Switches that convert perfectly legal firearms, like those Glock produces, into machine pistols are all the rage in the media, right up there with so-called ghost guns. The fact that privately made firearms typically function like Glocks and similar handguns only makes the hysteria even more palpable. States have started trying to take action, from pro-gun Alabama banning the switches to Connecticut’s recently passed ban on these kinds of handguns; it seems the problem is massive.
Just how massive is it?
As with all things, context matters. While some might throw percentages around, without raw numbers, we simply can’t know how big the issue actually is. I can’t help but think this is by design, especially since the data is actually kind of hard to find on your own. I’ve looked and simply haven’t managed to find it.
But John Lott knows where to look, and yeah, I’m thoroughly unimpressed with the danger.
We have tried to do an exhaustive search on cases where a Glock-style gun with a switch was used to murder people, but it is quite possible that we have missed some cases. The total that we have so far found is 43 murders from 20 attacks where someone was murdered, so slightly more than two people murdered per case. Part of the reason for their infrequent use is the danger that these devices pose to those who are using them. California and now Maryland and Connecticut have passed bans on Glocks or Glock-style guns because they use cruciform trigger bars. New York will soon finish enacting this ban. New Jersey is in the process of putting a registry together on people who have bought those guns since the beginning of 2016. There is no evidence that law-abiding gun owners are converting their handguns, and even the advocates for these laws focus on only the threat by criminal gangs. The NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation have brought lawsuits against these gun bans.
Lott notes that nearly twice as many people were killed by lightning during this same period (81).
He also asks an important question: how many of these people would have been killed if the switches hadn’t been in the picture? Because most of these murders involve just one or two people, every single one of these victims would likely have still been killed even if the switch had never been invented.
Plus, let’s look at the annual numbers, rather than figure up an average.
Let’s keep in mind that an average of three to four people are killed each year by vending machines and that around 900 die from constipation, and we can see just how terrible this scourge actually is.
Should criminals be arrested for their crimes? Sure. No one should be shooting up our neighborhoods with any kind of weapon. I don’t think that’s a controversial statement in the least.
But this inane focus on full-auto switches, along with the almost as rarely used “ghost guns” and “assault weapons,” is nothing more than trying to create a problem so the public can be sold on a solution, which just gets them used to giving up their rights in the name of safety, even when safety really is a matter of who is getting the press.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun control policies and schemes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Read the full article here
