Officials praise statewide ban on gun conversion devices
By Ayron Lewallen
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (WVTM) — At a news conference Wednesday morning, Birmingham’s interim police chief announced several new arrests and talked about the new law Gov. Kay Ivey signed banning conversion devices or Glock switches.
“This ban gives the Birmingham Police Department another tool to be able to address the illegal and extremely dangerous conversion devices on a state level,” BPD interim police chief Michael Pickett said.
Senate Bill 116 was effective as soon as it was signed. Before Ivey signed it, Glock switches were only illegal on a federal level. Now that the bill is law, anyone carrying the conversion device can be charged both federally and in the state.
Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said a Glock switch was used in the Hush Lounge mass shooting. Now, anyone found with a Glock switch can be charged with a class-C felony — even if they’re not familiar with what the device is or does. It doesn’t even have to be attached to a gun to bring charges. Carr calls this another tool to hold people accountable and hopes it will send a strong message.
“What they’ll see is that those individuals will be taken off the street, and maybe that’s a deterrent,” he said. “Maybe not, but the one thing that we do know is that there’s now accountability, and hopefully, there’ll be real conversations about just not taking a pistol and using it in our communities or attaching a Glock switch to it and leaving carnage behind.”
The bill doesn’t come without criticism from those who feel more needs to be done to get offenders off the street.
“I don’t really think you’re changing anything as far as solving the problem,” said James Jones, a Bama Carry board member. “I still think the problem is in the people and not the switch itself.”
Now that the bill has been signed into law, Carr hopes the state legislature will work to bring permits to carry back to also crack down on gun violence.
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