The District of Columbia is our nation’s capital. It’s also one of the leading spots of horrific gun violence in America, with illegal weapons flooding the streets and people shot down recklessly every day.
Authorities in DC are now warning that gangsters are using auto sears to turn rifles and handguns into machine guns. The auto sear pieces are also known as “giggle switches” by some; they can upgrade a gun to firing over 1,000 rounds per minute. Meanwhile, the DC police say they are “very concerned.”
Auto Sears Are All Over the Streets
According to DC police, auto sears are being used more and more in the area. They don’t have a count for how many weapons have been modified, however, partly because they only started focusing on auto sears recently.
One estimate puts it at about 24 auto sears-modified weapons seized off DC streets so far this year; this gives you an idea of how many are out there without having been seized. Police say they’ve had multiple shootings where the rate of fire was too fast to be a regular handgun; therefore, they believe these are also auto sears.
By putting auto sears – or giggle switches – into a trigger mechanism, it eliminates the need to keep pulling the trigger back to re-fire and then creates volleys of automatic fire. Having an auto sear is illegal and they are considered to be machine guns.
The problem is that it’s not very hard to put in giggle switches and they’re especially popular in ghost guns built at home which aren’t traceable. DC, in particular, has a huge jump in ghost guns. 306 were taken off the streets in 2020, up from 116 in 2019. So far, 130 ghost guns were seized in the first 2.5 months of 2021, so we’re set for this year to be even worse.
Catch me outside with them giggle switches.
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.@IWIUS brought out the 7.62×39 and 5.56 Galil ACE machine guns to officialredoktober. Stop by the booth and shoot ‘em up! #3gunshow #vegasbaby @ Boulder City, Nevada https://t.co/QTTyLGvFqN— The 3-Gun Show (@3GunShow) October 26, 2019
Where is All This Coming From?
DC police say they are tracing giggle switch ghost guns back to the source. As gun rights advocates note, regular law-abiding gun owners aren’t interested in getting out on the streets with a giggle switch; it is criminals and gangsters doing this.
Many of these gangsters deal with dangerous drugs like fentanyl and are part of crime conglomerates. Making DC a gun-free zone with heavy restrictions on gun ownership does nothing to stop them; it actually just makes regular people even more defenseless.
D.C. Man Flaunts New Machine Gun on Instagram, Promptly Gets Arrested: Docs https://t.co/L5fOazRZUB via @thedailybeast we absolutely unconditionally must get rid of ghost guns and giggle switches! Nobody needs an automatic handgun except to kill people!
— twilight2000 (@twilight2000) August 11, 2021
The Truth About Giggle Switches
Giggle switches are just technology, the same as ghost guns and 3D printing. It’s good that police are concerned about criminals doing all this, but it should not be used to crack down on law-abiding gun owners.
If the technology is there, then some people are going to use it. Society needs to get tougher on criminals, not guns.
so, shooting someone with a plain “semi auto” is OK ? or an old school revolver? communist are so stupid, but, the cowards (us law abiding) take the cake
there is already laws on the books to cover this problem get off your butt and go to work! Quit talking about it.