple shootings throughout Alabama, including in south Alabama. The most famous of them occurred on New Year’s Eve, January 1, 2023, in downtown Mobile, during which the gunman Thomas Earl Thomas killed a man and injured nine other people. The gun Thomas used was equipped with a Glock kill switch as he fired into a crowd of revelers on Dauphin Street.

Last year, Thomas was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. Possessing a trigger actuator that allows a pistol to be converted into a machine gun is prohibited under federal law.

State Rep. Matt Simpson, R-Daphne, who attended the demonstration with Rep. Frances Holk-Jones, R-Foley, said local law enforcement agencies across Alabama need help getting the devices off the streets. He said he supports HB26, sponsored by Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, which would make possession of a trigger actuator a Class C felony under Alabama law — punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

“It’s not about us adding new restrictions on firearms,” Simpson said. “There is a federal law that says you can’t have that. The problem is that the feds are not prosecuting this issue, so now the states must step in and address it for the safety of our communities. “It would give state prosecutors the ability to step in and prosecute cases that have not been prosecuted at the federal level.”

Simpson noted that law enforcement agencies across Alabama – sheriffs, police chiefs and district attorneys – support adding state penalties for anyone caught with a Glock disabling device.

Last year, law enforcement officials came to the House to show support for a similar bill that passed the House with a 60-38 vote but failed without a vote in the Alabama Senate.

“The mayors are asking for it,” Simpson said. “Everyone sees the dangers this can pose to the community.”

AL.com reached out to senators after the Birmingham shooting, and many Republicans confirmed they would support HB26 as long as it was narrowly tailored to target Glock switches attached to handguns.

Some Republicans have said they do not support the bill, calling the shootings a “social problem” rather than caused by any type of gun.

Right-wing gun rights groups also found the proposal unnecessary due to the existence of federal law. Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville also said there was no reason for state legislation, adding that there were already federal laws on the books for Glock switches.

Alabama, if HB26 were to pass, would not be the only state with Republican leadership to vote for state penalties on Glock switches. Mississippi lawmakers did just that earlier this year.

Burch said he would like to see lawmakers approve the legislation soon. The state legislature will not return to its regular session until February 2025.

“If I catch you with one today, it could be three to four months before you get charged and ultimately arrested,” he said. “If the state bill passes, we will be able to arrest on the spot.”

He added: “These things are dangerous. “Usually the safest person… is the one who gets shot at because it’s the bystanders who get hit because you can’t control the gun.”