Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy was joined on Thursday by Memphis Mayor Paul Young and Interim Police Chief C.J. Davis to call on Tennessee lawmakers to increase the state’s penalties for criminals who make handguns fully automatic using converter devices known as “switches.”
Mulroy said the “so-called Glock switches” are “relatively cheap and easy to maintain and they basically turn handguns into effective machine guns.”
The district attorney divulged the devices were used by criminals in incident that led to the death of Memphis Police Department police officer Joseph McKinney and in the recent illegal block party that ended with two deaths and multiple people injured.
Mulroy said he recently reviewed video from the body-worn camera of a police officer who was with McKinney, and revealed, “it’s really powerful, just how dangerous and uncontrollable these Glock switches can be, how much they dramatically raise the threat level of police-citizen encounters.”
Owning such a converter device is currently considered a Class E felony in Tennessee, according to Mulroy, which carries a sentence of between one and two years. Mulroy, Young and Davis are asking lawmakers to make owning Glock switch converter a Class C felony, which comes with a harsher sentence of three to six years.
Federal laws that prohibit the Glock switch devices carry a 10-year sentence for violators, and Mulroy explained that while his office currently refers many of its cases to federal prosecutors, it is unrealistic for them to handle every case due to volume.
Young said, “Our community has been plagued with violence and we’ve seen some tragic events over the past couple of weeks and each of those instances, this Glock switch, has been used.”
The mayor then explained, “We want to do everything we can to let those that are wreaking havoc in our community know that it’s not going to be tolerated. We think that it’s important the punishment matches the severity of the crime.”
Davis added that MPD is “very supportive and appreciative” of the effort to increase penalties for owning a Glock switch.
“They completely changed the game,” said Davis. “We believe that the penalty should be harsh, we believe that anyone in possession of a Glock switch should have the strictest punishment.”
Watch the full press conference:
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Pennsylvania Daily Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Paul Young and Steve Mulroy” by WREG News Channel 3.
