WATERBURY, Conn — It’s the new shot heard around the world and it comes from a Glock. The manufacturer’s handguns are being retrofitted with a device that’s threatening local law enforcement and the safety on your street.
In the United States, there are more guns than people and those are only legal weapons, according to a 2018 report by Small Arms Survey.
It's been illegal to own a newer model fully automatic weapon since 1986, but that hasn’t stopped criminals from obtaining them. Now, it’s easier than ever to turn a semi-automatic pistol into a mini machine gun with a device the size of a brick.
It’s called a Glock switch.
They’re small. They’re cheap. They’re illegal.
“There’s a lot of switches that are coming into the state,” said Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo.
Glock switches are not only infiltrating our streets but our popular culture too - with lyrics often included in rap music. Glock switches make deadly weapons, deadlier.
Glock expert Bob Margolis said these so-called Glock stitches basically turn the gun into a machine gun.
Spagnolo showed FOX61 News a video of one of their officers test-firing a Glock retrofitted with a switch that was confiscated from a crime scene.
“That was a test fire of a Glock 9mm that was modified with a switch,” he said. “That particular gun was seized in February of this past year by members of our Gang Task Force.”
The weapon belonged to Christian Colon. The 40-caliber Glock was allegedly stolen from Georgia and not only had a switch, but a 50-round magazine too, Spagnolo said. The legal limit in Connecticut is 10 rounds.
Inside the Waterbury Police Department’s forensics lab, Spagnolo showed FOX61 News the gun up close, along with a small sampling of other illegal and un-serialized street weapons commonly known as “ghost guns.”
“It necessitates a look at tactics, it necessitates a look at safety equipment, and it necessitates a look at firepower available for those officers,” Spagnolo said.
In 2022, Waterbury police seized at least 180 illegal guns including 16 ghost guns and two switches.
Margolis explained how easy it is to convert a semi-automatic pistol into a fully automatic weapon in just over one minute.
“It increases the rate of fire to a point where it’s pretty much impossible to control a handgun with rounds coming out at 1,100 per second…It’s wildly inaccurate,” explained Margolis, who is also the owner of LifeSafe Training.
He took FOX61 onto the shooting range to demonstrate how a Glock was manufactured to perform.
“It was meant to operate one round at a time,” said Margolis.
Despite being called Glock switches, these devices are not manufactured by Glock.
“It's no mystery that these days you can buy almost anything on the internet, legal or not,” explained Mike Lawlor, an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven.
In a quick internet search, it took us seconds to find a place to not only purchase a switch but to download one that can be 3-D printed for free.
“This is something that didn’t really exist 10 years ago,” said Lawlor.
RELATED: Over 100 firearms, thousands of ammunition rounds found in New Britain man's home: state police
Lawlor, a state legislator, is the author of Connecticut's Red Flag Law, which gave police the power to seize a weapon from someone determined to be a threat. He told FOX61 that police departments need to do a better job familiarizing their officers with the presence of switches.
“I hear this from law enforcement senior commanders a lot. In retrospect, their officers have encountered these things but didn’t recognize them for what they were. They thought nothing of it,” he said as he added a message for Glock. “Maybe it’s incumbent upon Glock, which makes the most popular handgun in the country, to retrofit their weapon to make sure they cannot be changed with a switch. I assume that’s mechanically possible to do.”
FOX61 reached out to Glock to ask if they are doing anything to counter the switch. We did not get a response.
In an effort to get more guns off the street, the Waterbury Police Department will be holding a gun buyback event at their training center on Bank Street on Nov. 12, where your gun can net you as much as a $200 gift card with no questions asked.
Matt Caron is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at mcaron@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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