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Illegal homemade machine guns help fuel gun violence in the US
Known as Glock switches, auto sears, chips or other nicknames, conversion devices can now be made on a 3D printer or ordered from overseas online.
WASHINGTON — Eleven-year-old Domonic Davis was not far from his mom’s Cincinnati home when a hail of gunfire sprayed out from a passing car. Nearly two dozen rounds hurtled through the night at a group of children in the blink of an eye.
Four other children and a woman were hurt in the November shooting that killed Domonic, who had just made his school basketball team.
“What happened? How does this happen to an 11-year-old? He was only a few doors down,” his father, Issac Davis, said.
The shooting remains under investigation. But federal investigators believe the 22 shots could be fired off with lightning speed because the weapon had been illegally converted to fire like a machine gun.
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.
“Police officers are facing down fully automatic weapon fire in amounts that haven’t existed in this country since the days of Al Capone in the Tommy gun,” said Steve Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF. “It’s a huge problem.”
The agency reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021, the most recent data available.
Guns with conversion devices have been used in several mass shootings, including one that left four dead at a Sweet Sixteen party in Alabama last year and another that left six people dead at a bar district in Sacramento, California, in 2022. In Houston, police officer William Jeffrey died in 2021 after being shot with a converted gun while serving a warrant. In cities such as Indianapolis, police have seized them every week.
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.
Once in place, they modify the gun’s machinery. Instead of firing one round each time the shooter squeezes the trigger, a semi-automatic weapon with a conversion device starts firing as soon as the trigger goes down and doesn’t stop until the shooter lets go or the weapon runs out of ammunition.
“You’re seeing them a lot in stunning numbers, particularly in street violence,” said David Pucino, deputy chief counsel at Giffords Law Center.
In a demonstration by ATF agents, the firing of a semi-automatic outfitted with a conversion device was nearly indistinguishable from an automatic weapon. Conversion devices with differing designs can fit a range of different guns, enabling guns to fire at a rate of 800 or more bullets per minute, according to the ATF.
“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.
Between 2012 and 2016, police departments in the U.S. found 814 conversion devices and sent them to the ATF. That number grew to more than 5,400 between 2017 and 2021, according to the agency’s most recent data.
They took hold in Minneapolis in 2021, and helped fuel record-breaking gun violence that year, said police Chief Brian O’Hara. Along with spraying out bullets at a dizzying speed, switches make a gun much more difficult for the shooter to control, so more people can be hit by accident.
“The thing is shaking as it’s firing, so we wind up getting multiple victims, people hit in extremities during the same shooting incident, because the person cannot control the weapon,” O’Hara said.
The city has seen a decline in their use since the September 2022 arrest of a man charged with selling switches that he had ordered from Russia and Taiwan or made himself, O’Hara said. But “it’s still a very, very real problem,” he said. “This is having a really deep impact on families, on neighborhoods and communities.”
While the devices are considered illegal machine guns under federal law, many states don’t have their own specific laws against them. In Indiana, police were finding them so often — multiple times a week in the state’s capital — that the state changed the law to ensure it included switches.
“We have to update the laws regarding machine guns to deal with the problems of today,” Indianapolis police Chief Chris Bailey said.
Only 15 states have their own laws against the possession, sale or manufacture of automatic-fire weapons, according to Giffords. Indiana was one of many states that have regulations with exceptions. Five states have no state-level machine-gun regulations at all.
But long before any prosecution, police have to find the conversion devices. Often about the size of a quarter, they can easily go unnoticed by the untrained eye after being installed, said Dettelbach.
He recalled visiting a Texas police department after the ATF hosted a training on conversion devices. Afterwards, the chief searched the weapons in the evidence room and found several with previously undetected conversion devices.
“These items don’t always look as dangerous as they are,” he said. “If you see some of them, they’re pieces of plastic and metal, and sometimes it’s even hard to recognize them when they’re actually on or in the firearm because they blend in.”
They’re also increasingly a fixture online, in social media and rap lyrics, Davis said. “Everyone is talking about switches,” he said. “It’s a scary trend.”
Davis struggles to talk about the loss of his son. Domonic would often come with his dad on Fridays to get a haircut at the barber shop where Issac Davis works. The shooting also fell on a Friday, making the end of the week an especially tough time.
Davis hopes to start a foundation called For Every Eleven to fight gun violence and honor his son’s memory.
“I still want to keep his name going,” he said. “He deserved to be still relevant. So I have to keep going. No matter how much grief I grieve him in private.”
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BCA Special Agent Joe Swenson told jurors that Maddi Kingsbury’s remains were hidden by brush and logs 6 to 10 feet long and appeared to be there “on purpose.”
MANKATO, Minn. — BCA Special Agent Joe Swenson was the first witness called Monday morning, the 8th day of testimony in the 1st-degree murder trial of Adam Fravel for the death of Maddi Kingsbury, his ex-girlfriend and mother of his two children.
Swenson, based in Rochester, took the stand and testified about arriving at the scene where Maddi’s remains were found inside a culvert on June 7, 2023. He recalled that the remains were so hidden that he couldn’t tell where the Fillmore Co. Deputy was pointing until they started moving logs and brush.
The BCA agent described some of the logs in the ditch as being 6-10 feet long and “the size of older wooden powerlines, 6-inches across.”
“It certainly appeared the logs were placed there on purpose,” Swenson said.
Then prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz questioned Agent Swenson about discoveries made during an April 27, 2023, search of the Rochester home Fravel and Kingsbury shared. Jurors were shown photos inside the garage as Agent Swenson testified about finding a roll a roll of black Gorilla duct tape, which seemed to match the tape wrapped around Maddi’s body.
