By Michaelle Solages
In recent years, one trend has become impossible to ignore: Handguns are being turned into illegal machine guns with alarming ease. This isn’t a failure of enforcement or a lack of existing law. It’s the result of outdated firearm designs colliding with rapidly evolving technology, creating a public safety threat that demands action.
Across New York state, police are recovering semi-automatic pistols that have been modified with devices known as “Glock switches.” These illegal devices allow a handgun to fire continuously with a single pull of the trigger, reaching rates of fire comparable to military weapons — dozens of rounds per second, often with no control over where those bullets land. These aren’t weapons used for self-defense. They are weapons that turn everyday settings into scenes of mass harm.
Machine guns and conversion devices are already illegal under state law. That has been true for decades, yet technology has changed the landscape in ways lawmakers couldn’t have anticipated when the laws were written.
Glock switches are small, inexpensive and increasingly easy to obtain or manufacture using home 3D printers. They are difficult to detect and easy to conceal. As a result, they are showing up more frequently in violent crimes.
What makes this crisis especially urgent is that some pistols are designed in ways that make illegal conversion exceptionally simple. With household tools and minimal time, a handgun can be transformed into a machine gun.
When product designs repeatedly enable criminal misuse with such devastating consequences, lawmakers have a responsibility to address the risk proactively, not retroactively.
That’s why this issue has moved to the forefront of New York’s public safety agenda. In her 2026 State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul included a proposal to confront this problem. Her plan recognizes the basic truth that enforcement alone cannot keep pace with a problem driven by design flaws and emerging technology.
Preventing future harm requires setting clear safety standards before weapons even reach the market.
The governor’s proposal aligns with legislation previously introduced by me in the Assembly and by Sen. Zellnor Myrie in the Senate. Our bill would establish a straightforward standard for firearm manufacturers that want to sell handguns in New York. Pistols would be required to be designed in a way that prevents easy conversion into machine guns.
This approach is measured and precise. It wouldn’t ban handguns. It wouldn’t confiscate firearms from current owners. It wouldn’t affect law enforcement or military use. People who already own affected pistols could keep them, repair them and sell them through lawful channels.
This effort would focus solely on future sales, ensuring that New Yorkers aren’t sold weapons whose designs make illegal and deadly modification predictable.
Legislative pressure is already compelling changes in the firearm industry. Recently, Lenny Magill, founder and CEO of the GlockStore, one of the country’s largest Glock retailers, announced that Glock would soon discontinue most older models and introduce new pistols with updated triggers and slides that, he speculated, would prevent them from accepting the switches that convert them to full auto. If verified, this would represent a significant industry response to public safety concerns driven by state legislation.
This moment didn’t happen by chance. It followed years of growing public awareness of the devastation modified pistols cause, more litigation seeking accountability from their manufacturers, and legislation that forced safer designs.
Some have argued that existing bans on machine guns should be sufficient. The evidence says otherwise. Glock switches have been used in mass shootings across the country, and are increasingly recovered in New York communities. When the law addresses only the device and not the design that enables its use, it leaves a dangerous gap that bad actors exploit.
The Supreme Court has long held that dangerous and unusual weapons fall outside the protections of the Second Amendment. A handgun designed to be converted into a machine gun fits in that category. This initiative wouldn’t strip anyone of lawful firearms. It would reinforce a longstanding principle that weapons capable of extreme and mass harm do not belong in the public market — or in our neighborhoods.
When loopholes in design allow weapons of war to be assembled in minutes, the cost is measured in lives. Governor Hochul’s proposal would close that loophole and reaffirm New York’s commitment to public safety. It is a necessary step that we must take now.
Michaelle Solages represents the 22nd Assembly District.
