Troubling trend? Law enforcement finding guns modified to be fully automatic

BATON ROUGE – District Attorney Hillar Moore said his office has 57 pending cases to prosecute involving individuals who are charged with being in possession of a machine gun.

Many of the weapons that have been confiscated from the streets of Baton Rouge are handguns modified with a Glock switch or auto sear, allowing the weapon to fire in rapid succession.

“I don’t want to see these guns in anyone’s hands,” Moore said. “Particularly those that are violent… These, in my opinion, guns are no use to anybody for anything of any legitimate value or reason other than to potentially maim and kill a person or multiple people… It actually weaponizes the weapon.”

Moore said some of the cases that his office is handling right now involve juveniles. If someone is prosecuted and convicted for carrying one of these Glock switches, a loophole in Louisiana law does not prohibit them from carrying a gun in the future.

“That’s something we need to consider asking the legislature to look at,” Moore said.

Out of the 57 cases in Baton Rouge courts involving a machine gun so far, only one has resulted in a conviction. Because it’s not a crime of violence, details are not public record. Moore said the troubling trend he’s seeing and the frequency at which these weapons are being taken off the streets is concerning.

“I don’t know any good, legal, lawful intent that somebody would want to have that on their weapon,” Moore said. “Other than for someone to see how many rounds they can fire. What good could it be for anything but for ill intent?”

Moore said other major cities around the state are also seeing this problem.