How an Alabama gun control debate could reignite over Glock switches

Mississippi is not a state known for embracing gun restrictions, nor does the state’s leadership often draw applause for its policies from gun control groups like Moms Demand Action.

But after the tragic early January death of George County Deputy Jeremy Malone — after he was shot and killed by a man carrying a handgun converted into an automatic weapon — lawmakers went into action.

The result? Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signing legislation in early May making it a felony in Mississippi for someone to possess a gun conversion device like a so-called “Glock switch.”

Alabama officials are hoping to do the same, even if similar efforts in Montgomery stalled out last spring following a gun-rights versus gun control debate on the Alabama House floor.

You Might Like

“The federal regulations that prohibit the conversion devices, itself, are not found unconstitutional including under the Second Amendment,” said Dustin Williamson, director of policy advocacy at Everytown for Gun Safety, a network that includes Moms Demand Action and advocates for “common sense” gun laws. “We don’t feel it’s unconstitutional for the state to regulate them.”

Bipartisan approach

Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, is once again sponsoring the legislation that makes anyone caught with a Glock switch on a pistol subject to a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in state prison.

It’s almost the same bill that was passed out of the House in April but was not taken up in the Senate during the waning days of the session.

Ensler, who announced he had pre-filed legislation on Monday, called HB26 a bipartisan measure that has had prior strong support from law enforcement: Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the Fraternal Order of Police, The Alabama Sheriffs Association, and the Alabama District Attorneys Association. The Big 10 Mayors of Alabama – who represent the 10 largest cities in the state – have also advocated for stricter laws on Glock switches.

“The biggest difference, and the one I’m most optimistic about, is it’s not only a Democratic bill but a bipartisan bill,” said Ensler.

Related content: How Alabama legislation banning Glock switches revived a ‘back the blue’ debate

Indeed, some Republican lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors including those with law enforcement backgrounds like Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Birmingham, a former assistant police chief with the Birmingham Police Department.

Treadaway is also chairman of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, which is where HB26 will first be debated next spring.

“It’s certainly a public safety issue,” Treadaway said. “It puts a lot of law enforcement lives and the lives of citizens in danger when you have Glock switches making these (guns) fully automatic machine guns. You can’t control them. Bullets spraying everywhere. They need to be taken off the streets.”

Gun control

Not every Republican sees it that way. A group of lawmakers voiced their concerns last spring about how a state penalty on the trigger devices represented a potential infringement on Second Amendment rights.

Rep. Rick Rehm, R-Dothan, said if Ensler’s legislation is identical to the one the House approved last year, he will “vote against it.”

“My opinion is that all these gun control laws just apply to the law-abiding citizen,” Rehm said. “I don’t think it will make a dent toward reducing crime. It seems that we have societal problems in the high crime areas and whether (criminals) have the Glock switches or not will not make a difference. They are just creating another reason to arrest people. That’s my angle on it.”

The focus of the debate is on a small device that is about one inch long and can be made of metal or plastic and can be made on 3D printers. The device, which can be purchased for around $100 or less, then fits onto the back of a handgun allowing the user to switch between semi-automatic gunfire to fully automatic like a machine gun.

Randy Kozuch, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, in a statement, said the possession of gun conversion devices is already a felony under federal law, and that their use in violent crime carries a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence.

Kozuch blames President Joe Biden’s administration for a “soft-on-crime” approach that has “left it up to the states to deal with this issue.”

State authority

Machine guns have been outlawed by the federal government since 1986, but Treadaway said a state law is important to give local law enforcement officials the ability to make arrests of criminals possessing the conversion devices.

“What folks need to understand is that (conversion devices) are against federal law,” Treadaway said. “So why do we need a state law? It’s simple. A lot of times the feds do not adopt these cases.”

Said Ensler, “It’s important we have a federal statue, but also a state one so (state and local law enforcement) have those tools in the toolbox and instead of referring everything to the (Department of Justice), they can refer those cases to the DAs. It expands the scope to deter people and hold them accountable.”

Williamson, with Everytown for Gun Safety, said the Alabama proposal is more limiting than what other states have done which includes a blanket outlaw of all conversion devices. Ensler’s HB26 focuses on pistols only.

“I’m realistic about what we can pass in Alabama,” Ensler said. “Whatever the other states are doing, we have to focus on what makes the most sense and can be accomplished in our legislature.”

Ensler has also gone out of the way in recent months to explain how legislation does not conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was wrong to interpret the federal ban on machine guns extended to bump stocks.

Ensler said that bump stocks are devices attached to rifles, while HB26 deals only with modifications to pistols. The two devices are not the same, he said.

There is also another big difference between what the legislature will be asked to consider versus how the federal government interpreted a bump stock ban, he said.

“(The Supreme Court) said the federal agency cannot pass a law, that has to be Congress,” Ensler said. “The issue wasn’t the ban itself, but how it was enacted. This isn’t some state agency promulgating a regulation. It’s a state legislature passing a law and would be consistent with what the Supreme Court said.”

Community risk

1/5

It will be an uphill climb in a Legislature that is a supermajority Republican, and where Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa – who has long pushed for gun control measures – said in 2023 that the “NRA runs this building,” referring to his legislative colleagues.

But since the issue stalled last spring, there has been more shootings involving guns converted into automatic weapons. The most high-profile and recent example occurred in early July in Birmingham after a gunman sprayed a north Birmingham adult birthday party with bullets. Authorities said the guns were converted with a Glock switch that unleashed 20 rounds per second or 1,200 rounds a minute.

The shooting also stirred the Northern District of Alabama into action after U.S. Attorney Prim Escalona announced the launching of Operation Flip the Switch that targets the illegal conversion devices.

In Montgomery County, Sheriff Derrick Cunningham said his deputies are seeing the switches on weapons even during simple traffic stops.

“There is a significant community risk posed by the machine gun conversion devices,” Williamson said. “Multiple mass shootings are caused by these devices and they pose a particular threat to law enforcement officers.”

Cunningham said a new state law would send a message to criminals who “think we are going to sit around and let them do as they want with these weapons. They are going to see we are not going to tolerate it.”

Two dozen states have laws criminalizing the devices, including GOP-led states like Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

The Mississippi law is named after Malone, whose killing occurred on U.S. 98 and less than a half-hour drive to the Alabama state line.

“We think it’s an important law,” Williamson said. “We support this renewed legislative effort in Alabama.”

You Might Like