Swenson told the courtroom he also found Wyze-brand surveillance cameras in the garage, which had been taken down from inside the townhome and were not operational on the day investigators believe Maddi was killed.
Last week, prosecutors charged Mary Kay Bower, 42, of St. Paul, with rustling and livestock theft, which is a felony.
SHAKOPEE, Minn. — In a YouTube video titled “Rustling is still a thing,” Bloomington Police Chief Booker T. Hodges begins by saying “I’m going to talk to you about a crime that city dwellers don’t often have to talk about.”
Hodges is referring to a woman who was recently arrested and charged with stealing a sheep from a farm in Bloomington.
Last week, prosecutors charged Mary Kay Bower, 42, of St. Paul, with rustling and livestock theft, which is a felony.
On Saturday, Oct. 19, around 6:45 p.m., officers were called to Old Shakopee Road East on a report of a man and woman walking a dog and a sheep.
Bower originally told the officers she had purchased the sheep, according to court documents. However, the man with Bower told officers she “had stepped over the fence to a farm, put a leash on the sheep, and then pulled the sheep through the fence. The male said {Bower} pulled so hard that the sheep was choking.”
Officers said they confirmed with the nearby farm’s owner that the sheep was stolen. The farm’s owner said the “sheep is a breeding hair ram worth approximately $500.”
Chief Booker ended his video by saying the ram was in good condition and Bower’s dog and a “bunny rabbit” that she also had in her possession had been returned to her after she was released from the Hennepin County Jail.
John Sawchak faces four felony charges after officials said he shot his neighbor on Grand Avenue South while trimming a tree on their shared property line.
MINNEAPOLIS — Charges have been filed against a south Minneapolis man accused of shooting his neighbor after a long-simmering rift.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office filed charges of attempted murder, first-degree assault, stalking and harassment against 54-year-old John Herbert Sawchak after alleged racial comments escalated to threats, then culminated in that neighbor being shot while pruning a tree on the line between their two properties.
According to a criminal complaint, Minneapolis police responded to a hospital for a report of a gunshot victim on Wednesday night. The injured man had been transported from his home on Grand Avenue South for an unknown medical condition that caused him to collapse. The man was found in the fetal position by his wife when she got home from work that evening.
Officials later identified the victim as Davis Moturi.
At the hospital, providers found a small puncture wound in the back of Moturi’s neck that led to the discovery of a bullet lodged near his spine. When he arrived at the hospital, he couldn’t recall what led up to him being shot, according to the criminal complaint.
Moturi’s wife told officials that he had been outside earlier in the day pruning a tree near their property line with a chainsaw. She said their neighbor, John Sawchak, had “almost certainly” shot her husband.
In the previous week, Moturi’s wife said Sawchak told her husband “Touch my tree again and I’ll kill you.”
The criminal complaint goes on to detail numerous complaints of harassment the Moturi’s experienced since purchasing their house in September 2023.
- Oct. 11, 2023: Moturi approached Sawchak to discuss the tree on their property line. Sawchak became irate, according to the criminal complaint, yelling at Moturi and using “racially charged language.” Sawchak told Moturi if he “touched” the tree, Sawchak would “take care of” him.
- March 1, 2024: Sawchak approached Moturi while he was working outside his house on a ladder. While verbally harassing him, officials said Sawchak told Moturi that he would put him in the hospital.
- April 5, 2024: Sawchak threw household items at Moturi from his 2nd-floor window.
- May 28, 2024: Sawchak verbally threatened Moturi, calling him “a Black bastard,” and telling him “I’m going to kill you if you call the police again. All you people do is lie and commit crimes.”
- Aug. 7, 2024: Sawchak verbally threatened Moturi from his 2nd story window. Moturi saw Sawchak holding up a large knife in the window while threatening to kill Moturi and his wife.
- Oct. 8, 2024: Sawchak verbally threatened and screamed racial slurs at Moturi from his 2nd-floor window. Sawchak also, once again, brandished a knife from his window while threatening to kill Moturi.
- Oct. 14, 2024: Moturi saw Sawchak outside Moturi’s home with a firearm. Sawchak pointed the firearm at Moturi through the window.
On the evening of Oct. 23, Moturi’s wife went home to pack some things and leave for the night, officials said. Sawchak verbally harassed her and shone a stone light on her as she left her home, the criminal complaint read. The next day, Moturi and his wife were able to access home security footage from their home cameras. The video shows Moturi working outside near the tree at the property line with his back to Sawchak’s home. A faint “crack” or “pop” can be heard, then Moturi collapsed to the ground.
Moturi remains hospitalized with a fractured spine, two broken ribs, and a concussion. He spoke with KARE 11 from his hospital bed and said he feels the police failed to protect his family by not arresting Sawchak during one of the various other incidents.
“If you’re saying you’re scared, what does that do to me?” Moturi said. “You have this body armor, you have professional training… when I call for assistance, when I called for having a knife pointed at me, I had to wait hours and hours and hours.”
As of Sunday morning, Sawchak is not in police custody. According to the criminal complaint, Sawchak has at least three active warrants associated with prior threats or acts of violence against Moturi and other neighbors. Sawchak has “actively evaded” police during their prior attempts to contact or arrest him.
A letter from ranking members of the Minneapolis City Council to Mayor Jacob Frey reflected anger and blame directed at the Minneapolis police department for allegedly failing to act on Moturi’s numerous complaints against Sawchak before the shooting, and failing to arrest him immediately after the shooting.
“MPD still has not arrested the suspect despite charges from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for Attempted Murder, 1st Degree Assault, Stalking, and Harassment and a request from the HCAO for a warrant with $1 million bail. MPD told the HCAO they do not intend to execute the warrant ‘for reasons of officer safety,’” said the letter from the Minneapolis City Council.
Watch Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s response below:
